Hate the Data Center? Watch Utah’s Courts.

The Water Lantern Festival is coming to This Is the Place Heritage Park for the very first time on June 27th. It's a family-friendly experience that invites folks to gather by the water, decorate lanterns with personal messages, and release them together at sunset. It's going to be breathtaking. As part of the 2026 Radiant Tour, this year's event celebrates connection, reflection, and the idea that we all shine brighter together. There will also be live music, food trucks, and activities for the whole family. Tickets are available now at waterlanternfestable.com. Today on CityCast Salt Lake, the legislature has been laser-focused on the courts lately. They say new laws improve transparency and accountability for judges, but also a Supreme Court justice just resigned after Republican leaders pushed to investigate her. And in another shakeup, the court's chief justice is retiring. It can all feel a bit in the weeds, I get it, but one group is making the case that the court's independence is under threat. And that impacts you. It's Tuesday, May 26th. I'm Emily Means, filling in for Allie Bayarta, and here's what Salt Lake's talking about.

To Neil Brown, you are a founding member of CoEqual Utah, which is a new organization that's advocating for Utah's courts. Welcome to CityCast. Thank you so much for having me. It's great to have you. And being fully candid with you, there is a lot of stuff going on right now in the world and here in Utah that people have their attention on. I'm thinking about the data center in Box Elder County. I'm thinking about the rising cost of living and how much gas costs. What is your pitch for caring about and paying attention to what is happening with Utah's courts? Yeah, so I think it's all connected. If you don't like the data center, if you're not happy with how much money is going to ice, whatever your issue is that you care about, if you have a judiciary that's just going to be a rubber stamp for our politicians, then your individual rights are not going to be protected. Because a lot of what the legislature is doing here in Utah is unconstitutional. And so we have a court system that's supposed to be independent that checks that legislative action and make sure that they don't go too far. And if they're going too far, and now you have a bunch of judges who are just giving them the green light, then no matter what your issue is that you care about, whether it's gender equality, whether it's limiting the overreach of the government, whether it's book banning, whatever the issue is, it's the courts that are going to be protecting that because the legislature doesn't have to. Now that's a big statement that the legislature is doing a lot of unconstitutional things. Yeah. I think we need to give some examples. Yeah. So there, I mean, over the course of the last decade, there have been several bills that have been passed. What they were doing, I think, was maybe in the long term a little bit smart because they passed laws to restrict reproductive rights that would have violated the constitutional interpretation at the time. Laws that said you weren't allowed to have an abortion if it were for X, Y, and Z reason, which would probably have violated equal. protection and Casey. And there used to be a requirement that there be an interpretation by the drafting body of the legislature saying, right, that this is unconstitutional. And they got rid of that. There have been efforts with transgender rights to discriminate against trans people that probably also violate equal protection under the kind of current. interpretation. So I think even if you strike that and you don't feel comfortable saying, you know, the legislature's passing laws that are unconstitutional, they have no reason to be conservative in the bills that they're passing because the whole idea is that that's the job of the courts, is to rein them in and to make sure that they are following the Constitution. So you could think of this as like, this is like a sports game. The legislature in Utah already kind of controls the members. by and large, a super majority of Republicans in the state. Now what they're trying to do is control the referees. And not just the referees, they're also trying to control the people who select the referees. And they've already done that. So what they've done is taken a process that was meant to be independent. And they've injected politics into it. So now the entire commission who picks judges, the people picking the refs, seven out of seven of them are conservatives.

In their words, the judiciary needed reform. And this is a quote from House Speaker Mike Schultz. He says, the judicial branch is the least transparent branch of government that we have in this state. Go and try and find any information or decisions made by the courts. It's almost impossible. So I'm wondering, what do you make of that characterization? They really think that these laws that they've passed recently, just in the most recent legislative session, push us toward a more transparent and accountable. third branch of government. Yeah. So I, first of all, I would say I really wish that the politicians would be here because I would love to talk with them about this because, and when I'm responding to them, I'm using their own words. So I'm not trying to like infer what do I think they think? Like I'm using their own words where they're saying, we want judges that reflect Utah's values completely inappropriate. That's not the role of the judge to like implement their values. And if they think that's what judges are doing, they should be able to pinpoint exactly where in the decisions they're doing that. So, you know, they're saying that this is about judicial activism and they need to rein in judges who are being judicial activists, but they cannot pinpoint or say exactly where the judges deviated from the law. So they're just throwing around terms, like checks and balances and judicial activism without actually getting down into the details. Like, what do you mean by that? It's incumbent upon you. If you're trying to eject a sitting justice, you need to say what they do. wrong. You can't just say they cheated, but then have no evidence that they cheated, right? I mean, one example that does come to mind is with the redistricting case, right? Which I think many of us would pinpoint as like, the case that has really put this B in the legislature's bonnet. And, you know, this note that Judge Diana Gibson came down and made this decision about the redistricting map. And that led us to this new congressional map. And they're saying, well, actually, it's the legislature's job to create those voting boundaries. So I think that's one example that they would point to. Yeah, so there are backstops with the legislative authority to create voting maps. And every lawyer that I've talked to who's read the very lengthy opinion by Judge Diana Gibson says that she's not injecting her values into this. This is just the law. We have a constitution. We have a right to have... fair districts and the people voted on this. So you've got legislators who do set the districts, but you also have the referendum process. And the referendum process was passed by a majority of Utah and saying, we want better boundaries. We want, we want to get rid of gerrymandering. And that would trump what the legislature. was putting forward. And they just ignored that. And that's not the first time that the legislature has just completely ignored a referendum that was passed by the people. The court said, you need to respect what the people said. And they just won't give up. So again, they've lost this game several times and they keep losing. And instead of just taking their ball and going home, they're trying to now play again with a new set of refs. So you really don't think that there's any merit to their argument that...

these new laws that they've created will bring more accountability and transparency to the bench? No, absolutely. I don't see any law that they've passed that increases transparency. I don't see any law that they've passed that increases accountability. What they want to do is make it so that it's easier to take a sitting judge off the bench. And if they've done something wrong, it should be. We already have a process for that. We have JPEC, which is the organization that provides... data on judges and what people who've been before the judge think about their fairness on all sides. So people who could be aggrieved by the judge, people who had a good outcome, kind of all mixed. Are they fair? Are they applying the law? It was kind of the vanguard nationally for an independent process. And that is the organization that creates like the... essentially the voter guide to judges for judicial retention. That's right. They help with the retention process to keep it independent. I would like the politicians who are supporting these attacks on the judiciary to come forward and say, how are the laws that you've passed increasing transparency? All you're doing is making it personal so that these individual judges are being criticized when they rule in a way you don't like. That's not accountability. That's a grudge. That's like just punishing people because they decided something in a way you didn't like. like, you know, if you fail a test and you keep failing the test, at some point when you go to the teacher and say, look, I deserve an A plus. Like, I want a new teacher. This new teacher maybe will give me an A plus. Like, you failed the test. Like, and if you're trying to pick your teachers who are going to be grading you, that's not accountability and transparency. That's cheating. So what we have here, this is just legislative cheating. They're just trying to stack the deck in their favor and in the process diluting ordinary Utahans voices. And that's a nonpartisan issue. That's not something that is Republican or Democrat or whatever. That is something we all should care about because we need the judges to be just applying the law objectively. And that's what Diana Gibson did. That's what the Supreme Court did. But they don't want objective decision makers. They want political decision makers.

To Neil Brown with Co-Equal Utah, we are talking about the power struggle that's happening between the Utah legislature and the courts. Let's break down some recent headlines related to the courts we've already touched on some of them. And this is one we've talked about at length on this podcast, actually. Supreme Court Justice Diana Hagan recently resigned. Long story short, and this is the very... summarized version here. Someone alleged that she had an affair with an attorney for the redistricting case. A bipartisan committee investigated and dismissed that complaint. But legislative leaders pushed to investigate her further. And in the end, she said her family didn't sign up for that type of scrutiny. And she resigned. So how do you view what happened there? harassment. It's very sad to me. It's very disappointing to me. Justice Hagan was very well respected in the community for following the law. And she did everything as she should in this case to remove any potential conflicts of interest. Whether or not she had an affair is kind of irrelevant. The question is, did it impact her judicial decision making? And there's no way it could have here because the timing doesn't work out. She stepped away. She voluntarily recused herself when she started what she called a friendship. with the attorney from Better Boundaries. And that's the end of the story. She didn't hear any cases that he was involved in. And so the idea that there's some kind of fire where there's smoke, what they knew they were doing is harassing a judge because they're private people. They're not, they didn't go into this because they want to be celebrities. They often, their names are almost never on people's lips. But the legislature has made it now to where. Judges' names are on people's lips, and they've had death threats against judges. I mean, it's really serious stuff. They've had to close down the courthouse where other people who would like to go participate in our democracy aren't able to because of security concerns, because the judges are receiving death threats. And so I think it's not irrational for someone who's completely innocent to still not want to be a part of that. And so I think she has some shame. So she stepped out and said, look, I have dignity. I don't want to... hurt the dignity of this court. The problem here is we're operating with some people who don't seem to have that same level of shame. They're willing to break the rules. They're willing to ignore voters votes. And so it's really asymmetric here where if you come for people who have some humility and have some shame, they will step down. At some point, they're going to be like, this is not worth it. But if you're dealing with people that just will not get rid of their power, they will not give it away and they don't care what anyone thinks, that's incredibly dangerous for a democracy. To be clear, perhaps there are some instances where judges may need to be investigated. Would you be opposed to that? No. I mean, if there were some reason that the judicial investigation was inappropriate or not thorough, I mean, again, that was a bipartisan investigation. And if there was some reason to believe that something was untoward there, that maybe there was a conflict in terms of who was doing the investigation, and then maybe there could be some kind of legislative investigation, but it needs to be all confidential. Because just like in the criminal courts, you're innocent until proven guilty. And just because an ex-husband comes forward and says, oh, I've got dirt on my ex-wife, that doesn't mean that there's anything there. That doesn't mean that there's any truth to it. And so I think especially to protect the legitimacy of the courts, you need to have that whole process be confidential. But once it gets in the hands of the legislature, they leak it because they're using it for political purposes. And so I do worry about the confidentiality. But if we want to talk about...

investigations into judicial misconduct, we have examples. We have Justice Clarence Thomas, who heard cases around the January 6th insurrection that his wife helped to plan. So where's the outrage there? That's an actual instance of public wrongdoing that was not investigated. And so I do think we have to take this seriously. If judges are doing things that are inappropriate, we need to investigate them. That's not what anyone I think is suggesting. But you shouldn't be able to just make stuff up to harass a sitting justice who's making decisions you don't like. Here's another story that has been in the headlines recently. There are two new seats on the Supreme Court and the Judicial Nominating Commission, which we've talked about a little bit, put forth 12 names, all men, hilariously to me, two Matthews and two Christophers, but no women. Well, and one Brent Andrewston and one Brett Anderson, so those are very similar as well. I see. We should know pretty soon who Governor Spencer Cox will appoint and then the Senate will have to approve them. What do you think about this list? Again, very disappointing but predictable because they created a nomination process that was political. And so the output is political. I went through every single commissioner member. They all have these Republican bona feneates, head of the Sutherland Institute, the mayor of Farmington and a Republican Mike Lee's nephew, lots of conservative bona fides. And they put forward names of people who... are not who should have been picked if we were just looking at merit. And the law does say that these judicial decisions still have to be made based on merit. So then why were women who've been Court of Appeals justices not put forward when they have incredible, extraordinary experience and are highly competent and very effective and very well regarded? But then individuals who've been out of law school, you know, around 10 years who have no judicial experience were. That was notable to me. I mean, all jokes aside about the Matthews and Christopher is just seeing that there were some nominees who have never been judges being nominated to the highest court in our state. That was surprising to me. Me too. That's very surprising. Not even trial court, like not even a trial court experience hopping all the way up. It's just... highly suspicious given that the nominating commission is all Republican and that the output is all white men, most of them who went to one school. That is pretty consistent. And which school was that? Was that BYU law school? Yeah. Okay. I see. How do you know that all of the judicial nominating commission, how do you know that they're Republican? So I looked it up. You've got the Republican former mayor of St. George. That's Michelle Randall. Stacey McCliff, she was the Severe County Republican Women's Chair. Gordon Larson, he's got all Republican-aligned civic affiliations. Delana Tonks was the Republican Party delegate, and she's very involved in the charter school conservative movement. Jake Lee was a Republican legislative intern. He's Mike Lee's nephew. Every single one of them. I looked them up, and they all have a history of being committed to Republicans.

And then on the other hand, when you see the judges that came out of their process, the list they came up with, some of them are very well-respected judges, but many of them are not. And they don't have any criminal defense background. Normally, you'd like to see a little balance because prosecutors tend to be more conservative politically. That's just something that isn't 100%, but is a proxy for political ideology. They all have prosecutorial. backgrounds to the extent they have trial experience, there's zero criminal defense. There's some civil, so some that has nothing to do with criminal law, but there are no criminal defense folks, no one with that background. So all the proxies we have show that this is a very conservative group. I see. I also want to ask you, I mean, Prior to Justice Hagan's departure from the Supreme Court, we had a majority women's Supreme Court, right? Yeah. Do you think that this list of all men is kind of responding to that? Is this backlash? Absolutely. It's 100% backlash. And I've heard people say that, that we need to get back to having... a majority male judiciary. I think we're seeing at the Heritage Foundation, the policy director of the Heritage Foundation, which is a big conservative think tank, said that he doesn't think women should be allowed to go to law school. And they are absolutely dry, yeah, right, doesn't think they should be able to go to engineering school. And I do think that what we're seeing kind of nationally is this backlash against women having some power and having some political currency and having some judicial experience. And it's very much a kind of vulgar equation of woman equals biased or woman equals liberal, which isn't true. I've heard legislators say as much that they want a judiciary that gets back to being majority male. So this targeting of the courts by the Utah legislature, they call it accountability. You call it politicization. How do you think it ends? Yeah, I think it ends with what we've seen in other states where the judiciary starts running for elections that are partisan. And you just see more of a coalescing of power for the majority. group and minority rights get violated left and right. So if you are a member of a religious minority, if you are a member of a group that have in the past had your rights violated, if you care about the environment, if you care about rights that the current Republican-led majority don't care about, you're going to see more and more of those violations because the judiciary is going to become just a rubber stamp for the political branch. And this happens slowly, so we're not there yet. We still have a lot of ethical judges on the bench. But what happens is you see the future if you're a judge and you're not going to get promoted to the Supreme Court unless you are ruling in a way that the legislature likes. So you're kind of like capping yourself off as a judge. So you're going to have a lot of people who just...

who don't put themselves forward as judges because they know they're not going to get selected. And then you're going to have this pipeline that is very conservative. The judges are conservative. I think it's really sad. We were a model across the nation for having this independent process for selecting judges. I don't see where the accountability comes. Like this is if it's about them making mistakes in applying the law. Then tell me where they made the mistakes. Because again, this is like saying so-and-so cheated or I should have gotten an A on my exam, but she gave me an F. Okay, show me where she got it wrong. They can't do that. So they're just throwing these kind of ad hominums and making it very personal because they're losing on the merits. They know that if they look at the law, their argument is not strong. And they know that if you get people who are independent, they're going to rule against you. So they can't have that. It's just like it doesn't make sense. If you really thought that you were on the right side, then you should be comfortable with whomever deciding. And they're not. They're working really hard to make sure that they have their friends on the bench. Do you really think we'll move toward electing judges? We talked to state senator Todd Weiler. He's the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee about this. And I mean, my sense from him is that we would never want to do that as a state. They do it in other states and we like our system. We hold our system in high regard here. Do you think that that's where we're actually headed? Oh, it's totally possible. Yeah, they've broken our system. It's already broken. It's not like a future thing. It's broken. And I don't trust that. I'll be perfectly honest, because they also said, oh, well, look, if we make this, the governor has control over who gets on the commission. We trust the governor. The governor's not going to make this political. The governor's going to make sure that there's balance. Well, he didn't. And so I just don't think we can trust them. What they're doing is playing the long game and they're playing chess and we're playing checkers and we're believing them when they say, we're just doing this one little thing. Don't look at all the other things we're doing. But when you look at all the puzzle pieces together, they're absolutely destroying the independence of the judiciary. And that's the track we're on. And I don't see them scaling that back at any point. Danielle Brown, founding member of Co-Equal Utah. Thanks for your time and your thoughtfulness. Yeah, thank you so much. Stick around because in just a second, you'll hear a conversation sponsored by the Water Lantern Festival featuring Citicast Content Director Andrea Salensi talking with Tess Rouser, the festival's marketing manager. The festival is coming to This Is the Place Heritage Park on June 27th, and it's going to be beautiful. Enjoy. Hey, CityCast Content Director, Andrea Salenzie here. There are some things we do outside that I look forward to all year long, picking apples in the fall, winter light shows, food festivals on a really hot summer night. And I'm here to suggest a new tradition you're going to have to experience for yourself. Releasing a glowing lantern into the water at sunset, right in the middle of your beautiful city, surrounded by hundreds of your neighbors doing the exact same thing.

That's what I'm talking about today with Tess Rouser, the marketing manager for the Water Lantern Festival. Hey, Tess. Hi, Andrea. How are you? I'm so excited for folks to picture what this festival really looks like. So the Water Lantern Festival happens in cities all over the country. If you're hearing this, it's coming to your city soon. So for someone who's never been, what does it actually like to be there? The Water Lantern Festival isn't your typical festival. Yes, when you arrive, there are food trucks and local vendors. There's family activities, games going on, a scavenger hunt. It's very lively, fun, upbeat music going on. But the event definitely turns inward and more reflective as the night goes on. It really like pivot and the music changes and the whole vibe changes. So it's almost the best of both worlds. Guests are encouraged to... right on their lanterns and everyone gathers by the water at sunset to release their lanterns. That's definitely the peak of the event. Watching hundreds or even sometimes thousands of lanterns on the water is incredibly peaceful and emotional. People often tell us that it's a moment that stays with them long after the night ends. So everyone who attends gets to personalize their own lantern before releasing it in the water. What have you seen people write or draw on their lanterns? Yes. So each ticket comes with a lantern that comes with everything you'll need for the evening. Your markers, the biodegradable paper that you can write on or design. And that's one of the most important parts of the event. People write, gosh, all kinds of things. Messages of love or hope or remembrance or gratitude or sometimes people are setting intentions or goals for what they want to do that year. More of a personal story for me. I lost my nephew three years ago. And there was a lantern festival near me on his angelversary two years after. And it was the most incredible and meaningful experience that I was able to have with my family, where we came and remembered him and honored him and shared stories about him and released it onto the water in a glowing, just moment of remembrance. But honestly, we see so many things. We see lots of proposals. There's nothing like seeing someone down on one knee proposing in front of just thousands of lanterns on the water. So it's fun because every lantern tells a personal story. But when they're released together, it becomes a meaningful and powerful shared moment. So it's shared grief or shared celebration. It's kind of all of it. It is. It's all of it. You'll see names. You'll see dates, hearts, drawings, but even sometimes just a single word that holds a lot of meaning. So when you look out of the crowd at one of these festivals, what do you see? Is this families, couples? Who's the attendee? It's really a diverse crowd, which is something we absolutely love. You'll see the families with kids, couples, friends groups, lots of girls' nights with their charcutory boards and blankets and pillows that they've brought to set up camp for the night. There isn't one type of attendee, and that's something we absolutely love. So definitely brings together people from all walks of life. Can you give me the scale of Water Lantern Festival? Like, how long has this been going on? How many cities have you been to? How many people have released a lantern into the water? Yes, we actually just surpassed our two million.

lanterns being released into the water. So the largest lantern festival of its kind. We've been in business for nine years. So it started as just a small community gathering has expanded and grown to over 175 different cities, you know, nationwide and now worldwide expanding into Australia, Canada, the UK, Mexico here in a few weeks. So it's really fun to be able to bring this experience of love and hope and connection to the world. Is there anything else someone should know before they get their ticket? Any tips for attending? I encourage people to come with an open heart and to give themselves time to enjoy the experience from start to finish. It's not meant to be a fast-paced event. It's meant to slow you down and create space for that reflection and connection. So it's always a good idea to come early so you can still hit the food trucks, the music, the vendors, the booths, the scavenger hunt. but then still have time to sit and personalize your lantern and just take everything in and turn more inward. Tess, thank you so much for being here. Thank you for having me, Andrea. If you want to find a Water Lantern Festival near you and grab tickets, just head to WaterlanternFestable.com. You can search for your city there and it's a good idea to get your tickets in advance since many events do sell out. And for the latest updates, you can follow them on social media at Water Lantern Festival. Thanks for listening. Don't forget, you can support this show and get great perks by becoming a CityCast Salt Lake neighbor. All you got to do is visit membership.citycast.fm. That is all for us today here on CityCast Salt Lake. We'll be back tomorrow morning with more from around town. Take care.