Despite the partisan rancor over Utah Republicans’ successful push to expand their Supreme Court for partisan gains, the judicial reform movement in the Beehive State does have a silver lining: if a separate reform bill introduced yesterday passes, Utah will become the 49th state to require its judges and justices to file annual financial disclosure reports. Idaho would remain the only disclosure-less state.

The measure — H.B. 540, which is backed by House Speaker Mike Schultz — requires that the disclosures are posted online and that its contents are “consistent and comparable” to those of Utah’s constitutional officers (governor, AG, etc.) and state legislators.

That means judges and justices would have to report their board positions, investments, non-investment income, real estate and spouses’ jobs and would have to affirm under penalty that all the information therein is accurate.

Under the scoring FTC established in our “Sorry State of Disclosure” reports from 2024 and 2025, this regimen would earn Utah 10 points for access and 5.5 points for content for a total score of 21, bumping them up from dead last in the country (tied for no. 49 with Idaho and a “failing” score) to no. 23 (“average”).

“Every government official in the country should be obligated to file a financial disclosure each year, and that includes judges and justices,” FTC executive director Gabe Roth said. “Though Utah’s H.B. 540 is not perfect, it represents an important step toward improving the landscape of judicial transparency in this country, and I’m pleased to see Fix the Court’s work recognized in this way. Idaho: you’re on the clock.”

FTC will soon encourage Utah lawmakers to add gifts, gift values, reimbursements, reimbursement values, liabilities and confirmation of annual ethics training to judges’ disclosure requirements, which would give Utah the full 30 points in our scoring system.

Other benefits and some drawbacks of the bill:
First, the bill would require Utah courts to livestream most of their proceedings and to provide audio recordings to the public for free. Utah’s Supreme Court and appeals courts do currently permit audio recording of oral arguments, albeit on a voluntary and not a statutory basis. (Video has also been allowed at times.)

The bill would require Utah’s district courts to livestream their proceedings, as well, and correctly gives judges the agency to turn off the cameras if, say, a witness is a crime victim, minor or other vulnerable person.

Second, the bill would require the Utah judiciary to create a mostly free online database of court records — “mostly” free since it’d permit the courts to charge users for “each search […] beyond 50 for a calendar month” and “each download […] beyond 50 for a calendar month.”

The database would require a login system to track the number of searches, which is not the most transparent in the world but understandable if the goal is to recoup some money from high-volume users. What’s not acceptable from our perspective is that the database would require a user’s “citizenship status.” The last thing we need is for Utah to be sending data of its court system logins to the federal government, no matter who’s in charge in D.C.

We’d also want to be sure the third-party contractor they’re authorizing to make the new system is held to strict cost containment and timeliness requirements.

Finally, the bill would require that judges observe a two-year cooling off period between their retirements or resignations and when they could work at a law firm that represents parties suing the state.

The idea is sound: it mirrors requirements for former Utah legislators and U.S. senators (i.e., no lobbying for two years after they leave office), as well as the cooling off period FTC has worked to add to congressional judicial ethics proposals (i.e., if you give a justice a gift, that must be disclosed in any petition you file for two years post-gift and is grounds for recusal).

That said, a more precise ban — blocking former judges from working on suits against the state for two years, as opposed to blocking them from working at those firms entirely — might be more desirable and less subject to a future challenge in court.