Bill passed by Utah Senate after midnight deadline won’t become law

When the clock was about to strike midnight on the last night of the Utah legislative session, senators were rushing to cast votes on one final bill establishing a process to create new counties. 

The legislation was still one vote short when the Senate was meant to end its business by constitutional mandate. But, amid point of order calls and some confusion, Senate President Stuart Adams, R-Layton, ruled it had passed. But on Monday, Adams took that back and said the bill won’t become law this year.

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“After careful review, I determined that H.B. 212 did not pass within the constitutionally required timeframe,” Adams said in a statement Monday. “At the conclusion of the general session, all legislation undergoes review to ensure compliance with constitutional and statutory requirements.”

The bill established an easier process for cities to petition for splitting a county as large as Salt Lake County, which has an estimated population of over 1.2 million people. 

South Jordan Republican Rep. Jordan Teuscher, the bill sponsor, said during a floor presentation earlier in the session that the proposal doesn’t explicitly call for the split of any county, but rather gives an alternative path for municipalities who wish to do so since gathering the signatures of 25% of voters to add the petition to the ballot “is nearly impossible.”

“If a city, or multiple cities that equal at least a third of the population of the county, passed a resolution that says that they would like to see the county split, that would go to the ballot,” Teuscher said. But only after conducting a thorough feasibility study made available to voters. 

At 11:28 p.m. on Friday, the bill failed with a 13-14 vote amid concerns from some senators about the proposal’s implications in rural counties. When the bill was brought back, there were less than five minutes before the statutory requirement to finish legislative business by the end of the 45th day of the general session.

The Senate floor sponsor, Riverton Republican Sen. Dan McCay, rushed through an explanation of why the bill didn’t affect rural counties.

“(The bill) says this petitioning municipality means a municipality located within a county with a population of more than a million,” he said quickly. “This does not apply to any rural counties. There was a concern about that, and we’ve got that straightened out on the bill.”

Adams skipped the debate process and went straight to a motion to pass the bill. A request from Cottonwood Heights Democratic Sen. Kathleen Riebe to explain her vote wasn’t recognized either.

While some celebrated “sine die,” the final adjournment of the session, others, like Millcreek Democratic Sen. Nate Blouin protested. 

“The Utah Senate just passed a bill illegally after midnight that would allow for Salt Lake County to be split,” Blouin wrote on X at 12:20 a.m. “@JStuartAdams rushed the vote and didn’t recognize debate on the bill nor my point of order challenging the timing. Classy.”

McCay didn’t return a request for comment, but ultimately, he acknowledged on an X post Monday afternoon that the bill hadn’t met the legal legislative requirements.

“HB212 is good policy with broad support but the Utah Constitution is clear about the midnight deadline,” McCay wrote. “I’m grateful that Utah has a legislative and executive branch that honor and respect the plain meaning of the Utah Constitution.”

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