The likelihood of a referendum to repeal Utah’s anti-union law appearing on ballots in 2026 reached a certainty level so high this week that Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson ordered it temporarily blocked Tuesday until voters have their say.
Under statute, the lieutenant governor, who oversees elections in Utah, must issue an injunction on the law being challenged when a referendum has met the criteria to qualify for the ballot. This year, that’s gathering 140,748 valid signatures statewide, as well as crossing specific signature thresholds in at least 15 of the state’s 29 senate districts.
As of Wednesday morning, 249,566 of the signatures collected by Protect Utah Workers had been verified and the campaign had reached its goal in 23 Senate districts, according to data from the lieutenant governor’s office.
County clerks will continue verifying signatures Wednesday, when they are required by law to finish checking and counting names on the packets submitted to their offices.
May 5: As Cox recognizes public employees, groups pile on the signatures to repeal anti-union bill
As Gov. Spencer Cox celebrates “Public Employee Appreciation Week” with a series of events with public employee groups, it becomes more certain every day that an effort to repeal a bill targeting public employee unions will be decided by voters in 2026.
The Protect Utah Workers coalition of labor organizations have now met the threshold to qualify for the ballot in 23 senate districts — only 15 are needed to make the ballot statewide.
And it appears they could get as many as three more before Wednesday’s deadline for county clerks to complete the signature validation process.
Through the end of last week, clerks had verified more than 237,000 valid signatures on the repeal referendum — more than 80,000 above the previous record for signature submissions.
In an email to supporters Monday, the Utah chapter of Americans For Prosperity said that because of the overwhelming number of signatures, it would not mount a campaign to convince people to rescind their signatures. Another group, Utahns for Worker Freedom, said the same last week.
Cox, according to his calendar and social media posts, spent Monday meeting with public employees at the State Fire Marshal’s office, the Department of Public Safety’s training academy, the state Office of Rehabilitation and Utah Refugee Services.
The governor has said he didn’t like the bill that bans public employee unions from representing their members in contract negotiations with their government employers, but he still signed it into law.
The new law is due to take effect Wednesday, but once the signatures are certified to put the measure to repeal the law before voters, the law will be put on hold.
April 30: Utah County lagging well behind in signature verification
Three of Utah’s four largest counties continue to make progress on validating signatures on a referendum to repeal a law banning public employees from collective bargaining.
Utah County, however, was lagging well behind and did not appear to be on track to meet next week’s statutorily required deadline.
According to data from the lieutenant governor’s office, Davis County had verified 80% of the nearly 20,000 signatures it had received as of yesterday. Salt Lake County had completed 75% and Weber County was halfway through.
But Utah County had only done 17% of its signatures with one week remaining.
While Utah County Clerk Aaron Davidson said his office was having two people verify each signature, others, like Salt Lake and Davis counties, were reviewing the signatures once.
And, Davidson said, computer problems stemming from updates to county voting precincts, done as part of a bill passed last session, left his staff unable to process signatures Monday.
His staff, Davidson said, has switched to doing one pass through the signatures and, as of last night, they had a little over two-thirds of the signatures left to screen.
“We’ll meet the deadline,” he said.
As of the end of Tuesday, 183,908 of the signatures submitted by the Protect Utah Workers coalition had been verified and the group had met its goals in 17 senate districts — adding Senate District 11 in the western part of Salt Lake County yesterday. It needed 140,748 signatures and 15 senate districts to qualify for the ballot.
Through yesterday afternoon, 45,878 signatures had been tossed out compared to 171,121 that had been verified, a rejection rate of 21%. That is about double the 8-12% rate for candidate petitions.
April 29: Labor referendum now the largest signature-gathering effort in history
The referendum pushing to repeal an anti-union law banning public employee unions from negotiating contracts with their employers is now the most successful signature-gathering effort in Utah history.
As of Tuesday morning, the Protect Utah Workers coalition had racked up 164,681 verified signatures, according to data from the lieutenant governor’s office.
That surpasses the totals for four ballot initiatives run in 2018 — three of which qualified for the ballot — including the medical marijuana initiative that yielded 153,894 signatures, at that point the most ever.
With labor leaders having yesterday met the requirements to qualify for the 2026 election, the additional signatures are mostly insurance against any attempt to knock the referendum off the ballot. Opponents say they are focusing their efforts on a campaign to get Utahns to vote against repeal in the 2026 election.
[READ: Referendum to repeal anti-union law meets threshold to qualify for 2026 ballot]
Repeal proponents added one more senate district Tuesday — Sen. Calvin Musselman’s Senate District 4 in with portions of Davis and Weber counties — bringing the total to 16.
A referendum requires the signatures of 8% of all registered voters in the state, and to pass that mark in eight of 15 districts, to qualify for the ballot.
April 28: Utah voters will decide fate of anti-union law after labor leaders secure signature threshold
Union leaders met their targets Monday morning to put a measure on the 2026 ballot to repeal a new law barring public employee unions from negotiating contracts with their government employers.
The latest update from the lieutenant governor’s office showed that county clerks have verified 146,460 signatures so far — about 6,000 more than needed — and that the Protect Utah Workers coalition also met their targets in the 15 senate districts required.
The labor groups added Senate District 3 (North Ogden), District 5 (Ogden), District 6 (Layton) and District 18 (Riverton) to their tally of qualifying districts.
They are close to checking off three additional districts, with scores of thousands of signatures remaining to be verified.
Barring an unforeseen setback, the law will be put on hold until voters decide whether to repeal it or let it take effect in the 2026 election.
April 25: Labor groups at 11 of 15 required Utah Senate districts as signature count continues
The finish line is in sight for labor groups working to repeal a law that bans public employee unions from negotiating contracts with government employers after more than doubling their verified signature count late last week.
County clerks have now verified enough signatures for the repeal referendum to meet the threshold in 11 senate districts, adding six additional districts on Thursday, according to data from the lieutenant governor’s office.
Propents need to meet the threshold in 15 districts to send the referendum to voters in 2026.
The districts added to the tally include Senate District 7, the Layton area, which is represented by Senate President Stuart Adams, a major proponent of the collective bargaining ban.
While he was an ardent defender of HB267, arguing it would keep unions from taking advantage of taxpayers, Adams also accepted the groups’ attempt at a referendum.
“Referendums are part of the process,” Adams said when labor leaders launched their repeal effort. “I encourage voters to thoroughly research the issue at hand to make informed decisions.”
Union groups met their marks in Senate Minority Leader Luz Escamilla’s District 10 and Sen. Karen Kwan’s District 12 — both Democrat-held districts.
They also added three other Republican-held districts: Senate Districts 16, 17 and 19, represented by Sens. Wayne Harper in Taylorsville, Lincoln Fillmore in South Jordan and Kirk Cullimore in Cottonwood Heights, respectively.
Cullimore was the Senate sponsor of HB267.
The labor effort also has more than 88% of the required signatures in three more districts. The count won’t be updated again until Monday.
Interested in how county clerks go about validating signatures? The Salt Lake Tribune explained the labor-intensive process here.
April 24: After a week of signature-counting, labor’s repeal referendum nearing a breakthrough
Labor unions have added one more senate district to their tally in their quest to get enough verified signatures in 15 districts to put a referendum on the 2026 ballot to repeal an anti-union law.
The lieutenant governor’s office reported Thursday that enough signatures had been verified to put Senate District 15 — a Cottonwood Heights and Sandy seat held by Democratic Sen. Kathleen Riebe — into the union column.
It brings their total to five of the 15 needed to qualify for the ballot, and the union coalition is closing in on securing six other districts where they have more than 80% of the required signatures.
Union leaders submitted more than 320,000 signatures to clerks statewide last Wednesday. Clerks have now verified more than 100,000 of them. They have not reported how many have been rejected. The clerks have two more weeks to complete the validation process.
April 23: Effort to repeal Utah’s anti-union law has reached signature target in 4 senate districts
The bid to repeal a law that bans public employee unions from negotiating contracts with employers is now more than a quarter of the way to the ballot.
As of Wednesday morning, county clerks had validated more than 79,000 of the 320,000-plus signatures submitted by the Protect Utah Workers coalition, according to data from the Utah lieutenant governor’s office.
Proponents of the repeal effort have now met the required threshold for signatures in four of the 15 senate districts required to let voters decide in 2026 whether to repeal the law.
They had secured enough signatures Tuesday to qualify in Sen. Jen Plumb’s Senate District 9.
On Wednesday, they added Sen. Todd Weiler’s Senate District 8, Sen. Nate Blouin’s District 13, and Sen. Stephanie Pitcher’s District 14.
Weiler’s Bountiful and North Salt Lake district is the first Republican area where Protect Utah Workers has met its goal.
The next district they are likely to check off the list is Sen. Kathleen Riebe’s District 15, where they so far have 83% of the required signatures to make the ballot.
And they are nearly three-fourths of the way to their goal in Senate President Stuart Adams’ Layton district.
April 22: Labor groups meet signature threshold in first of 15 senate districts
Labor groups met the signature threshold in one state senate district Tuesday, the first of at least 15 they’ll need in order to get a referendum on the 2026 ballot to repeal a new law banning government entities from negotiating contracts with public employee unions.
The Protect Utah Workers coalition met the requirements in Sen. Jen Plumb’s Senate District 9, which covers a large portion of northeast Salt Lake City, according to data from the lieutenant governor’s office.
The groups are also getting close to meeting their target in two other senate districts: Sen. Stephanie Pitcher’s District 14, which includes Holladay and east Millcreek, and Sen. Kathleen Riebe’s District 15 in Sandy and part of West Jordan. They respectively have 92% and 90% of the signatures needed.
Road to repeal
Utah’s requirements to get a repeal referendum on the ballot are among the toughest in the nation. To qualify for the ballot, proponents have 30 days to gather 140,748 valid signatures statewide — representing 8% of the registered Utah voters — as well as meeting the same 8% mark in 15 of the state’s 29 senate districts.
Those district-specific targets range from roughly 3,000 to 5,700 signatures, depending on the number of registered voters in the district.
, union leaders said they submitted more than 320,000 signatures for verification to county clerks, meaning it’s likely that the only remaining question is whether they can meet the senate district requirement.
Thus far, clerks have reported authenticating 60,859 signatures. The clerks have not reported how many have been deemed invalid.
Signatures can be invalidated for any of several reasons, including the signer is not registered to vote, put the wrong address on the petition or the signature does not match the one clerks have on file.
A legislative audit of signature verification for candidates for office done last year found that the invalidation rate ranges between 8% and 12% — meaning that, if the rate is roughly the same for the referendum process, clerks likely still have close to a quarter million signatures to authenticate.
Labor groups are fighting to repeal HB267, which was passed during the recent legislative session and signed by the governor. It bans public employee unions from negotiating contracts with their employers.
Proponents of the bill argued that concessions to those public employee unions come at the expense of taxpayers and that excluding unions would give more employees a voice in the negotiation process.
Opponents of the repeal referendum have until June 21 to try to convince voters to remove their names from the petitions.
If the labor coalition meets its targets, HB267 will be put on hold until voters decide if they want to repeal the law in the 2026 election.
Note to readers • This story will be updated as more signatures are counted by clerks and reported by the lieutenant governor’s office.
