Utah

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MIKE LEE ONLINE POW

GRAB FED LAND

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an 1026

A Republican election official says she is being threatened with investigation and criminal liability after defying the Trump administration's demands, warning that threats to American elections are now coming from inside the federal government.

Lieutenant Governor of Utah, Deidre Henderson, who oversees elections in the heavily Republican state, revealed the extraordinary pressure she has faced to give up sensitive voter information during an interview with CBS News' 60 Minutes.

Henderson states that election officials are usually threatened with attacks on election integrity coming from non-governmental actors and cyber criminals, but is now receiving pressure from the President Donald Trump administration.

"In the past two elections that I oversaw as lieutenant governor, the threats were all external: non-state actors, cyber security threats and other things," she said to correspondent Lesley Stahl before adding, “But now we also have threats coming from within our own government."

She said the Justice Department unlawfully demanded that states surrender their complete voter registration lists, including confidential information which is protected under state law.

Henderson said officials were asked to provide Social Security numbers, full dates of birth and driver's license numbers. She said federal authorities did not offer any reasonable explanation for their demands or how they planned to use the information. Henderson and 29 other states from both parties refused to give in to the demands.

After the refusal, she received a September letter from the DOJ's Civil Rights Division stating she was under investigation and involved in ongoing litigation over compliance with federal election laws. The department also threatened her with potential criminal or civil liability if she did not preserve the voting records. The dispute came after the DOJ filed a federal lawsuit seeking Utah's voter data.

The Republican Utah Gov. Spencer Cox defended Henderson after the letter became public.

"It is wrong for the DOJ to investigate or threaten the lieutenant governor for carrying out her responsibilities under Utah law," Cox wrote at the time.

Trump administration officials have argued the voter records are necessary to identify noncitizens improperly registered to vote. Harmeet Dhillon, who heads the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, told CBS that there are potentially thousands of cases under investigation.

But Henderson said Utah's own review found just 52 questionable registrations out of more than 2 million voters. The administration has sued states that refused to provide complete voter lists, even as officials say privacy laws protect the data they seek.

This warning comes at a time when a broader federal campaign is underway, including the seizure of 2020 ballots in Georgia and legal action against California over alleged noncitizen voting. The California secretary of state has challenged the government's evidence and said it is threatening eligible voters.

Henderson has no plans to back down from the threats and said she will continue to resist the DOJ’s requests.

"I have to tell myself it doesn't matter what the consequences are, as long as I feel like I'm doing what's right," she said, continuing: "I think this is an important thing for me to do, holding these guardrails, holding the line. Someone has to."

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Republican Jim Crow Homeless Bill Brings Back Convict Leasing

UTAH CAMP SLC; MUST PAY FEES

CRIME TO SLEEP IN PUBLIC

Brittany Page discusses Louisiana's HB 211, a new bill on its way to the Senate after passing the House, that criminalizes homelessness, creates internment camps, and authorizes mandated treatment that homeless individuals can pay for through unpaid forced labor. Brittany details how the Trump Administration and the Republican Party at large have been pushing bills like this across the country in an effort to criminalize poverty and homelessness, and what we can do collectively to fight the injustice.

HARD LABOR 1- 2 YRS

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AN UTAH DISPATCH 7 26

As part of a hypothetical scenario in a made-up state, Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson along with eight other panelists were asked what they would do if they were faced with a fictional president that asked for political favors in exchange for federal aid and not only pressured them to hand over private voter information, but also wanted to seize ballots before they were counted.

That was the premise of an episode of the PBS series “Breaking the Deadlock” titled: “How to Fix an Election” that was broadcast on Tuesday.

In the episode, Aaron Tang, a law professor at the UC Davis School of Law, moderated a panel that, alongside Henderson, included other prominent officials including former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Texas congressman Rep. Dan Crenshaw, and businessman Mark Cuban.

Tang asked them to confront hypothetical dilemmas that put pressure on voting rights and elections. Henderson was given a scenario to hand over private voter information to the federal government in the name of preventing ineligible people from voting.

“First of all, there is no evidence that there is any sort of widespread voting by people who are ineligible,” Henderson said in the show. “And the federal government doesn’t have access to our voter files because the U.S. Constitution expressly reserves the right to states to choose the times, places and manner of elections.”

But that scenario isn’t far off from a reality Henderson and other state election officials are facing in real life. For months, President Donald Trump’s administration has been pressuring them to hand over sensitive and private voter information.

The same day the episode aired, Henderson said in a social media post she had received “another love letter” from the U.S. Department of Justice “sprinkled throughout with threats of criminal prosecution” for resisting the agency’s demands for private voter data.

“This is truly bizarre behavior by the federal agency that is supposed to be protecting civil rights,” Henderson wrote.

In February the Department of Justice filed lawsuits against Utah, alongside other states “for failure to produce their full voter registration lists upon request.”

For months, President Donald Trump’s administration has demanded that states provide copies of their voter lists, calling the information necessary for election integrity efforts. While some states have turned over lists that withhold sensitive personal data, most have declined to offer all the information on their lists while citing state and federal privacy laws that protect American’s personal data.

Henderson has said she is among those fighting to protect Utah voters’ protected information.

“Neither state nor federal law entitles the Department of Justice to collect private information on law-abiding American citizens,” Henderson has said in response to the DOJ lawsuit. “Utahns can be assured that my office will always follow the Constitution and the law, protect voters’ rights, and administer free and fair elections.”

A review by Henderson’s office has confirmed that noncitizen voting isn’t a widespread problem in the state. The issue has, however, remained a focal point among Republicans across the country.

The letter the Department of Justice sent on Tuesday cited portions of federal code that outline the duties of state and local elections officials, including maintaining elections records and taking action to ensure that only U.S. citizens are allowed to vote.

“Any election officer, including the chief election officer of the state, who knowingly retains noncitizens on the state’s (voter registration list) or facilitates noncitizens in receiving and casting ballots could be subject to criminal liability,” the letter says.

While Utah approved a law allowing the release of some voter information for a fee — including name, address, age range, party affiliation, and vote history — other personal information, like social security numbers, full birth dates and driver’s license numbers, remain “strictly private for all voters and may only be disclosed to government entities for election administration purposes,” according to the Utah lieutenant governor’s website

During the PBS episode, the panel discussed a made-up situation in which the exchange of those private voter files would result in quicker federal action that would prevent a dam from collapsing, potentially avoiding deaths.

Henderson called it a “tough situation” during the panel discussion.

“It’s definitely hard to see trade-offs for something that is imminent and much needed versus standing on principle and following the rule of law,” she said. “But I also say, if we don’t have the rule of law, we don’t have anything, we don’t have a country, we don’t have freedom, and if we’re willing to trade those things in the moment, then we’re willing to risk an awful lot for temporary gains.”

In a comment issued about the PBS episode, Henderson said she left the taping “with a renewed commitment to the principles that have shaped our country for the past 250 years and which are essential to preserving our free government for the next 250 years.”

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AN 2 26

President Donald Trump wants a Republican politician in Utah, Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson, to hand over the entire voter registration database — but she is refusing.

“Neither state nor federal law entitles the Department of Justice to collect private information on law-abiding American citizens,” Henderson said in a statement responding to Trump’s lawsuit against Utah and 28 other states. “Utahns can be assured that my office will always follow the Constitution and the law, protect voters’ rights, and administer free and fair elections.”

Trump’s Justice Department continues to claim without evidence that there is widespread voter fraud and they must acquire all states’ voter registration data. Federal judges have dismissed Trump’s lawsuits in California, Georgia, Michigan and Oregon.

Henderson is not alone among state officials condemning Trump’s actions. Nevada Secretary of State Francisco Aguilar (D) described Trump’s claims of noncitizen voting and other kinds of foreign interference as a “red herring” and “non-issue” meant to intimidate voters.

“The only people who should be concerned by this are criminals,” White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said in a statement defending its actions. “Noncitizen voting is a crime. Anyone breaking the law will be held accountable.”

Although the White House has repeatedly threatened to nationalize elections, the president lacks the authority to do so.

“Here is the reality: the president has no authority to run federal elections,” University of Kentucky professor Joshua A. Douglas said. “The Constitution, through the Elections Clause in Article I, Section 4, assigns that power to the states, while allowing Congress to make or alter election regulations. Courts have already blocked the president’s executive order on voter registration rules. Neither an executive order nor presidential bombast can override our decentralized constitutional structure.”

Conservative historian Robert Kagan told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour earlier this month that the GOP is the “party of dictatorship” because it is considering anti-democratic measures to keep Trump in power.

“I am worried, as I have said and others have been pointing out, about whether we will even have free and fair elections in 2026, let alone in 2028,” Kagan told Amanpour. “I think Trump has a plan to disrupt those elections, and I don't think he's willing to allow Democrats to take control of one or both houses as could happen in a free election.”

Sometimes Republicans drop their mask regarding their intentions regarding the midterm elections.

:{:{“The writing on the wall,” tweeted Republican Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida in a message tagging Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.). Luna attached a flowchart which showed two paths from “Gain majority” in which, unless Republicans pass the SAVE Act, they lose control of the House.}:

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an 2 26

Republicans have been fighting the decision to add another congressional seat to the state of Utah after its population in Salt Lake City expanded significantly. The seat has been caught up in litigation for six years, with Republicans well aware that such a seat would likely be a Democratic one.

On Monday, federal judges refused to further block the new district, Fox12 reported.

A three-judge panel unanimously rejected demands from the lawyers, commissioners mayors, and Reps. Celeste Maloy and Burgess Owens to stop the new district.

"Because we conclude Plaintiffs have failed to demonstrate a likelihood of success on the merits ... we DENY Plaintiffs’ preliminary injunction motion," the ruling said.

The only way to stop the new blue seat from being added is if the U.S. Supreme Court steps in.

Elections lawyer Marc Elias cheered the ruling, posting on X, "Federal Court three-judge panel DENIES republican motion for a preliminary injunction to block Utah's new congressional map from going in to effect. The new map will stand for the 2026 midterms. Democrats will likely gain 1 seat!"

State Sen. Nate Blouin, a Democrat, is among those running for the state. In a post on X he wrote, "Done deal. Vote for blutah. Vote for Blouin."

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morano gmaIl 10 25

no lnx

Audrey Streb

DCNF Energy Reporter

October 13, 2025

Republican Utah Sen. John Curtis is reportedly planning to co-lead a delegation to the annual U.N. climate change conference, which some critics told the Daily Caller News Foundation clashes with President Donald Trump’s energy agenda.

Curtis told E&E News Friday that he and Democratic Delaware Sen. Chris Coons will lead a delegation to Brazil together for this year’s COP30 and that three other unnamed Republicans are also interested in joining the troop. The U.N. climate change conference is set to host several youth-led climate forums and discuss the Paris Agreement that Trump directed the U.S. to abandon through a day-one executive order.

“RINOs like Sen. Curtis are trying to snatch defeat from the jaws of MAGA victory by going to the annual UN climate confab in Brazil,” Steve Milloy, Senior Fellow at the Energy & Environment Legal Institute told the DCNF. “There, they will conspire with China and Europe in trying to subvert President Trump’s agenda of defeating the climate hoax, terminating the Green New Scam and making America energy dominant.” (RELATED: John Curtis Has History Of Raking In Thousands From Green Energy Donors)

U.S. Senator-elect John Curtis (R-UT) arrives for the Senate Republican leadership elections at the U.S. Capitol on November 13, 2024 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch via Getty Images)

U.S. Senator-elect John Curtis (R-UT) arrives for the Senate Republican leadership elections at the U.S. Capitol on November 13, 2024 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch via Getty Images)

A spokesperson for Curtis’ office told the DCNF that “plans are not finalized yet for the Senator’s travel,” though E&E News reported Friday that Curtis said “we have an agenda that is really coming together nicely. We’re super happy with it.”

The Trump administration has not announced that it will send a delegation to the November conference and Trump recently called climate change policy the “greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world” in front of the United Nations General Assembly in September. Trump has moved to ax federal support for green energy sources like wind and solar that the Biden administration favored while bolstering conventional resources like coal.

“Leave it to ‘Mitt Romney’ style Republicans like Sen. Curtis to try to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. … The UN climate agenda and the UN’s COP30 meetings should be disbanded, not given credibility by GOP senators,” Marc Morano, author and Climate Depot executive editor, told the DCNF. “This is a pathetic throwback to the pre-Trump Republicanism of George H. Bush, George W. Bush, John McCain, and Mitt Romney. … The UN climate agenda has quite literally overseen the outsourcing of the West’s once dominant industries to China, India, and the developing world. The U.S., Canada, and Europe have boasted about emission accounting tricks, while China builds two new coal plants a week and benefits from the West’s attempts at a ‘green transition.’ The U.S. does not need ‘a seat at the table’ at the UN climate summit, we need to knock the table over.”

Curtis has historically split with many Republicans over climate change policy and has notably advocated against a wholesale repeal of Biden-era green energy tax credits that Trump railed against. Earlier this year, Curtis told Secretary of State Marco Rubio that it is “really important” to have a “Republican voice at that table,” in reference to COP30.

The Senator pointed to nuclear specifically as an energy resource Republicans could elevate at COP30.

Critics like Milloy, Morano and President of the Heartland Institute James Taylor told the DCNF that COP30 should not be endorsed by Republican participation as it runs counter to Trump’s energy policies and suggests that the left-leaning climate talking points the president has fought hold legitimacy.

“Republicans who attend COP30 for any reason other than to mock it are hypocrites and grandstanders,” Taylor told the DCNF. “How much carbon dioxide are they going to spew into the atmosphere merely so they can have a ‘photo op’ at a portion of the Amazon rainforest that was destroyed in order to create a venue for this vacation conference of UN bureaucrats?”

Notably, developers razed portions of the Amazon rainforest to construct a road for COP30, and a 2024 study released right before COP29 showed that emissions rise sharply during major conferences due to private jet travel.

Coons’ office did not respond to the DCNF’s multiple requests for comment.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Tags : brazil climate change cop 30 john curtis rinos trump administration

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AN 10 25

While Arizona has evolved into a swing state and California has long since turned deep blue — even though it was a red state back in the 1970s and 1980s — Utah remains overwhelmingly Republican. Donald Trump won Utah by roughly 22 percent in 2024, and a Democrat hasn't carried Utah in a presidential election since President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964.

In an article published by Mother Jones, however, reporter Stephanie Mencimer emphasizes that Utah's staunch GOP voting record isn't preventing Trump and his allies from killing jobs at one of the state's biggest employers: an Internal Revenue Service (IRS) center in Ogden.

"Before President Donald Trump took office in January," Mencimer explains, "the IRS offices in Ogden collectively employed about 7500 people, making the city economy more reliant on the federal bureaucracy than on its famous powder skiing. Everyone who lives in Ogden knows someone who works for the taxman. Husbands and wives, parents and children — IRS employment is often a family affair. But this Western outpost of the federal government lies deep within MAGA territory."

The Mother Jones reporter continues, "Ogden City, home to 88,000 residents, about 30 percent of whom are Hispanic, makes up a small purple dot in the sprawling Northern Utah metro area that's home to some 700,000 people. But about 60 percent of residents who reside in the greater Ogden area voted with the rest of the state last year, solidly for Trump. That support, however, did not spare the city's largest employer."

The IRS was among the many federal government agencies that the Trump administration, with the help of Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), targeted for mass layoffs. Others range from the National Weather Service (NWS) to the U.S. Social Security Administration (SSA) to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).

IFrame Content

"In February, Trump and Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency took a chainsaw to the civil service, immediately firing thousands of probationary workers, who had fewer job protections," Mencimer observes. "Then, Musk issued his 'fork in the road' e-mail, pushing other federal workers to quit as part of a 'deferred resignation program,' lest they get fired later with no benefits. Those who took the 'fork' were put on administrative leave and paid for not working through the end of September. That attack on federal workers landed heavily on the IRS."

Mencimer add, "By June 4, the agency had hemorrhaged more than a quarter of its national workforce — about 26,000 people. Union officials expected that about 20 percent of the IRS employees in Ogden — about 1500 — would no longer be there by the end of September."

*Stephanie Mencimer's full article for Mother Jones is available at this link.

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AN 12 24

Politico legal correspondent Kyle Cheney reported Wednesday that Russell Taylor — who invited "fighters" to help him storm the Capitol in an attempt to overturn the 2020 election — will be attending President-elect Donald Trump's inauguration on January 20, 2025. Former Rep. Chris Stewart (R-Utah) wrote a letter to U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth saying that "three current members of the Utah congressional delegation" were co-signing his invitation of Taylor to the inauguration, given that the terms of Taylor's probation ban him from traveling to Washington, D.C. without an invitation. He did not mention which three of Utah's six representatives were in support of Taylor's attendance.

“He is [a] caring father and reveres his family, his faith, and his love of our Country as his highest priority in life,” Stewart wrote. “I am honored to extend this invitation for him to attend the Inauguration as my guest.”

Some of the "fighters" Taylor asked to help assault the Capitol were "Three Percenter" militia members. The Southern Poverty Law Center has deemed Three Percenters as an "antigovernment general militia movement" whose leaders have specifically targeted Muslims and immigrants. Cheney wrote that on January 6, Taylor "surged to the U.S. Capitol with a knife and a tactical vest." And the day before, he delivered a speech threatening violence unless the election was overturned in Trump's favor.

"In these streets, we will fight and we will bleed before we allow our freedom to be taken from us," Taylor said according to court documents. "We will not return to our peaceful way of life until this election is made right."

Trump has promised that he would pardon scores of January 6 participants shortly after taking the oath of office next month. Some defendants have cited Trump's promise of pardons to argue that their proceedings should be delayed until after the inauguration, given that a presidential pardon would negate their prosecutions by President Joe Biden's Department of Justice.

According to Cheney, members of the U.S. Capitol Police Department will be tasked with protecting Taylor during his impending visit to Washington. This makes it a historic first that someone who participated in a deadly attack on the Capitol — that led to the death of Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick and the injuries of 174 other Capitol police officers — will be protected by that same department. Former Capitol Police officer Harry Dunn called it a "slap in the face" for Trump to consider pardoning people who attacked police.

In a 2023 post to her Substack newsletter, journalist Sarah Kendzior presciently warned that Biden's presidency would be a mere "placeholder" between "aspiring American autocracy" and a more "entrenched" form of authoritarianism if he failed to thoroughly prosecute both the participants and architects of the 2021 insurrection.

"Under Biden, the United States became the first country to face an attempted coup and not only fail to punish the coup plotters but allow them to hold office and make laws," she wrote. "There is no parallel in world history. Even Hitler had a prison interlude between his putsch and his presidency."

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Utah Supports “Personhood” for Corporations, but Maybe Not Forests

New state bill targets a growing “rights of nature” movement.

KATIE SURMA

This story was originally published by Inside Climate News and is reproduced here as part of theClimate Desk collaboration.

Lawmakers in Utah are advancing legislation aimed at stopping a growing “rights of nature” movement that has coalesced around efforts in the state to save the Great Salt Lake, which is drying up as a combination of climate change, development, and agriculture drain on its freshwater sources.

With activists promoting legislation recognizing that the Great Salt Lake has a right to exist, lawmakers in Utah’s House of Representatives on Tuesday voted in favor of a bill that would prohibit state and local governments from granting “legal personhood” to lakes and other bodies of water, animals and plants, among nature’s other constituents. The bill also prohibits governments in the state from granting legal personhood to artificial intelligence.

The so-called legal personhood bill, H.B. 249, cleared the house on Tuesday by a 58-11 vote. The bill must still pass the Utah Senate, where Republicans currently have a supermajority. If Gov. Spencer Cox, also a Republican, signs the bill into law, the new rules will take effect May 1, 2024.

The rights of nature movement has largely focused on garnering legal recognition that ecosystems and individual species possess certain inherent rights, including to exist and regenerate. Typically the laws also give specific guardians authority to enforce those rights, similar to the way legal guardians represent the interests of minors or people deemed incapacitated.

By using the structure of rights, the laws give nature, or components of it like forests and rivers, the ability to act in their own capacity under the law, similar to the way corporations, business partnerships, nonprofits and other non-human entities already do. That legal structure is often referred to as having legal personhood.

Rep. Walt Brooks (R-St. George), H.B. 249’s sponsor, told fellow lawmakers last week that the idea for a bill excluding nature from legal personhood came to him after he heard from constituents about the rights of nature movement

Rights of nature laws are on the books in multiple countries, and some Indigenous tribal nations in California, Idaho, and Oklahoma.

Brooks said that he believes only human beings should have “personhood” under the law. He would not say whether he believes legal personhood for corporations, business partnerships, and other nonhuman entities should be abolished, but said “this is the intent of the bill: to define personhood as a human being.” Utah law currently includes corporations, business partnerships and other nonhuman entities in its definition of “person.” Brooks also said he felt that existing environmental laws are more appropriate tools to protect ecosystems and emphasized that he is in favor of finding ways to strengthen environmental protection.

Beyond the Great Salt Lake’s demise, Utah has been beset by drought and Salt Lake City faces a persistent air pollution problem. Scientists predict that the loss of the Great Salt Lake, driven by human activities that divert water away from replenishing the lake as well as drought, could catalyze cascading ecological changes affecting the viability of multiple species, from birds to aquatic life. As the lake dries out, particulate matter, arsenic and other toxins in the lake bed are released into the atmosphere, affecting local communities.

H.B. 249 does not explicitly mention the Great Salt Lake, but the proposal comes amid growing efforts to obtain legal recognition that the lake possesses inherent rights to exist and to maintain water levels sufficient for ecosystem health. The “Save our Great Lakes” campaign’s proposed legislation also calls for the “appointment of an advisor or advisory body charged with the responsibility of speaking for the Lake and its watershed.”

Multiple tribal nations and countries have similar rights of nature laws on the books, including Spain, Ecuador, Panama, Bolivia, Uganda, The Ponca Tribe of Oklahoma, the Yurok Tribe in California and the Nez Perce Tribe in Idaho.

Among jurisdictions with rights of nature laws in place, the jurisprudence is most advanced in Ecuador, where the law was enshrined in the country’s 2008 constitution, largely due to pressure from Indigenous communities.

Ecuador’s Constitutional Court has ruled that the law requires mining companies to carry out detailed scientific studies in ecologically sensitive areas before being allowed to operate, and that wild animals possess distinct legal rights, including to exist, to develop their innate instincts and to be free from disproportionate cruelty, fear and distress. Still, extractive and development activity, most prominently oil production, have continued in Ecuador as courts work out how to balance the competing rights of businesses, humans and nature.

Opponents of rights of nature laws often argue that the higher level of protection those laws provide to ecosystems, as compared to conventional regulations, will impede necessary development. They also cite the need to quickly scale up electrification as a way to address climate change. Extracting from the Earth vast amounts of elements like lithium and copper for use in reusable batteries is likely to harm large swaths of nature.

“This continues to happen to tribes because of a perpetual lack of understanding that other people may not look at the world the way you do.”

Critics of Utah’s attempt to restrict nature from legal personhood say that the state legislation prevents local communities from making their own decisions about legitimate policies being advanced by governments elsewhere. They also say H.B. 249 contradicts and disrespects Indigenous belief systems without their input.

Those belief systems disagree with the mainstream cultural view that humans are separate from, and superior to, the natural world—a view manifested legally in the construct of human beings having rights to own, use and destroy nature, which is treated as property and has no rights.

The contrasting view of many tribes is that humans have complex, interdependent relationships with all parts of nature and have responsibilities to the rest of the natural world, which holds spiritual significance. Translating that worldview into western legal terms entails recognizing that nature, similar to humans, possesses distinct rights, advocates argue.

Utah is home to at least eight tribal nations, including part of the Navajo Nation. In 2002, the Navajo issued a resolution codifying the fundamental law of the Diné, the Navajo’s preferred name for its people, and recognizing that “All creation, from Mother Earth and Father Sky to the animals, those who live in water, those who fly and plant life have their own laws, and have rights and freedom to exist.” The Navajo Nation is a sovereign entity and Utah law does not apply on its tribal lands absent a congressional act.

George Hardeen, a spokesman with the Navajo Nation, declined to comment on H.B. 249 specifically, saying that he was reluctant to do so because he had not talked directly with the bill’s sponsors. Hardeen did say that it often never occurs to state lawmakers to take into consideration the point of view of the Navajo and other tribes in the state.

“They approach these things from a political perspective, not a spiritual perspective that is different from their own,” Hardeen said. “This continues to happen to tribes because of a perpetual lack of understanding that other people may not look at the world the way you do.”

Legal personhood, or extending legal rights to nonhuman entities, is not a new development. That legal construct is most commonly used to allow businesses to enter into contracts, sue, be sued, own property, and, in the case of corporations, limit the liability of its shareholders.

In the United States, judicial recognition that corporations have legal rights dates to at least the 1886 U.S. Supreme Court Case Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific R. Co. More recently, the Supreme Court in Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission upheld first amendment rights for corporations with regard to spending on political advertisements.

Existing Utah law also defines a “person” as “an individual, corporation, partnership, organization, association, trust, governmental agency, or any other legal entity.”

“A right to exist, a right to be healthy, and a right to representation, such as through legal guardians, are three of the most important baseline rights that should be held by nature.”

Rights of nature advocates argue that extending legal personhood to nonhuman living beings and other aspects of nature is not dissimilar from the gradual extension of rights over time to different categories of humans. Historically, women, enslaved humans, Indigenous people and others were restricted from holding certain rights or were considered property. Only after political and cultural efforts did those categories of people win legal recognition as rights-bearing human beings.

More recently, attempts to extend legal personhood to non-human animals has gained traction in other countries while U.S. courts have stopped short of that in cases involving elephants and great apes. Advocates’ arguments in favor of legal personhood for those animals are based in part on developing science affirming that those species have high levels of intelligence and emotional capabilities.

Once legislatures or courts recognize the legal personhood of a nonhuman entity, the next question becomes what rights those entities have and who speaks for them, according to Jill E. Fisch, Professor of Business Law at the University of Pennsylvania Law School.

Corporations, for instance, have free speech rights but have been denied other rights afforded to humans. Existing rights of nature laws aim to assign rights that align with the essense of the natural feature: rivers have the right to flow, wild animals have the right to habitat, and lakes, like the Great Salt Lake, have the right to be replenished.

“If nature is a ‘person’ under the law, that does not mean it has all the same rights as humans,” said Grant Wilson, executive director of Earth Law Center, a U.S.-based nonprofit, “I think a right to exist, a right to be healthy, and a right to representation, such as through legal guardians, are three of the most important baseline rights that should be held by nature.”

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idaho emerge abort airlifted to utah?!

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When Utah held its 2024 GOP gubernatorial primary election on Tuesday, June 25, conservative Gov. Spencer Cox survived a challenge from Utah State Rep. Phil Lyman.

But Lyman has yet to accept defeat and acknowledge Cox as the nominee.

The Salt Lake Tribune's Bryan Schott reports that the Republican state lawmaker "seems to be hanging his fading chances of wresting the party nomination away from" the Utah governor "on a long shot allegation that the signatures Cox used to qualify for the ballot may not be legitimate."

"Lyman, a state lawmaker, currently trails Cox by approximately 38,000 votes a week after Election Day," Schott explains. "Lyman won the delegate vote at April's Republican Party nominating convention. Lyman has continued to reject the reality of his loss, blaming the media and insinuating that the vote-tabulating machines were somehow rigged against him."

Lyman, who is on the board of directors of the far-right group Utah Citizens for the Constitution, discussed his refusal to accept the election results during an online Zoom gathering on Monday night, July 1.

Lyman told members, "I'm not a conspiracy theorist. I'm really not…. There's no shortage of genuine conspiracy theorists out there, and some of them that I think are actually agents in this space that are trying to make people look crazy, who question elections."

The Utah state lawmaker added, "I think the FBI and CIA are very active in that space. You're always trying to figure out who you can trust and who you can rely on."

*Read the Salt Lake Tribune's full article at this link.

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Lawmakers in Utah are advancing legislation aimed at stopping a growing “rights of nature” movement that has coalesced around efforts in the state to save the Great Salt Lake.

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https://www.alternet.org/mike-lee-2658988983/

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