The 2024 Utah State Legislative Session has wrapped up. It's been a doozy of a session with 591 bills passed. While we can't discuss every bill that passed this year, we wanted to take the time to highlight a few of the bills we put out calls to action out for this year.
Before we do that though, a huge THANK YOU to each of our State House and Senate Democratic Caucus members. They have been working tirelessly for the past 45 days to protect the rights of Utahns and promote what's best for all of us. Please take the time to reach out to your representatives and thank them for all they do!
Now for our bill recap. We put out six Call to Actions targeting bills this session. Five bad bills we asked you to help us stop and one good bill we asked for help passing.
Bad Bills
HB 257 Sex-based Designations for Privacy, Anti-bullying, and Women's Opportunities - Passed
HB 214 Election Modifications - Stopped
HB 261 Equal Opportunity Initiatives - Passed
HB 284 Initiative Amendments - Stopped
HB 285 Public Sector Labor Organizations Amendments - Stopped
Good Bill
HCR 12 Employer Disclosure for Veterans - Passed!
That's right, even with a Republican super-majority fighting against us we succeeded on 4/6 of our calls to action! Thank you to everyone who helped out this session, by calling and emailing your representatives, showing up to committee hearings, and sharing our calls to action.
Because of you, we were able to: protect union rights (HB 285), save vote by mail (HB 214), keep ballot initiatives at a simple majority (HB 284), and expand info about veteran benefits (HCR 12).
Despite our best efforts two very harmful bills did pass the Legislature this session. HB 257 Utah's anti-trans bathroom bill and HB 261 an anti-DEI bill will likely kill the DEI departments at our public universities. Our hearts go out to everyone negatively affected by these bills.
While we did everything we could to impact the Legislative Session, the best way to make our voices heard is by electing more Democrats.