The Majority Leader’s $114,250 vs. $23,989

H.B. 530 (2025) and “open meetings rules”

Cullimore’s campaign site lists “Government Accountability” as a priority: “An accessible and transparent government best serves the people. We must continue to encourage open meetings rules, budget accountability, and proper oversight and reporting of government expenditures.”

H.B. 530 (2025), which he carried in the Senate, created the Nucleus Institute and says: “The institute and the Utah innovation fund are not subject to: (a) Title 52, Chapter 4, Open and Public Meetings Act; or (b) Title 63G, Chapter 2, Government Records Access and Management Act.” The Nucleus Institute’s own “Our Team” page, as read for his profile, lists him as a board member; his disclosure form does not list it.

Full detail: his Utah Senators profile, Movement III.

H.B. 276 (2026): AI-made intimate images, and the final version

Rep. Ariel Defay’s H.B. 276, “Artificial Intelligence Modifications,” was signed March 24, 2026 and takes effect Jan. 1, 2027. Cullimore was its Senate sponsor, and the bill page lists him as sponsor of the second substitute, the version that became law. As enrolled, it:

• creates the Digital Voyeurism Prevention Act: an AI “generation service” may not distribute a “counterfeit intimate image” of a real person without that person’s consent, kept on record for seven years;
• lets the person depicted sue for actual damages, including emotional distress, punitive damages for willful, reckless or malicious violations, and attorney fees, within three years of discovery or 10 years of the violation;
• requires “covered platforms,” as the federal Take It Down Act defines them, to remove reported images within 48 hours;
• gives generation services a safe harbor if they keep and publish a written policy and safeguards, run a consent system and act promptly on notice, and gives platforms one if they keep takedown procedures and act in good faith; either can raise it before trial, and a platform that wins on it is awarded its attorney fees;
• requires a plaintiff to plead “with particularity” why the company doesn’t qualify for the safe harbor; a second failed complaint is dismissed with prejudice and the company is awarded its fees; and
• creates the Digital Content Provenance Standards Act: large platforms must show and keep content-origin data, camera makers must embed it (for devices sold from 2028), and AI providers with over 1 million monthly users must label AI-made images, video and audio, enforced by the Division of Consumer Protection with fines up to $2,500 per violation.

How the final version differs from the original. Per the compare document (original bill against the second substitute), the original’s civil-liability sections included “statutory damages in an amount not less than $10,000 and not more than $100,000 for each violation” against generation services and $5,000 to $50,000 against platforms; those are gone. The original also had a separate “actual knowledge” clause for platforms and a rebuttable presumption after a missed takedown; the enacted version defines platform liability mainly by notice and takedown. File-sharing platforms were dropped from the definition of a large online platform, a section on licensing AI systems to third parties was removed, and the start date moved from May 6, 2026 to Jan. 1, 2027. The safe-harbor and pleading-standard sections are not among the original’s sections. Which substitute, the House’s first or the second, made each change was not determined; the compare to the first substitute was not read. The enacted law keeps that a plaintiff need not prove actual damages to win an order stopping the distribution and removing the images, and that a plaintiff who wins recovers attorney fees.

Votes and hearings: the House Economic Development and Workforce Services Committee adopted the first substitute and recommended it 5–1 on Feb. 12, 2026 (Rep. Leah Hansen voting no); the House passed it, amended, 66–0 on Feb. 20. The Senate Transportation, Public Utilities, Energy, and Technology Committee amended and recommended it 5–0 on Feb. 26; per the minutes, the Commerce Department’s executive director, the state’s chief privacy officer and the CEO of SureMark Digital spoke in favor, and the Abundance Institute spoke to the bill. The Senate and final House votes on the second substitute were not in hand.

Worth seeing side by side: Google, whose search engine and platforms fit the bill’s “large online platform” definition, gave his campaign $5,000 on July 16, 2026; Encode AI gave $5,000 on Jan. 15. A personal-injury law firm and the trial lawyers’ association gave him $25,000 in 2026. The records don’t show any connection between the gifts and the substitute beyond subject and timing.

Full case file: H.B. 276 (Bill-Tracker, grade C).

H.B. 320 (2026): waivers of state law for AI companies

Cullimore was Senate floor sponsor of Rep. Paul Cutler’s H.B. 320, “Office of Artificial Intelligence Policy Amendments,” signed March 18, 2026. It changes the Office of Artificial Intelligence Policy that Cullimore’s 2024 bill created. As enrolled, it:

• defines a “regulatory mitigation agreement” as one that “permits a participant to use or deploy artificial intelligence technology despite a law or rule that might impede or interfere with that use or deployment,” with terms such as cure periods before penalties or “reduced civil fines during the demonstration period”;
• adds “joint interpretation agreements” that clarify how a state law or rule applies to an AI technology;
• lets these agreements be made with a “governmental entity,” defined as the judiciary, a state-funded college or public school, or a city, county or other political subdivision, as well as state agencies;
• requires each agreement to list safeguards, any required disclosures to consumers and reporting for audits, requires the office to “perform regular audits” while an agreement is in effect, and keeps the participant subject to every law not expressly waived;
• requires the office’s yearly report to the Business and Labor Interim Committee to cover “any regulatory mitigation or joint interpretation agreements executed by the office”;
• says the state is not responsible for claims arising from a participant’s actions under an agreement; and
• limits an agreement’s demonstration period to 12 months and lets the office grant “up to two extensions”; the length of an extension is not stated in the text as read.

Votes and hearings: in the House Economic Development and Workforce Services Committee on Feb. 4, 2026, Rep. Doug Fiefia (SD-18) moved Amendment #1, which allows “up to two extensions” (7–0), and moved to recommend the bill (7–1, Rep. Leah Hansen voting no). Per the minutes, the director of the Office of Artificial Intelligence helped present it and a resident spoke against it. The House passed it 69–0 on Feb. 17. The Senate Government Operations and Political Subdivisions Committee recommended it 6–0 on Feb. 23, and the Senate passed it 26–0 and 28–0.

H.B. 492 (2026): housing loans, a convention center and the canyons

Cullimore was Senate sponsor of Rep. Calvin Roberts’ H.B. 492, “Transportation, Infrastructure, and Housing Amendments,” signed March 25, 2026. Per its enrolled summary and text, it:

• creates the State Housing Infrastructure Partnership Fund and a board that can lend to cities and other political subdivisions for infrastructure that allows housing to be built;
• lets the board make one loan of up to $18,000,000, for up to three years, to the Point of the Mountain State Land Authority;
• “exempts conduct arising from the provision of affordable housing, if the housing benefits are provided to all qualified residents, from certain ethics requirements for public officers”;
• appropriates $100,000,000 in fund transfers and directs $50,000,000 from the County of the First Class Highway Projects Fund to a new Convention Center Reserves Restricted Account for a county-owned convention center; and
• “establishes requirements in relation to a public transit hub project for the Cottonwood Canyons,” in the district.

Full case file, including how the $18,000,000 loan was first labeled: H.B. 492 (Bill-Tracker).

H.B. 220 (2026): public-safety data and a records-request rule

Cullimore was Senate floor sponsor of Rep. Ryan Wilcox’s H.B. 220, “Public Safety Data Amendments,” signed March 26, 2026. As enrolled, it:

• moves three reports (attempted gun purchases by people barred for domestic violence, and sexual assaults in juvenile detention and in prisons) from the Legislature’s Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice Interim Committee to the State Commission on Criminal and Juvenile Justice’s public safety portal;
• adds new data to the portal, including crime in college student housing, sexual assault kits, a Board of Pardons and Parole report and the Prosecutor Conduct Commission’s annual complaint report;
• requires “a searchable portion of the public safety portal” that is “available to the public” and shows de-identified data; and
• says the commission “is not required to provide a record in response to a record request” for records it receives for the portal, but “shall inform the person making a record request” of the agency it got the record from.

What changed: per the compare document, the second substitute removed a new part titled “Researcher Access to Criminal Justice Information,” which would have required courts, police, prosecutors, jails and others to provide anonymized criminal justice information to researchers in certain circumstances. That substitute was adopted in the House Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice Committee on Feb. 2, 2026, 10–0, on a motion by Rep. Katy Hall (HD-11), which then recommended it 10–0. The Senate Government Operations and Political Subdivisions Committee recommended it 6–0 on Feb. 17. No public speakers are recorded in either set of minutes. Rep. Wilcox, its primary sponsor, is on this year’s ballot (HD-7). Floor votes were not in hand.

Bills next to his donors and board seats

• Torts: he was primary sponsor of S.B. 211, “Tort Amendments” (died). A personal-injury law firm and the trial lawyers’ association gave him $25,000 in 2026.
• Health care: he floor-sponsored H.B. 71, “Health Provider Directory and Access Amendments” (signed), which sets insurer provider-directory and behavioral-health access rules, and sits on Common Spirit Utah’s community advisory board. Health care groups gave him $17,500 in 2026.
• Tobacco: he floor-sponsored H.B. 447, “Tobacco Amendments” (signed). Altria gave him $5,000 on Sept. 1, 2026.
• AI and tech: he sponsored or carried more than a dozen AI, data and digital-identity bills in 2026. Encode AI and Google gave him $5,000 each.

The bills and the gifts are both public records. The records don’t show any connection between them beyond subject and timing. H.B. 71 was read for the grades below; the other bills’ texts were not read for this page.

• S.B. 236 (2026), Sen. Keith Grover’s property tax exemption bill: voted yes in the Senate Revenue and Taxation Committee, 5–0, on Feb. 5, 2026; absent for the floor vote. See Case 29.
• S.B. 326 (2026), Grover’s school board officer bill: absent for the Senate vote, 27–0.
• S.B. 65 (2026): voted yes, 18–11.