Utah 4th District Representative Dan Johnson. File photo.
LOGAN — Utah Governor Spencer Cox announced this past Wednesday night that there will be a special session of the Utah Legislature next week. The primary reason is to explore tweaking Utah election law.
When Representative Chris Stewart (Utah’s 2nd Congressional District) announced he was going to be leaving Congress in September, current Utah law does not allow for enough time for an election to take place, which would mean there would be an open seat in Congress until next Spring.
State Representative Dan Johnson (4th House District) was a guest on KVNU’s For the People program on Thursday, and talked about what it might mean as far as moving the November election back two weeks.
“Conversations were ongoing, I know there was a lot of behind-the-scenes work between the President of the Senate and his leadership team, the President of the House and his leadership team, and then the Governor’s office, in order to coordinate what is turning out to be, anyway, we hope the best path forward,” he explained
Representative Johnson talked more about what that might mean for local candidates.
“There may be some disruption and I think the piece of it that’s going to happen with the Municipal election, is that those who are running, there’s going to be a little bit more time before their election actually happens,” Rep. Johnson added. “I think that’s an inconvenience for those that maybe have mapped out a campaign plan. We’re hoping that they understand though.”
Johnson said he doesn’t understand what the legislation consists of but he understands that there are some important votes in Congress that are going to happen in December.
He said, for the representation of the state of Utah, it’s really important that there be a complete delegation there.