Objections overruled — Utah to expand its Supreme Court, with approval from Legislature, Cox
Utah Gov. Spencer Cox quickly signed the bill into law. After filling the new seats, Cox will have appointed five of the seven justices.
https://www.sltrib.com/news/politics/2026/01/31/court-packing-utah-gov-cox-gop/
#Republicans #MAGA #GOP #Trump #politics #Utah #supremecourt #press
@SteveThompson the good news, for the moment, is that I think Cox is likely to appoint "standard" conservative judges rather than "batshit crazy" conservative judges
Not sure what that means. Utah is a massive religous cult operating as a State. It's conservatism at its core is "batshit crazy.” He isn't doing this for liberals.
You seem to be lacking a lot of nuance and context so let me provide them.
The medium-term context is that the Utah Republican party is significantly to the right of the state's voters, and this gap is widening. While their candidates do keep winning, it is increasingly clear that their policies are unpopular. They are trying hard to hold on to power without changing their policies, and there are signs that it is not going completely well for them. I can give lots of examples, but there is one in particular that matters here:
The Utah voters (narrowly) passed a referendum several years ago that established an independent commission for drawing district boundaries (though its recommendations are not fully binding.) This policy has only become more popular in the intervening years.
The legislature literally said "lolno, we're just going to ignore this", and proceeded to do so.
The short-term context is that the Utah Supreme Court (all Republican nominees) made a recent ruling that no, the legislators do in fact have to do what the people voted for.
This made the legislature very mad, because they are not used to having to listen to their voters.
The story that you posted is an attempt by the legislature to rein in the supreme court by packing it. But in the short term, the new justices are going to be nominated by the same guy who already nominated most of them; these judges are generally people who are committed to the state constitution and the law, not the sort that are committed to authoritarianism like most of the members of our national supreme court.
Oh, please. Nuance?
The nation is not going to Hell in a hand basket because one Utah conservative is less authoritarian in their politics than another Utah conservative. They're all the same: MAGA. Sheesh.
Political poppycock, GOP gobbledygook.
