Utah News Dispatch
Saying it’s not court packing, governor supports expanding Utah’s appeals courts
Gov. Spencer Cox responds to a reporter’s question during the governor’s news conference broadcast by PBS Utah at the Eccles Broadcast Center in Salt Lake City on Tuesday, Nov. 25, 2025. (Pool photo by Tess Crowley/Deseret News)
Utah Gov. Spencer Cox said Tuesday he’s in favor of adding more justices to the Utah Supreme Court and more judges to the state’s Court of Appeals.
“It’s something that I do support,” Cox told reporters Tuesday during his monthly news conference hosted by PBS Utah.
The governor also said he doesn’t see growing the benches as court packing, a practice members of Utah’s congressional delegation denounced when it was proposed at the federal level by Democrats.
State lawmakers considered making the move earlier this year as they grew more frustrated with recent Utah Supreme Court decisions, including one maintaining a stay on a ban they passed on abortion while it’s challenged in court. Another decision limited the Legislature’s power to undo and replace voter-approved government reform initiatives.
Rather than citing dissatisfaction with the courts’ written opinions, lawmakers at the time pointed to growing caseloads and complex legal arguments. The governor echoed those reasons Tuesday, saying it makes sense to expand Utah’s Supreme Court from five justices to seven to “start moving justice quicker through the system. I think that really matters.”
Data provided by the Utah court system points to the appeals’ courts growing caseload, with legal filings at the Utah Supreme Court reaching a high of 270 in the state’s 2025 fiscal year, which ends in June. The Court of Appeals fielded 1,143 filings in the same time frame, up 7% from a year earlier.
But two Utah Supreme Court justices have said growing their panel won’t help them.
Justice Paige Petersen said earlier this year that it’s “misinformation” and “absolutely false” to say “we need more members of the court because they have a backlog.”
“We haven’t had a backlog for years,” Petersen said in a Utah Judicial Council meeting in February.
Utah Supreme Court disputes lawmakers’ allegations that it’s not productive enough
Chief Justice Matthew Durrant told The Salt Lake Tribune in October that adding more justices could lead to more deliberation, delaying timelines further. He told the newspaper he and his colleagues care about being efficient “but more than anything else, we want to get it right under the law, under the Constitution.”
When Democrats in Congress proposed expanding the U.S. Supreme Court in 2021, Utah’s Republican U.S. senators condemned it as an attempt at court packing, saying legislators were trying to undermine the independence of the judicial branch.
Asked if expanding the appeals courts in Utah would be court packing, Cox said, “I’ve never looked at it that way.” He told reporters he does not share the same consternation lawmakers have with the courts.
A majority of states have at least seven justices. That includes neighboring Colorado and Nevada. Idaho and Wyoming have five.
Cox said he also supports setting aside more resources for district court judges, who oversee criminal cases and lawsuits throughout the state.
“I’ve seen their dockets,” Cox said. “They’re really backed up.”
The governor last month signed a bill into law last month that allows him to pick the Utah Supreme Court’s chief justice every eight years. Cox had vetoed an earlier version that set the term at four years.
