AI-generated summary, reviewed by Better Utah staff.

This bill updates the laws governing how Utah's Judicial Performance Evaluation Commission — the independent body that assesses whether judges are performing well enough to appear on retention election ballots — conducts its evaluations and surveys. It reorganizes and restructures the relevant statutes, clarifies meeting and voting requirements, expands the judicial performance survey to include parties who appeared in a case (not just attorneys, jurors, and court staff), and revamps the survey categories to separately assess judges on legal competence, impartiality, communication, temperament, and administrative capacity. It also adds new, specific deadlines for Supreme Court justices and Court of Appeals judges to issue written opinions — for example, Supreme Court justices must distribute all opinions within one year of submission — and requires the commission to study whether how often a judge is reversed on appeal should factor into evaluations, reporting findings to the Legislature by November 2026.