On Monday, Aug. 19, Utah Senate President Stuart Adams and House Speaker Mike Schultz announced an emergency special session of the Utah State Legislature on Wednesday, Aug. 21, to address their concerns about a July State Supreme Court ruling that stated the Legislature had overstepped its boundaries when it overrode an independent redistricting committee approved by voters, and drawing their own congressional boundaries.

“The Utah Supreme Court’s new interpretation created uncertainty and ambiguity,” said Adam and Schultz in a joint statement announcing the special session,” The initiative process will remain unchanged, and Utahns will continue to have the ability to propose and run ballot initiatives.” 

The Legislature looks to do this through an amendment to the constitution of Utah. This special session was able to be called due to a ballot initiative from 2018 which was approved by voters, allowing the legislature to call an emergency session to, ”address a persistent financial crisis, war, natural disaster or other emergency.”

According to the declaration of the special session, the goals of this amendment would be to:

• Prohibit foreign entities from contributing to ballot initiatives or referenda.
• Restore and strengthen the long-standing practice that voters, the Legislature, and local bodies may amend or repeal legislation. 
• Add 20 days to collect signatures for the referendum process, extending it from 40 to 60 days.

If approved, this amendment would appear on the ballot for November’s general election.

This special session also comes at the same time as the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, with prominent Utah Democrats such as Brian King and Minority Leader Angela Romero present at the event.

In a post on X, formerly Twitter, King stated,” I’ll be at the special session Wednesday. This supermajority attempt to nullify the voice of the people isn’t happening without opposition.”

Castle Country Radio reached out to State Sen. David Hinkins regarding the special session, to which he replied,” We’re trying to take foreign influence out of the process … you can’t take the politics out of politics, and because of that there will always be special interests.” Hinkins continued,” The people voted for us because they trust us, if they don’t trust us they will vote us out. We want to look out for the best interests of our citizens.”

The special session will be held on Wednesday, Aug. 21 starting at 4:45 p.m. The livestreams for this special session can be found here.