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Senate clears change to quorum language for three-member commissions
Summary
Senate Bill 165 deletes an ambiguous open-meetings phrase that limited two-member hallway discussion among three-member commissions, aiming to enable routine intra-office conversation; the Senate approved the bill unanimously in recorded vote.
The Utah Senate approved Senate Bill 165, which strikes language in the state's open-meetings law that sponsors said prevented even informal conversation between two elected officials on subjects where those officials have only advisory power.
Sponsor described repeated problems in Utah County and other jurisdictions with three-member commissions being unable to converse informally without triggering an open-meetings concern. The bill removes the sentence that extended quorum rules to advisory-subject hallway conversations so that commissioners can discuss administrative matters without inadvertently violating the statute.
Senate debate was limited. The sponsor said the change improves clarity and functioning for small commissions; he added he dislikes three-member commissions generally but sought this technical fix to make them operational. The Senate recorded a unanimous procedural vote to read the bill for a third time and the clerk announced SB165 "having received 24 yay votes, 0 nay votes, 5 being absent" would be read for a third time.
The change is framed as a statutory clarification rather than a policy change; sponsors said legal counsel and legislative research were consulted before drafting the strike.
