DEI for White, Mormon, Conservative Men. Others Need Not Apply*
Editor’s Note: Infuriating but not surprising. The waste laid by these folks on the right is so blatant and cringe-inducing and utterly self-serving, I find myself wondering if the species is even worth saving.
During lunch on Friday our phones blew up with the news that Utah Supreme Court Justice Diana Hagen had just resigned. One series of texts from a friend who happens to be white, Mormon, and male, began:
“Attacking the judiciary apparently works. By packing the state supreme court, attacking justices whom he appointed and subsequently disagrees with, politicizing nominating commissions, and stacking the courts with white Mormon men, Spencer Cox’s legacy may be the politicization of the state courts and the destruction of Utah’s merit-selected judiciary.
“It’s truly infuriating to listen to Cox talk about how Utah government is a model for the nation and his disagree better bullshit and then actively participate in destroying the separation of powers. The whole saga likely has scared away any qualified candidate who isn’t a political hack.”
My friend at lunch received the same texts. He started in:
“There’s no such thing as co-equal branches. Trump reigns over a do-nothing congress. The unitary executive controls a politicized court that mostly rubber-stamps.”
“Here in Utah, it’s the same — no co-equal branches, no balance of power. Except,” he added, “it’s the legislature that controls the government. It dominates a weak, malleable governor drunk on Trump’s Kool-Aid. It’s not only recreating the courts in its image but taking purposeful steps to eliminate judicial independence and bring the courts under the supermajority’s political control.”
You may recall that after what once was an independent judiciary disagreed with the Utah legislature on Prop 4 and redistricting, the latter, as its final straw, set out to reform the Supreme Court in its image — to assure judicial outcomes favorable to the supermajority’s legislative agenda. The 2026 overhaul included expanding the high court from five to seven jurists under a pathetically transparent pretext: “seven sets of eyes reviewing the most complex and difficult issues our state has ever faced is better than having only five sets of eyes,” according to House Majority Leader Casey Snider. Governor Cox wasted no time signing it into law.
The legislature also created a special three-judge “constitutional court” to hear cases challenging state laws, among other reforms. A privileged legislature now has its very own court. The Utah Attorney General quickly moved four cases to the newly created court — a challenge to Utah’s abortion ban, the Prop 4 case involving gerrymandered congressional districts, a lawsuit challenging the state’s failure to protect the Great Salt Lake, and a case involving the state’s reliance on fossil fuels.
Plaintiffs in each case challenged the move to the “constitutional court” as unconstitutional.
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Given the newly crafted Supreme Court “packed” with jurists who the legislature has taken steps to assure will support its broad agenda, and Justice Hagan’s resignation, will the high court’s majority be the legislative “yes” men the supermajority has in mind? As my friend said, “Attacking the judiciary apparently works.” The legislature has learned from the best. When it throws tantrums and threatens judges with impeachment for disagreeing with them, judges get death threats.
The selection commission released the 12 candidate names from whom the governor will nominate the two new Supreme Court justices. The senate will decide whether to confirm. I’m sure each prospective justice has a sterling academic resume and an unblemished professional record. Each is white, each male, each appears to have close ties to the LDS church. Not a woman among them. Not a minority. One person commenting on the Utah State Bar’s post announcing the nominees described their ethnic diversity as “mayonnaise and wonder bread.” Another asked how the nominating commission could even “put forth a list of TWELVE people that include no women[.] Is this the 1950s?”
Make America Great Again!
“DEI for white, conservative, Mormon men,” I said to my friend at lunch. And so it is. All others need not apply.
I’d planned this week’s post to address Utah Governor Cox’s flawed rationale in calling for citizens to vote against the two Utah Supreme Court justices who were up for retention in the November election — justices Governor Cox had appointed.
Governor Cox claimed the high court’s 2024 ruling misapplied the state constitution by limiting legislative power over ballot initiatives. Anyone paying close attention to the Proposition 4 court battle knows the legislature lost that case fair and square. Legislative hubris, strategic mistakes in litigation, and clear U.S. Supreme Court precedent against obdurateness — after the legislature stubbornly refused to draw a constitutionally compliant map in time for the election — mandated the outcome and current map. Then, the legislature missed every deadline to timely appeal the trial court’s decisions. I addressed these issues in detail in previous posts.
See Utah’s Supermajority Wants to Force the Judiciary Inside its Tent and Have Its Way
Utah’s High Court Calls Out the Utah Legislature’s Failure to Follow Basic Rules to Secure an Appeal
Going back to my exploding phone during lunch, the text messages continued:
“Given the precedent, imagine what the Utah GOP would say about a Supreme Court justice who had accepted substantial gifts from parties with cases before the court. Or flown on free private jets or taken luxury vacations with litigants before the court. Or lied under oath before a co-equal branch of government.
“Or accepted millions of dollars from law firms with cases before the court via ‘fees’ solicited by the justice’s spouse.
“Oh wait . . . .”
*Robert Hodgson Van Wagoner, the talented fiction writer and novelist, is my brother. He deserves considerable credit for offering substantive and technical suggestions to my blog. His second novel, The Contortionists, which Rob himself narrates for the audio version, is a psychological page-turner about a missing child in a Mormon community. It is a literary masterpiece.
