SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Utah Gov. Spencer Cox signed a bill Saturday that would expand the state Supreme Court from five justices to seven as frustration mounted among Republican lawmakers over a string of losses before the tribunal.
Republican advocates for the change argued that it would help improve the court’s efficiency. But legal experts said it could have the opposite effect and set a dangerous precedent at a time of tension between the branches of government. The state judiciary did not ask for more high court judges.
Democrats, who were united in opposition to the bill, called the timing suspicious. Last week the Legislature asked the court to overturn a redistricting decision that gave Democrats a strong chance to pick up one of Utah’s four Republican-held congressional seats in the fall.
New justices could be in place when the court decides the fate of the congressional map.
Because the bill received approval from more than two-thirds of lawmakers, it went into effect immediately after the governor signed it, allowing him to avoid a several-month waiting period to begin adding judges.
In Utah, judges are appointed by the governor and approved by the state Senate. Judges in many other states are elected.
Most states have five or seven Supreme Court justices, but a few have nine. Cox, a Republican, said the increases put Utah in line with other states of its size. He denied that the policy is politically motivated, noting that Republican governors and senators have made all the recent appointments.
Once he fills the new seats, Cox will have appointed five of the seven sitting Justices.
Last month Republican lawmakers took away the authority from state Supreme Court justices to choose their own chief justice and gave that power to the governor.
“Seven sets of eyes reviewing the most complex and difficult issues our state has ever faced is better than having only five sets of eyes,” said House Majority Leader Casey Snider, a Republican sponsor of the bill.
John Pearce, who recently retired as associate Chief Justice, said this month that he doubts the change will make the court more efficient.
“The more sets of comments you have to take into account, the longer the process takes,” Pearce said. “If what the Legislature is hoping to do is speed up the work of the court, it will be counterproductive.”
Two states — Arizona and Georgia — have added judges in the past decade after making similar efficiency arguments.
In the first few years after Arizona expanded its court in 2016, several past and present judges said it made things less efficient because more people had to review opinions before they could be published.
The Arizona court now issues slightly more decisions per year, while Georgia issues slightly less than before.
Utah Chief Justice Matthew Durrant told lawmakers on the opening day of the 2026 session that the court had “essentially no backlog” and urged them to add judges to the lower courts, where the need is greater. The bill’s sponsors responded by adding some lower court judges and clerks.
The Utah State Bar raised concerns about the expansion and other proposals it said would undermine the independence of the judiciary. Among them is a bill that would create a new court with exclusive jurisdiction to hear constitutional challenges. The proposal would limit the ability of judges and other courts to block potentially unconstitutional state laws with injunctions.
Republicans have also been gathering signatures to try to put on the November ballot an initiative that would once again give them the ability to draw voting districts that deliberately favor a political party, a practice known as gerrymandering.
___
Lee reported from Santa Fe, New Mexico.