Tricia Bunderson: Utah Legislature is making a game out of governance

My 11-year-old recently purchased the game “Settlers of Catan” and enlisted his younger brother and a couple of friends to play. He began by arranging the board in a deliberately advantageous way. Then he took the first turn, which gave him a monopoly on the best resources.

He taught the other kids the basic rules, but didn’t feel any angst about making self-interested, mid-game adjustments. Each time they played he easily walked away as the winner. Not surprisingly, it wasn’t long before the other kids didn’t want to participate.

The Utah Legislature is also playing a game, albeit a much more consequential one — the game of governance. In a representative democracy, fellow players include millions of citizens and the various branches of government. We expect certain rules and norms to be followed in order to create a fair and level playing field for everyone. We believe in checks and balances and in the ability to have our voices heard and meaningfully represented.

But, as I have followed Utah’s past and current legislative sessions, I have become concerned that lawmakers are increasingly focused on power and winning rather than on principled legislation and fair representation.

Let’s examine the layout of the game. Utah is historically a red state. Does this mean most Utah voters are conservative Republicans? Current voter registration statistics show that only 52% of active registered voters in Utah are Republican. That leaves 48%, roughly half of Utahns, who are not Republican.

The people of Utah are not homogenous; they hold a variety of thoughts, ideas and values. Yet the makeup of Utah’s state government tells a much different story — 79% of our state senators and 81% of our representatives are Republican.

Why such uneven outcomes? A major factor is the absence of competitive elections. When general elections aren’t competitive, outsized influence emanates from the Republican primaries. An important feature of the game is that Republican primaries are closed elections, meaning that only registered members of the party can vote. Closed primaries effectively prevent half of Utahns from having a meaningful choice in who represents them.

Additionally, the Legislature recently made the hurdles even higher in order to participate. Utah’s 2024 primary elections will be held on March 5 (presidential) and June 25 (state). Under newly modified laws, if voters currently affiliated with another party want to participate in the Republican primaries, they must register with the Republican party by January 9 — nearly two months before the presidential primary and five months before the state primary. This shift toward further exclusivity contributes to a lack of participation and fair representation.

Let’s dig even deeper into the game setup. To get on the primary ballot in the first place, candidates must go through one of two processes: being nominated through the caucus/convention system or gathering a sufficient number of signatures.

The caucus system is dominated by delegates who are, on the whole, much more homogenous and significantly further to the right than average Utah Republicans. The signature path typically produces more moderate candidates with broader appeal, but some legislators are working to undermine that path. The most recent attempt would disqualify a candidate who opted to gather signatures if another candidate gets 70% of delegates’ votes at convention. Are Utahns OK with eliminating some primary elections altogether?

One way that voters have tried to make reforms and level the playing field is through citizen initiatives. The initiative process of gathering signatures, however, is quite expensive and labor-intensive, and Utah’s process is remarkably burdensome compared with other states.

Unfortunately, even after the immense work to get an issue on the ballot, the Legislature simply alters or guts the initiative. The most egregious instance occurred when they abandoned the nonpartisan maps recommended by the Independent Redistricting Commission and instead chose gerrymandered maps of their own construction, explicitly against the will of the majority of Utahns.

Furthermore, the Legislature continues a pattern of making the initiative process even harder. In 2021, they passed a law making the requirements surrounding signature gathering more stringent. And in the current legislative session, another bill is moving forward which proposes raising the threshold on certain citizen initiatives.

These increasingly anti-democratic acts are intended to insulate the Legislature from the voice of the people. They concentrate almost all political power in the state into the hands of just a few individuals.

The tilted game setup weakens the executive and judicial branches and often ends the same way that the settlers game did — people just tune out and refuse to play. They feel locked out.

But democracy isn’t a childhood game; it is a powerful system of governance that can support peace, prosperity, and collaborative society. It is a system worth defending. Utahns deserve a representative government that is truly representative. It’s time for each of us to step up and find a way to tell the Utah Legislature that we have the right to a fair game.

Tricia Bunderson, Lehi, is a mom of four kids by day, registered nurse by night, and advocate of ethics during the scraps of time in between.