Utah Legislative leaders push debate takeover plan using budget loophole # Legislative leaders push debate takeover plan using budget loophole By Bryan Schott Republican gubernatorial candidates Spencer Cox and Phil Lyman participate in a Utah Debate Commission debate on June 11, 2024.
utahpolitics.news · September 8, 2026
Utah Legislative leaders push debate takeover plan using budget loophole
# Legislative leaders push debate takeover plan using budget loophole
By Bryan Schott
Republican gubernatorial candidates Spencer Cox and Phil Lyman participate in a Utah Debate Commission debate on June 11, 2024. (Screengrab via YouTube)
Published: March 06, 2025, 4:15 pm Last updated: December 05, 2025, 4:40 pm
Late last week, a Utah House committee killed a bill to give politicians control over pre-election political debates. Despite the setback, legislative leaders are still pushing forward with the plan through alternative means.
The bill, HB557, would have created a brand-new entity, the Utah Debate Committee, an 11-person panel whose members would be appointed by the governor and legislative leaders. Those political appointees would oversee almost every aspect of televised pre-election debates, from deciding who gets to participate, picking moderators and even which topics are discussed.
The bill was clearly a priority for legislative leadership this year. Somehow, the proposal leapfrogged dozens of other requests to be included on the list of additional funding items released late last week even though the bill was only made public 48 hours earlier.
That plan hit a roadblock on Friday afternoon when a House committee voted against passing the bill, opting to hold it instead.
Rather than abandoning the idea, legislative leaders have been working feverishly behind the scenes for several days to include funding for a state-run debate organization in the final budget.
Since the original bill is dead, sources tell Utah Political Watch that legislative leaders hatched a plan to get around that roadblock by including the existing $600,000 appropriation request for the Debate Committee in the budget. Instead of legislation, they're using intent language to create the committee and define its authority. Representatives for the House and Senate have been meeting for the past few days to hammer out that language.
Under the revised approach, oversight and funding for the committee will be split between the Herbert Institute at Utah Valley University and the Hinckley Institute at the University of Utah.
That intent language was unveiled on Thursday afternoon. The two institutions will "collaborate on a proposal" to establish a non-partisan debate organization, which will be located at the Hinckley Institute.
Herbert Institute Executive Director Justin Jones said Thursday his organization is happy to work on the new debate committee.
“There is a need to have these statewide debates. Should the legislature ask us to put this together, we’re happy to work with them on this,” Jones said.
Creation of the new state-funded debate committee would likely bring an end to the independent Utah Debate Commission, which has sponsored pre-election debates for statewide and congressional races since 2013.
Lawmakers have approved funding for the Debate Commission several times in the past, but Jones says they believed the new Debate Committee is a better way to spend those funds.
“The Legislature has agreed that there should be some funding and support for statewide debates, but the discussion was around the desire to see some adjustments to how it was run,” Jones says.
Utah Republicans have clashed with the Debate Commission in recent years. In 2022, several GOP candidates refused to participate in pre-primary election debates sponsored by the commission after Republican leaders demanded to help select debate moderators and choose which topics were discussed. That same year, Rep. Burgess Owens pulled out of a debate just hours before the scheduled start time because he objected to the selection of an editor from the Salt Lake Tribune as moderator.
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