Separately, a bill that would clarify the use of nicknames on the ballot failed.
(Trent Nelson | Tribune file photo) Ballots are sorted at the Salt Lake County offices in Salt Lake City on Nov. 4, 2020. Utah state senators voted Thursday to make it harder for voters to switch parties.
| Feb. 26, 2021, 12:33 a.m.
The bill, which passed with a 19-6 vote, would prevent affiliation changes after March 31 in an election year. If a voter modified their registration after that date, it would not go into effect until after the primary election in June.
The effort comes after tens of thousands of Utah voters became Republicans ahead of last June’s primary election in order to cast a vote in the hotly-contested GOP primary for governor. And its practical effect would be to lock last-minute switchers out of those primaries, which allow only registered Republicans to cast a ballot.
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People march in a pride parade in Salt Lake City on June 8, 2014. HB92 would have prevented gender confirmation treatments on minors under the age of sixteen in Utah. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)
A bill that would have made amendments to Utah’s current laws surrounding the healthcare of transgender youth failed to pass a Utah House committee.
HB92 is sponsored by Rep. Rex Shipp, R. Cedar City, and Sen. Curt Bramble, R-Provo. The bill would outlaw certain medical procedures on teenagers 16 and younger. The bill states outright in its text that it is “unprofessional conduct to perform a medically unnecessary puberty inhibition procedure or a sex characteristic-altering procedure on a minor.”
The proposal from Sen. Kirk Cullimore, R-Sandy, would put $30 million toward a relief program for Utah-based businesses with fewer than 250 employees that can demonstrate they experienced a loss in revenue due to COVID-19.
“The reality is that a lot of these businesses were doing and would have been doing just fine but for government intervention,” Cullimore told the Senate Business and Labor Committee, which also heard the bill on Tuesday. “And it’s because of that government intervention that I feel it appropriate that there be some government intervention, again, to help them out of the mess.”
The program would be administered by the Governor’s Office of Economic Development (GOED) and would prioritize companies that have lost 90% of their revenue and can demonstrate an inability to secure similar government funding over the past year.
| Updated: 7:07 p.m.
Itâs full speed ahead for the bill to limit the governorâs emergency powers during a long-term event, such as the current COVID-19 pandemic.
SB195 moved forward in the Utah Senate on Monday unanimously and won final Senate approval Tuesday. The bill from Senate Majority Leader Evan Vickers, R-Cedar City, is a response to the continuous state of emergency the state has been under for almost a year in response to the coronavirus outbreak.
As previously reported, the bill would not impact the governorâs ability to respond to an emergency as it happens, but if the emergency declaration lasts beyond 30 days, then lawmakers could get involved. State and local health departments could do the same.