Utah Auditor Tina Cannon, the first woman elected to the role, is suing the board that oversees the state Capitol and its grounds after its repeated efforts to push her out of her current office in the main Capitol building.
The lawsuit filed Friday in 3rd District Court alleges the Capitol Preservation Board — composed of Utah’s top elected officials — violated the Open and Public Meetings Act when it voted in September to remove Cannon from her space. Her office is asking the court to void that decision.
The board includes Senate President Stuart Adams, House Speaker Mike Schultz and other lawmakers, as well as Attorney General Derek Brown and Utah Treasurer Marlo Oaks.
Gov. Spencer Cox and Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson also sit on the board, but have not been present for discussions about Cannon’s office. In September, Oaks was the sole dissenting vote.
The Capitol Preservation Board convened a meeting Monday morning to discuss the issue, and supporters of the auditor packed the in-person discussion while over 80 more joined on Zoom.
“Out of the abundance of caution,” said Assistant Attorney General Paul Tonks, who acts as legal counsel for the board, “I advised that it would be good for, instead, the board [to] do a revote ... so there’s no question that it was done legally and, again, in a public meeting.”
In that meeting, where Oaks was absent, the board unanimously reaffirmed its previous vote.
A spokesperson for Cannon did not immediately respond to questions about her reaction to the vote, and whether it impacts her lawsuit.
Cannon’s current main office space is on the second floor of the building, adjacent to the rotunda and near those of other executive branch elected officials, with the exception of the state treasurer.
The treasurer’s office is on the first floor, across from the space where the board voted to relocate Cannon: the previous visitor center beside the Capitol’s east entrance.
An agenda of the September meeting, published the prior Friday, did not explicitly indicate the board would consider relocating the auditor’s office — the item was instead marked “Visitor Center” on the agenda.
Under Utah’s Open and Public Meetings Act, an agenda “shall provide reasonable specificity to notify the public as to the topics to be considered at the meeting.”
“I appreciate the reconvening of this body to make this discussion openly and in the public where this discussion belongs,” Cannon said at Monday’s meeting.
A law passed in 2024 created a timeline under which the auditor’s office was scheduled to be moved to a “substantially similar space,” and her current suite would be given to the Legislature.
That law also says the auditor is among the parties that “shall assess the use of space in the State Capitol to determine the best use of the space,” including the space Cannon currently occupies.
Cannon told board members, “It is my humble opinion that the interests of the state auditor have not been recognized through this process.”
Toward the end of the meeting, Adams, referring to the legal requirement that Cannon be included in the process of assessing space in the Capitol, said, “My understanding is that requirement had been met.”
Tonks responded, “Yeah, and the statute just simply says a study does not require for people to sign off — again, it is the board that has the authority as per space allocation."
The September vote Cannon is challenging followed an attempt by Adams late in this year’s legislative session to boot Cannon from her office. After she publicly protested the move, lawmakers abandoned it.
This story is developing and will be updated.