As the Legislature’s hastily created constitutional court is already facing four separate challenges in the Utah Supreme Court, lawmakers are scrambling to change the court’s structure to head off the lawsuits.

The law, which breezed through the Legislature and was quickly signed by Gov. Spencer Cox, established a panel of three judges that can hear cases when state officials or the Legislature are sued. Only the state — and not the party suing the state — can take a case from the original judge and have it assigned to the panel.

Nine days after the law took effect, Attorney General Derek Brown moved the first four cases to the panel — a challenge to Utah’s abortion ban, the ongoing litigation over Utah’s gerrymandered congressional districts, a suit accusing the state of failing to protect the Great Salt Lake, and a case brought by Utah youth who argue the state’s reliance on fossil fuels is destroying the environment.

All four plaintiffs in those cases have filed appeals with the Utah Supreme Court, asking the justices to strike down the legislation creating the new court, arguing, in part, it tips the scales to favor the government and disadvantage average citizens.

But now, Republican lawmakers are hurrying to pass a complete overhaul of the weeks-old law, changing who can take a case to the three-judge panel and providing a fallback in case the Supreme Court rules the current structure violates the Constitution.

The first tweak is to allow either the state or the parties suing the state to move a case to the three-judge panel if they choose.

The second revision would only be triggered if the Supreme Court strikes down the current iteration. It would establish an entirely new structure with a constitutional court consisting of three permanent judges rather than having existing judges randomly assigned to serve on the panel.

Senate Majority Leader Kirk Cullimore, R-Cottonwood Heights, said the Legislature “would like to have a venue that can hear these types of cases with a panel of judges,” so if the Supreme Court finds the current structure unconstitutional, there would be something to take its place “rather than waiting for a whole year.”

In their petition to the justices, attorneys for Planned Parenthood Association of Utah wrote of the Legislature’s three-panel court that, “The legal error here is egregious. … The most basic of constitutional rights have been violated, as have key democratic principles.”

All four of the challenges make similar claims: Allowing the government, but not the citizens, challenging a law to move cases to the three-judge panel “jeopardizes Utahns’ rights to open courts,” as well as rights to due process and equal treatment under the law.

Each of the plaintiffs are asking the Supreme Court to declare the law establishing the panels unconstitutional and return the case to the district court judge who had originally been presiding over the litigation — in the case of the redistricting and abortion lawsuits, for nearly four years.

A new court

Originally, HB392, sponsored by Rep. Matt MacPherson, envisioned a “constitutional court” consisting of three judges that would hear cases that argued that laws passed by the Legislature were unconstitutional.

That was abandoned because critics said it would allow the governor and Legislature — who nominate and confirm every judge and would be parties to every proceeding before the tribunal — to essentially choose their own referees.

Instead, the proposal was changed to create a three-judge panel that would be randomly assigned from sitting judges from across the state.

That could include a constitutional challenge to a state law, a public records case or a lawsuit brought because a state-owned snowplow crashed into a car.

It is part of a package of bills promoted by Republican legislators targeting the court this session and follows a series of defeats at the hands of the judiciary in recent years.

Earlier in this year, lawmakers passed, and Cox signed, a bill adding two justices to the Utah Supreme Court, a move critics said constituted court-packing.

On Tuesday, the House, led by Speaker Mike Schultz, R-Hooper, passed a resolution “condemning and censuring” Judge Don Torgerson for comments he made during the sentencing of a man who pleaded guilty to possession of child sex abuse material and imposing a sentence that Schultz felt was inadequate.

Last year, Republican lawmakers passed a resolution condemning the courts for, what they called, judicial activism and stripped the Supreme Court justices of the ability to choose their chief justice, giving it to the governor.