Gov. Spencer Cox put a stop to — or at least paused — Utah’s drive toward transacting business using gold.
The governor vetoed HB306, sponsored by Rep. Ken Ivory, R-West Jordan, a bill that would have hired a company to set up a system that would enable the state to pay vendors using gold, if that’s how the vendors choose to be paid.
The payment system was envisioned as the next step along Utah’s road to gold. The state had already purchased about $60 million worth of gold as of the end of the legislative session under a bill Ivory sponsored last year and is on pace to put about $140 million of the state’s emergency funds into the precious metal.
This year Ivory wanted to set up the payment system under the Utah State Treasurer’s office to pave the way for gold to be used like a standard currency when transacting business with the state.
But Cox wrote in his veto letter late Thursday that hiring a vendor to build a system that is fully integrated into the state’s accounting system raises “significant problems that make HB306 operationally impracticable.”
(Bethany Baker | The Salt Lake Tribune) Rep. Ken Ivory, R-West Jordan, asks a question during a House Business, Labor, and Commerce Committee hearing at the Capitol in Salt Lake City Thursday, Jan. 23, 2025.
Over the weekend, the Utah Eagle Forum sent a blast to members urging them to contact legislators and override Cox’s veto. It would take two-thirds support in both the House and Senate to convene an override session and reverse the veto.
The conservative advocacy group said Utahns should have the option of using gold — although it only extends the choice to vendors with state contracts. The Eagle Forum also said that using gold fights inflation and passed both the House and Senate with overwhelming margins.
The governor also expressed concerns about the funding for the bid process. Since the Legislature chose not to pay for the bid process to set up the gold transaction system, a private donor offered to cover the $147,000 to hire the vendor.
Ivory told The Tribune previously that the money to launch the state’s gold transaction platform was put up by Kevin Freeman, the host of the “Economic War Room” podcast and author of the book “Pirate Money.”
Freeman was a member of the Precious Metals Working Group established under Ivory’s legislation last year. In his book, Freeman makes the case that states can facilitate gold-backed transactions to protect citizens’ liberty and investments and to stave off “The Great Reset” — a conspiracy theory that posits that elites are manipulating economies to build a globalist regime.
In vetoing the bill, Cox wrote that having a donor funding the bill “could jeopardize the required competitive bid process in the bill.”
Two companies made presentations to the Precious Metals Working Group on how the gold-backed transaction system would work — Glint Pay and Goldback.
Goldback executives Lawrence and Mark Hilton donated $4,312 to Ivory’s campaign in 2024 — $1,000 of it in Goldback dollars — and the company gave Ivory another $7,500 in June, according to campaign finance disclosures.
