As Democrats nationally struggle to find their footing in a Republican trifecta, Utah Democrats have gotten the hang of it.
In Utah’s Republican supermajority, one might assume Democrats can’t get anything done. Afterall, there are only 20 Democrats in both the House and Senate. So, it is an uphill battle for them to get any legislation across the finish line. Even then, they persevere and use different strategies to pass policy.
“One of the things that is interesting and unique about Utah is that you do see the minority party not only proposing legislation but moving it through,” said Damon Cann, a political science professor at Utah State University.
Democrats are also surprisingly consistent.
KUER compiled three years’ worth of data on the Democrats’ record. By the end of the 2025 session, they passed 64 bills. In 2024, they passed 64 bills. And 52 bills made it to the governor’s desk in 2023.
While the six Democrats in the Senate push out less legislation, the data shows they are more successful in passing bills than their 14 counterparts in the House. Leah Murray, a political science professor at Weber State University attributes that to the Senate being more mellow than the House.
“Their vibe is allowing for more conversation,” she said.
Still, House Assistant Minority Whip Sahara Hayes said it was a tougher year than usual for Democrats. There was clear contention between the House and the Senate, mostly on the Republican side. Big bills, like changes to Utah’s vote-by-mail system, didn’t pass until the penultimate day of the session because Republican lawmakers couldn’t get on the same page. As a result, Hayes said it was a tougher sell to get Democratic priorities in front of lawmakers.
“I think there's no way in which it didn't affect our bills and affect our caucus,” she said. “Our caucus had a rough time on the final day just trying to get our bills on the board and get heard and get through.”
Hayes added House leadership focused a lot of time and energy on teaching the legislative ropes to five freshman lawmakers. She believes it was time well spent since each of them passed at least one bill.
As for who gets more legislation passed, Cann said there are two major brands of minority legislators: The bomb throwers and the diplomats — and both play an important role in the process.
Sen. Nate Blouin would be considered a bomb thrower. He hasn’t passed any legislation since taking office in 2023. While that may lead some to question his effectiveness, Hayes believes it to be an admirable quality.
“He is very willing to be outspoken on issues that matter to him and that matter to his constituents,” Hayes said. “I'm grateful that we have somebody who is willing to be out in the public and on the front lines taking those hits, but he does take hits, and one of them is that he has yet to get a bill passed [in] the House.”
Murray thinks Blouin’s firebrand nature is a strategic move.
Since he’s considered so far left to some of his Republican colleagues, Murray argues it makes other Democrats look better and more palatable to work with. She added his district, which covers the bluest areas of Salt Lake County, likely appreciates him speaking out against policies his constituents would disagree with. He also files bills on issues people care about, such as removing the food sales tax or setting a target elevation level for Great Salt Lake, even if they don’t go anywhere.
“You are messaging to your constituents. You are messaging to the other party. You are messaging to other candidates who are thinking about what it means to be a Democrat,” she said. “All of that messaging is happening in these bills that fail.”
The diplomats, on the other hand, often work across the aisle to pass their policy. One of those is Senate Assistant Minority Whip Jen Plumb. Since taking office in 2023, she’s gotten 25 pieces of legislation across the finish line. Even if her bills fail, Plumb said she makes an effort to improve Republican bills by injecting Democratic values into them. While a Democratic bill may fail, parts of the policy can make its way into Republican-sponsored legislation. It’s a subtle win the public might not notice.
Sometimes it comes down to striking a balance. Plumb said she will speak up on the floor if she believes the proposed policy does more harm than good. For her, the role of the minority caucus is to advocate for the Utahns who don’t feel represented by the majority.
“Sometimes you speak on the floor knowing full well that you're speaking a bit into the void, but that it needs to be documented,” she said. “For example, the flag bill. I thought it was really crucial for it to be on the record that this felt very much like a violation of our freedom of speech.”
Murray said Plumb has perfected the not-so-secret sauce: collaboration. The minority caucus can’t move any legislation without Republican support. The data collected by KUER shows a Democratic bill is more likely to pass if it has a Republican floor sponsor to advocate for the policy.
Plumb said legislative relationships are more important than anything else. And those relationships Democrats have forged with Republicans show in their record. The more likely they are to work with Republicans, the more likely they are to get their policy proposals on the governor's desk.
“With those relationships, I feel like we actually get the opportunity to do what the public has entrusted us to do, and that is to have debate, to have hard conversations, to put challenging kind[s] of topics out in front of the public for them to hear us talking about it,” she said.
And engaging in coalition-building and good-faith negotiations has proven fruitful.
Plumb and Hayes pointed to legislation that only came to fruition because of alliances across the aisle. Plumb applauded Senate Minority Leader Luz Escamilla for getting her bill that expands Medicaid coverage to include doula services passed after years of trying. Hayes shouted out freshman Rep. Verona Mauga for her expansion of fraud protections for veterans.
It’s clear Democrats have a different measure of success because they’re aware of what they're up against. They have to pick and choose the battles they can win while being vocal against legislation they will likely lose.
“At the end of the day, they are moving the needle on policy to some extent,” Cann said.
“But you have to decide whether you're going to take the small victories and be engaged, or if you're going to lose your seat at the table and just throw bombs. It's a tough trade-off, but life in a legislative minority is always going to be hard.”
