Karsten Walker
- The Hypocrisy of Utah’s Power Grab: Fighting Washington While Crushing Town Hall
- Do As I Say, Not As I Do:
Utah’s political leaders love to talk about federalism — until they don’t.
When battling Washington over public lands, they’re constitutional warriors defending local control. When cities resist state housing mandates, suddenly centralized power looks pretty good. The state wants the Feds to turn control over -as they take the reins on local development.
You can’t have it both ways.
The Federal Fight: “Power to the People”
Utah controls the messaging brilliantly. The state argues that Washington’s grip on 64% of Utah’s land violates constitutional principles, throttles economic growth, and silences local voices. Federal bureaucrats thousands of miles away shouldn’t dictate what happens in Utah communities.
It’s a compelling argument. The Transfer of Public Lands Act, ongoing lawsuits, and the Legislative Commission on Federalism all push the same theme: government works best when it’s closest to the people.
Utah’s 2024 Supreme Court case may have stalled, but the state isn’t backing down. Why? Because the principle matters — or so they say.
The Local Squeeze: “Do As We Say”
Here’s where things get awkward.
While Utah demands autonomy from Washington, it’s simultaneously stripping power from its own cities and counties. Governor Cox has made no secret of his frustration with local zoning policies that limit housing development. His solution? State mandates that override municipal decisions.
Accessory dwelling units? State-mandated. Density near transit with tax incentives? State-mandated. Don’t comply? Lose your infrastructure funding and grants – get a governing group developer funded challenger candidate in your next election.
The state now dictates land-use decisions that, for generations, belonged to local city governments. Municipal leaders who understand their communities’ infrastructure limits, environmental constraints, and neighborhood character find themselves overruled by legislators at the Capital in Salt Lake City.
The message is clear: local control matters — unless locals disagree with us.
The Contradiction
Let’s be direct: this is strategic federalism, not principled federalism.
Strategic federalism treats decentralization as a political tool. Use it when convenient, ignore it when not.
Principled federalism treats decentralization as a constitutional value that applies consistently across all levels of government.
Utah’s current approach is overwhelmingly strategic. The state demands subsidiarity — authority at the lowest effective level — when challenging federal overreach. But when cities exercise that same principle against state housing goals, subsidiarity becomes “an obstacle to economic growth.”
If centralized control is unconstitutional when Washington does it, why is it sound policy when Utah does it?
Why This Matters
This isn’t just philosophical hair-splitting. Real consequences follow.
Federal land ownership absolutely affects Utah’s tax base, energy development, and infrastructure potential. The state’s economic arguments have merit.
But local governments have legitimate concerns too. State housing mandates impose development without adequate infrastructure funding. Municipal officials actually live in the communities they govern. They know which neighborhoods can handle growth and which can’t. PIDs, HTRZs, Inland Ports tend to favor the politically and legislatively connected firms and corporations with tax incentives, abatements, and zoning – rolling over locals through state legislation. This is government crony capitalism picking winners and losers and taking over private development with state run incentives, redevelopment and special “districts”, political subdivisions. Why in a capitalistic system has the state decided to develop areas like the Point, Inland Ports, Transit Stops, etc..? What happens when the government interferes in markets?
The question isn’t just who should govern, but why we trust one level of government over another. Voters want accountability. The taxation without represenatation issues comes back as areas (PIDS, HRTZs, Inland Ports) and developer firms and interests – bond without public votes. The public votes – Voters have the say on general obligation bonds but don’t get a say on PID bonds, HTRZ bonds, Inland Port Bonds, etc…
The Political Enforcement: Enter the Governing Group
When state mandates aren’t enough, there’s always the next election. https://utahpolicy.com/news-release/75904-governing-group-candidates-win-47-races-across-utah-in-2025-municipal-elections
The Governing Group PAC has become the enforcement arm of Utah’s pro-development agenda. In 2025 alone, their endorsed candidates won 47 municipal races — 14 mayors, 21 city council members, and 12 school board members. These victories came in Utah’s fastest-growing cities: Draper, Herriman, Bluffdale, Saratoga Springs, South Jordan and it cities with housing issues like Pleasant Grove and Orem.
The pattern is unmistakable. Local officials who resist aggressive housing development or advocate slowing growth to match infrastructure capacity find themselves facing well-funded challengers in the next election cycle. The Governing Group, backed by real estate and development interests, targets these races with resources that local “slow growth” candidates can’t match.
The message to current city council members is brutally clear: approve the developments, or we’ll find someone who will.
This isn’t grassroots democracy. It’s strategic political replacement of local leaders who actually exercise local control. The same cities where residents elected officials to preserve neighborhood character and manage growth responsibly are now being systematically flipped to pro-development majorities.
Governing Group founder Becky Edwards says they support “leaders who put their communities above partisanship.” But when your endorsed candidates sweep the fastest-growing municipalities in Utah — precisely where development pressure is highest — it’s hard to see this as anything but a coordinated campaign to remove obstacles to construction.
The irony is staggering. Utah demands control over federal lands in the name of local decision-making, then funds political operations to punish local decision-makers who don’t align with state development priorities.
Local control, apparently, means the freedom to agree with state policy — or get challenged and voted out.
The Credibility Problem
Utah’s federal land campaign raises serious constitutional questions worthy of debate. But credibility requires consistency.
You can’t invoke the equal footing doctrine against Washington while practicing unequal footing with your own municipalities. You can’t demand respect for state sovereignty while disrespecting local sovereignty.
Utah’s rapid growth creates genuine challenges. Housing shortages are real. Infrastructure demands are urgent. But difficult policy problems don’t justify abandoning governing principles. It is not just what you do – but how you do it.
“No Taxation Without Representation” — Utah Edition
Thomas Paine warned that “taxation without representation was a predictable consequence of placing power in any person or institution other than the people or their freely and fairly elected representatives.” In 1776, colonists rebelled against exactly this principle.
In 2026, Utah has reinvented it.
Meet Utah’s Public Infrastructure Districts (PIDs) — government entities that can issue millions in bonds, levy property taxes to repay them, and operate with virtually no voter accountability. The Utah Inland Port Authority provides the perfect case study.
In 2021, the Inland Port board created a PID and authorized $150 million in bonds with a 35-year repayment term. These bonds would be repaid through property taxes collected within the district — taxes imposed by an unelected board operating “one or two layers removed from any elected representation,” as board member Dennis Faris himself noted.
The parallels to 1776 are uncomfortable. The colonists protested Parliament taxing them without colonial representation. Today, Utah residents find themselves taxed by boards they didn’t elect, funding projects they didn’t approve, with accountability structures designed specifically to insulate decision-makers from voters.
The port authority tried to argue no new taxes would be levied — only increased property values from development would fund the bonds. But this is taxation by another name. Future property owners will pay higher assessments to fund infrastructure that primarily benefits developers and logistics companies, not residents.
Environmental groups tried to deliver a petition with 2,000 signatures opposing the PID. Security stopped them at the elevators. One protester asked: “Have you ever heard of a municipal government issuing $150 million in bonds and telling the taxpayers that they’re not quite sure what they’re going to do with the money?”
Over 300 PIDs now operate across Utah — unelected boards with bonding authority, tax levy power, and minimal oversight. They’re marketed as flexible development tools. In practice, they’re taxation without representation, wrapped in bureaucratic language and insulated from democratic accountability.
This isn’t progress. It’s regress to the exact governmental structure the American Revolution rejected. As Paine wrote in Common Sense, authoritarian leaders “inevitably serve their own interests rather than the people’s” through self-serving decrees disconnected from popular consent.
Utah demands control over federal lands in the name of democratic accountability. Simultaneously, it creates unelected authorities that can tax property owners to fund development projects with no meaningful public input.
The contradiction couldn’t be starker.
The Choices Ahead
Utah faces a fundamental decision: Is federalism a core principle or a convenient argument? Should voters get a voice on bonds and property taxes? Should politicans that want limited or slower development get challenged by real estate friendly and developer financially backed governing group candidates?
If local control truly matters — if government really works best when closest to the people — then that principle must extend beyond state-federal disputes. It must include genuine respect for municipal governance, even when cities make choices state leaders dislike.
Otherwise, Utah’s federalism becomes what critics already suspect: a flexible tool deployed only when politically useful. Although we can applaud the goal or good intention of more affordable housing – the truth is – it isn’t just the goal or the intention but how we get there or the process that matters.
The real test of principled behavior and leadership is whether you apply your principles when it’s inconvenient.
Right now, Utah is failing that test.