The United Utah Party is calling for Utah lawmakers to put an end to a policy that allows bills to be secret until sponsors OK their public release.
Richard Davis, the party’s chair, said that as his organization reviewed bills to decide which to oppose or support during the last legislative session, members felt “stymied” because of the lack of public disclosure. “We don’t believe this is the way that it ought to operate. If a bill is filed its content should be public,” he said in an interview.
This year, “legislators have opened files for over 1,200 bills, but only about a fourth of them have been made available to any member of the public,” Davis said in a prepared statement on the opening day of the 2019 Legislature.