Governor of Utah
Appears in 10 stories
Defended the state elections chief against federal pressure
Utah begins sending general election ballots to active registered voters on Tuesday, Oct. 13. Everyone who voted in one of the past two general elections or registered recently will get one in the mail.
Updated 7 days ago
Republican governor whose administration has funded lake restoration and brokered preservation land deals
Salt Lake City owns nearly 1,000 acres of wetland beside its international airport, land that filters water flowing toward the shrinking Great Salt Lake. The city wants to sell it to the state, which would manage it as protected habitat. The sale would lock in conservation for land the airport authority has long controlled.
Updated Oct 1
In office; signed HB 29
Utah's state education board added seven books to its statewide school ban list on Monday, Sept. 28, bringing the total to 44 titles barred from every public school in the state. The list has grown from 13 books since July 2024, when a new state law took effect.
Updated Sep 30
Pushed for the 2026 law clarifying prop betting as gambling
Utah can keep enforcing its ban on sports-style prediction bets while Kalshi appeals. The 10th Circuit refused on September 8 to pause the state's prop betting law, and last week a Sixth Circuit panel rejected the same preemption argument in Ohio and Tennessee.
Updated Sep 29
Appointed six of seven justices; will name the next chief justice
Utah's Supreme Court has seven members for the first time. The Senate voted 26-2 Wednesday to confirm Judge Matthew Bell and attorney Michael Menssen, finishing an expansion from five to seven justices.
Updated Sep 17
In office; mansion grounds being converted
For years, Utah Gov. Spencer Cox has asked residents to replace their lawns with water-wise landscaping. The grass outside his own residence stayed green. This week that changed.
Updated Sep 11
Approved the appointment
Utah's state government runs its own insurance operation, funding liability claims for agencies, schools, universities, and charter schools through captive companies instead of buying commercial policies. On Sept. 6, veteran attorney Dennis Flynn took over the division that manages that risk.
Updated Sep 6
Supports the monument shrink
Patagonia, five tribal nations, and environmental groups sued September 2 to block Trump's second shrink of Utah's Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante monuments. The case is before U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan. She is weighing whether to reopen a 2017 lawsuit that stalled after Biden restored the monuments.
Pushed a 150,000-unit housing target
A national homebuilder just started work on 63 four-bedroom townhomes in Sandy, Utah, priced around $550,000. That is roughly $150,000 below the area's median home price, in a county where 88% of residential land is zoned for detached single-family houses.
Updated Sep 3
Issued a state of emergency over 2026 fruit crop losses
The apple harvest at Wasatch Mountain State Park's Huber Grove is off this year. The orchard's roughly 80 trees, some dating to the late 1800s, produced only a few hundred apples instead of thousands, so the park canceled its annual picking event.
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