1 week Ago By Lindsay Aerts
SALT LAKE CITY (ABC4) -- Groups opposed to repealing Utah's recent ban on collective bargaining say they won't be working to rescind the signatures collected in the repeal effort of H.B. 267.
Instead, they say they'll focus their efforts on informing voters, hoping Utahns will vote to uphold the law in the 2026 election."We likely are going to focus our efforts on the vote and the ballot at this point, I don't foresee we'll spend a great deal of time working to rescind and pull those off," Cole Kelley told ABC4.com.
"There may be other efforts that I'm not aware of that they'll spend time doing that, but...
for the most part, the (Political Issues Committee) that I'm involved with will be focused on the ballot."Kelley represents the fundraising arm for the rescission effort, Utahns for Worker Freedom. Americans for Prosperity (AFP) and Utah Parents United (UPU), two other groups working in opposition to the public labor unions, told ABC4.
com they, too, won't work to rescind.THE LATEST — Utah’s collective bargaining referendum hits qualifying thresholdsOn Monday, the public labor union coalition Protect Utah Workers hit the required thresholds to put the issue on the November 2026 ballot -- which total 140,768 signatures and 8% of voters in 15 of 29 Senate Districts. The Lieutenant Governor has until June 23 to certify those efforts.
Kelley acknowledged that the labor groups had collected enough signatures to meet their thresholds. "They not only met the threshold, they exceeded the threshold," he said. "Philosophically, we trust the voters of Utah, and we believe that when they understand H.
B. 267, and they understand what it truly does, that the voters of Utah will support this legislation."Kelley was also asked whether there was any consideration by lawmakers to repeal H.
B. 267 so it didn't make it to the ballot. He said that "various strategies" have been discussed, including a repeal of the bill, but the emphasis will be to focus on educating voters before 2026.
"There's been discussions, but there's been no decision that's been made there," Kelley said, reiterating that the focus was on voter education."The strategy is to focus on the ballot," Kelly said.Kelley said that AFP, UPU, the creator of PIC, Jason Powers, and legislators -- including the bill's House Sponsor Jordan Teuscher -- had all been involved in strategy discussions, but later clarified that there was not much support for repealing it.
Teuscher said he had not been involved in the counter-efforts.The political issues committee (PIC), is a reporting requirement of the state to disclose who is funding issues related to a ballot measure. The anti-referendum PIC has not disclosed any contributions as of this report.
However, Kelley said groups like AFP and UPU have spent their own dollars informing Utahns about the issue through their "Decline to Sign" campaign. H.B.
267 -- called “Public Sector Labor Union Amendments” -- passed the Utah Senate on February 6 and was signed by Gov. Spencer Cox on February 14. Referendum efforts were launched in March 2025.
As of Monday, April 28, more than 146,000 signatures had been verified out of the over 320,000 turned in for the referendum efforts..
