Utah lawmakers shifted the future of state election debates away from an independent commission this year, but candidate debates will remain nonpartisan, fair and accessible, according to the two men tasked with leading the transformation.
After providing varying levels of support for nearly a decade, the Utah Legislature voted in March to cut off funding for the Utah Debate Commission, a nonprofit board that has organized dozens of debates for statewide and congressional races since its creation in 2013.
The money requested by the Utah Debate Commission for a two-year election cycle was instead split between the University of Utah’s Hinckley Institute of Politics and Utah Valley University’s Herbert Institute for Public Policy to establish a new state-funded debate organization.
“The intent from my perspective is to minimize disruption, and to find the best way forward for these debates to have really big impact — and that really is the goal,” Hinckley Institute Director Jason Perry said in an interview with the Deseret News.
Perry, and former Utah Gov. Gary Herbert, who founded UVU’s Institute for Public Policy, said they have already had multiple discussions with Utah Debate Commission board members, which include representatives from the state’s institutions of higher education, business and news media.
While plans are still in early stages as Perry and Herbert prepare to present recommendations to the Legislature this fall, Perry said the partnerships established by the Utah Debate Commission will only be “expanded” in the restructure, which will likely incorporate many aspects of the commission.
“We’re going to try to find a way to make sure that nonpartisan debates continue to happen in the state of Utah,” Perry said. “So I just push back on the notions out there that the approach that we’re working on is intended to be run by the Legislature — that’s not what they intended."
Why the change?
According to Herbert, the Legislature’s decision was “surprising” to members of the Utah Debate Commission, including himself. He had been tasked by the commission to make a budget request of $600,000 to his former colleagues during the 2025 legislative session to fully fund the commission’s activities.
Instead, House Speaker Mike Schultz, R-Hooper, asked Rep. Nelson Abbott, R-Orem, to sponsor HB557, a bill that would have established the Utah Debate Committee at UVU with a budget of $600,000 for 2026, with members appointed by the governor and leaders of both parties in the Legislature.
Since its founding, the Utah Debate Commission has relied mostly on private donors. Starting in 2016, it received $125,000 in one-time taxpayer funds and began receiving $65,000 in on-going funds the following year, with a massive surge in 2019 to help host the vice presidential debate at the University of Utah.
The Legislature increased the commission’s funding to $225,000 in 2024. But Herbert had told lawmakers that if they wanted to permanently improve the debate commission then they would need to “put up some money” to support its activities, Herbert said in an interview with the Deseret News.
Over the years, particularly since the Utah Debate Commission began hosting Republican primary debates in 2018, GOP officials have criticized the commission for what they feel is unfair treatment of candidates and biased debate moderation, echoing complaints made by national GOP candidates like President Donald Trump.
In April 2022, the Republican National Committee voted to withdraw from the Commission on Presidential Debates, first established in 1987, accusing the organization of failing to provide fair and unbiased debates.
That same year, then-GOP chair Carson Jorgensen said candidates would not participate in the Utah Debate Commission’s primary debates, and Utah Rep. Burgess Owens later pulled out of a general election debate, citing disagreements with the moderator.
“They thought it was not balanced, it was more left-leaning and contrary to Republicans,” Herbert said. “That was the perception, and in politics, perception becomes reality.”
Legislative leadership was set on disrupting that perception regardless of whether new legislation could be passed.
Abbott’s bill, introduced in the final weeks of the session, failed to pass through committee, with some lawmakers on both sides of the aisle questioning whether a separate debate organization was needed since the Utah Debate Commission was already established and receiving state funding.
But senior appropriators ensured the plan would still move forward by allocating the money in the final-night “bill of bills” with legislative intent for Perry and Herbert to “collaborate on a proposal to host nonpartisan candidate debates” and to establish “a statewide, nonpartisan debate organization.”
The organization will be located at the Hinckley Institute of Politics, the bill instructed. But the Hinckley and Herbert institutes would be required to schedule debates at degree-granting campuses across the state “to foster civic engagement, voter education, and public discourse.”
In statements to the Deseret News, Utah Democratic Party Chair Brian King said Democratic candidates look forward to discussing “policies that affect Utahns and Utah” during debates, while Utah GOP Chair Rob Axson criticized the Utah Debate Commission for “bias, unfair rules, (and) condescension.”
“We will stand with those who elevate the process and respect voters, not those who manipulate it to protect their own power or promote their preferred outcomes,” Axson said. “The Legislature was right to reject a well intended — but broken system — by directing funds away from a structure that continued to come up short."
Will the Utah Debate Commission survive?
The Utah Debate Commission did not receive any of the funding it asked for and members remain uncertain about its future role in Utah debates.
During the session, Utah Debate Commission co-chair Becky Edwards expressed concern about how the bill would impact the political independence of debates. But she said the conversation will be beneficial as long as it can “keep voters at the center.”
“The legislature has their own mechanisms to fund efforts that they have a strong belief in, and that was certainly what ended up happening,” Edwards told the Deseret News. “This is an opportunity to build on what works to expand access and explore innovations that strengthen our democratic process.”
The Utah Debate Commission leaves an impressive track record, according to Edwards, hosting nearly 60 debates over the past 10 years with nearly 100% participation from candidates, and collaborating with colleges across the state to take production teams from St. George to Logan amid increasing costs.
Utah’s formation of a debate commission has been used as a model for other states around the country, Edwards said. But the organization has also responded to feedback, especially after 2022, she said, and remains open to changing its policy on polling thresholds, which has garnered some criticism.
Ed Allen, a former co-chair of the commission, said he never identified “a single, specific indication where a moderator was obviously biased.” He did notice, however, that as the Utah Debate Commission became more involved in primaries, and got more state funding, GOP officials applied more pressure on the commission.
“Nationally, there certainly has been a very ... strong attack on independence of media, and I think there’s concern related to that in the state of Utah as well,“ Allen said. “The dominant party is not used to having independent voices that receive attention, and they’re not very happy about that.”
But those tasked with improving the next iteration of Utah debates say the change is not political. Perry foresees an organization that combines the independence and relationships of the Utah Debate Commission with the expertise of the Hinckley Institute, which has hosted debates for decades, including the vice presidential debate in 2020.
Perry disagrees with suggestions that the Legislature was trying to replace the Utah Debate Commission with an organization that is more pliable to their desires. At the core of the new organization will still be the same partners in higher education and newsrooms helping voters to make the most informed decision, according to Perry.
“Those are still the key foundational attributes that have been left intact, untouched by anyone else,” Perry said. “I’ve not received any information from the legislature saying we want debates to be run in a specific way.”
While the Utah Debate Commission no longer has funding from the state, it will likely continue to exist in some form, according to Herbert, who said there was never any intent to “do away with the Utah Debate Commission.”
Herbert said he hopes he and Perry could continue to collaborate with the Utah Debate Commission to increase the number of debates every election cycle to include municipal elections in addition to congressional and statewide races.
The fundamental reason why the Legislature wants to make this change, according to Herbert, is because if taxpayers are going to foot the entire bill for debates every election cycle then the process needs to be more transparent and responsive.
“It’s not a bad thing that they want to have oversight and accountability,” Herbert said. “There’s no bad people here trying to take over control — it’s really about making sure we have a good debate commission and a process providing for good, unbiased, fair debates.”
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