In a last-minute power play, legislative Republicans blind sided Utah’s first female State Auditor, voting to evict her from the Utah Capitol building to expand their own office space.
The eleventh-hour change to SB143 means State Auditor Tina Cannon — who made history in November as the first Republican woman elected to statewide office on her own — will be forced out of her Capitol office suite just months after taking office. The last-minute revision also displaces staffers of Lieutenant Governor Deidre Henderson, taking away prime Capitol space from Utah's two female Republican statewide officeholders.
The plan to move the State Auditor out of the current office suite on the second floor of the Capitol started in 2024. Legislation approved last year required that the auditor be given "a substantially similar space" elsewhere inside the main Capitol building. Today's surprise substitution dramatically altered that condition, downgrading the requirement to somewhere on Capitol Hill. Additionally, the space currently occupied by the Elections Office — not mentioned in previous plans — was suddenly added to the eviction notice Thursday afternoon.
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Cannon says she was surprised by the changes, only learning of the plan during what she thought was a routine budget meeting with Senate President Stuart Adams on Tuesday morning.
"We had been asking for a budget increase all session, which was not approved. When I was asked to come to the President's office on Tuesday morning, I asked if the meeting was to discuss my budget request," Cannon said. "That's when he started talking about office space."
The original legislation created a process for evaluating Capitol space usage, requiring input from the governor, state auditor, attorney general, state treasurer, Senate president and House speaker. According to Cannon, that step was completely ignored.
"There was a process that was supposed to be followed, but it wasn't. I sent him (Adams) a letter after he wouldn't return my phone calls asking him to just follow the process," Cannon said.
In a statement provided to Utah Political Watch, Adams denied keeping Cannon in the dark about the changes.
"We were transparent about the amendment by inviting Auditor Cannon to a meeting with Sen. McKell, the bill's sponsor, my staff and myself to discuss it. During the meeting, when Auditor Cannon asked if funding requests and office space were connected, I specifically stated that it was in no way tied together. It is deeply disappointing that the auditor has chosen to spread inaccurate information that is completely false," Adams said.
The eviction will also kill one of Cannon's signature achievements: her newly launched "Transparency Room"—a space she created to empower ordinary Utahns to investigate how their government spends taxpayer money.
Thursday's legislative land grab raises troubling questions: Why are part-time lawmakers displacing full-time elected officials from Utah's seat of government? When pressed for justification, both Senate President Adams and House Speaker Mike Schultz offered no explanation for the move.
