Just a few days before the end of this year’s legislative session, S.B. 240 from Sen. Curtis Bramble, R-Provo, joined the record-breaking 591 bills passed into Utah law.
S.B. 240 will exempt public officials’ and employees’ calendars from Utah’s public records law, preventing the public from holding them accountable. Going forward, they can now more easily waste our tax dollars, neglect the public’s needs and meet with questionable groups and individuals to further their personal agendas without their constituents’ knowledge.
This attempt to decrease transparency is unfortunately yet another move from our legislators to avoid accountability while they systematically strip Utahns of their rights each year.
Resisting Transparency
S.B. 240 blatantly seeks to undermine the public’s right to public records and government transparency by subverting the Government Records Access and Management Act, or GRAMA.
The timing of the bill’s passing is uncanny. Following the investigation into Attorney General Sean Reyes for his ties to Operation Underground Railroad, a nonprofit whose founder Tim Ballard has been accused of sexual assault, journalists from KSL and the Salt Lake Tribune requested access to his calendar. Reyes refused, leading to a lawsuit against him in which the judge ruled he must disclose his calendar under GRAMA.
But mere hours after this ruling, Gov. Spencer Cox signed S.B. 240 into law. Although the bill won’t go into effect until May 1, Reyes’ intent to appeal the judge’s ruling makes it clear he’s attempting to drag out the case.
In another instance of behind-the-scenes dealings, the Salt Lake Tribune has also reported that the Utah House Speaker, Mike Schultz, refused to share his calendar. The request for his calendar came after he was a featured speaker at a far-right Christian nationalist event, which advocated for a Christian-led government.
Following the Tribune’s first attempt, they were told the House Speaker’s calendar is not a public record. Upon submitting an open records request, they were then told his calendar did not exist.
More Pushback
Unfortunately, S.B. 240 isn’t the only anti-transparency bill to come out of this year’s legislative session. Utah’s legislators have targeted records of water usage, records of college athlete endorsement deals, and access to meetings and records about dams and pipelines.
They’ve also shut down the public’s ability to see “records about issues that may be subject to litigation,” wrote the Salt Lake Tribune.
In the midst of public concern about government transparency, legislators like Rep. Kera Birkeland, R-Morgan, have doubled down on loosening transparency measures. According to the Salt Lake Tribune, Rep. Birkeland said that constituents who want to know what their legislators are up to should just ask.
But she’ll have to forgive those of us who are hesitant to trust the scout’s-honor approach, especially considering she has sponsored a bill — H.B. 538 — that would use taxpayer money to wipe the personal information of elected officials from the internet.
Utah’s legislators, particularly the 52 Republicans who voted in favor of S.B. 240, seem eager to diminish transparency. They also seem to forget they serve the taxpayers who fund their salaries, as well as the programs and employees that maintain their public calendars.
The Consequences
Now that the bill has passed, there will be no way to challenge this exemption unless a potential case finds that constitutional rights are being violated. Unfortunately, the right to government records is not protected under the Constitution, so the passing of this new amendment will likely be the final word on the matter.
S.B. 240 comes at a time when protests and strikes are at a high. Calendars are not just important for transparency, they’re also important for activists who organize actions at events our officials will be at. Our legislators know this, and they know we are enraged by the harmful legislation they throw at us as conditions in the U.S. continue to deteriorate. But instead of serving the public and easing our burdens, they’ve chosen to sequester themselves in a legislative bubble.
So, if public officials fear backlash similar to the 300 pounds of manure Nancy Pelosi received on her front step over her support of Israel’s genocide of Palestinians, they should either quit or start holding themselves accountable to what their constituents want.
We must ask ourselves if we’re willing to be ruled by a government full of people with ties to neo-Nazis and abusers. It’s infuriating that many of our legislators’ actions this session have been to cover their tracks while issues like the housing crisis and climate change loom over Utahns.
But while these pathetic attempts to chip away at transparency make things a bit more difficult for the concerned public, journalists and community organizers, they only add fuel to the fire and highlight the reasons we shouldn’t trust our legislators to protect us.
