A Campaign Balance Below Zero vs. $180 in Cash

S.B. 107 (2023): the fund that became a highway account

As passed by the Senate 21–6, Winterton’s bill sent above-trend oil and gas severance tax to a new Severance Mitigation Projects Fund for communities affected by drilling. A House floor substitute proposed by Rep. Mike Schultz removed that fund and sent up to $88.5 million to the statewide Transportation Investment Fund instead. The House passed it 54–14; the Senate agreed 19–7 on March 2, 2023, with Winterton voting yes. The tax companies pay did not change.

Full case file: S.B. 107 (Bill-Tracker, grade D).

S.B. 207 (2025): the county fee ban with no end date

• Nov. 18, 2024: At Duchesne County’s hearing on its own oil and gas road fee (Ordinance #24-409), Lori Winterton told commissioners her husband “is working on bills that would divert some money to the County for road repairs” and that “this ordinance wouldn’t be required” if they passed (county minutes).
• As introduced: a state tax of 5 cents per barrel of oil and 1 cent per thousand cubic feet of gas, with the whole act, including the ban on county fees, set to repeal in 2030.
• Feb. 12, 2025: The first substitute, moved in Senate committee by Sen. Brady Brammer, cut the gas rate to ¼ cent and removed the 2030 repeal.
• As signed March 25, 2025: the state tax covers oil and gas “produced within the state on or after January 1, 2026, and before January 1, 2029” and goes back to the county it came from. New Section 59-32-102(6) says: “Unless specifically authorized by statute, a county may not impose an oil or gas mitigation fee.” The introduced bill’s line “Title 59, Chapter 32, Local Impact Mitigation Tax Act, is repealed July 1, 2030” is marked removed in both the first substitute and the third substitute, the version the House adopted and the Senate accepted. The version signed has no repeal date for the act, including the fee ban. Compare documents: introduced vs. first substitute; introduced vs. third substitute.

Full case file: S.B. 207 (Bill-Tracker, grade F).

S.B. 227 (2026): from damages caps to an employer rule

• As introduced (Jan. 30): capped punitive damages in personal injury cases involving a motor vehicle at the greater of $200,000 or two times economic damages plus up to $750,000 in noneconomic damages, and capped the injured person’s attorney fees at 25% of the punitive award.
• Feb. 4: the Senate Transportation, Public Utilities, Energy, and Technology Committee, where Winterton is a member, recommended the bill 4–2 (Harper, Ipson, Millner and Winterton yes; Kwan and Riebe no; Adams and Wilson absent).
• A first substitute, drafted but never adopted, would have capped nearly all punitive awards (except those from a death) at the greater of two times compensatory damages, up to $2.5 million, or $750,000; kept the cap from the jury; and declared that punitive awards “burden the cost of insurance for persons in this state.”
• Feb. 23–24: on the Senate floor the bill was replaced with the second substitute and amended by voice vote, then passed 24–1 and 26–0. The second substitute has no dollar caps. It keeps an insurer rule and an employer rule: an employer or principal can’t be held vicariously liable for punitive damages unless its own conduct was willful, malicious or reckless, or it approved the conduct.
• Feb. 27: the House Business, Labor, and Commerce Committee recommended it 10–0 (six absent, including Speaker Mike Schultz); Weber County Reps. Jason Kyle and Jake Sawyer voted yes.
• March 5: on the House floor, the fourth substitute replaced the second by voice vote, and the House passed it 56–12. The fourth substitute adds “managing agents” (supervisors and managers) to those covered, applies to an employee’s “tortious” conduct, and adds a third way for a plaintiff to win: showing the employer was reckless in hiring or keeping the employee. The rule applies to all punitive damages claims, including those from driving a vehicle or motorboat while impaired, and to claims arising on or after May 6, 2026. It also bars insurers from using the possibility of punitive damages in underwriting, rating or setting premiums.
• March 6: the Senate accepted the House version 28–1. Gov. Cox signed it March 18, 2026. House sponsor: Rep. Colin Jack.

Worth seeing side by side: Utah’s registry lists Winterton as a member of Winterton Trucking, L.L.C. The Utah Trucking Association PAC gave his campaign $500 (Jan. 12, 2025), and the American Property Casualty Insurance Association gave $500 (Jan. 15, 2026). The bill applies to employers generally; the records don’t show any connection between these facts beyond timing and subject.

H.B. 330 (2026): a defense for permitted activity, changed in the Senate

Winterton was Senate sponsor of Rep. Colin Jack’s H.B. 330, “Liability Limitations Amendments,” the House companion to the same pair’s S.B. 227. As signed, in its second substitute, it gives a person sued in a civil case an affirmative defense if the conduct, omission or condition that caused the harm was authorized or required by a statute, ordinance, administrative rule, “a permit, license, or order,” or another written instrument from a government entity, and that authorization was in effect at the time. The defense does not apply if the plaintiff proves the government entity itself has determined the person materially failed to comply, exceeded the authorization, or got it by fraud. It does not apply to product liability cases, does not remove the duty to use reasonable care, applies “regardless of the theory of liability,” and overrides common law that conflicts with it.

What changed from the first substitute: the first substitute said the defense would not apply when the harm was “proximately caused by negligent, reckless, fraudulent, or deceptive conduct in obtaining or carrying out the authorized activity,” “including a failure to disclose known material risks.” The second substitute removed that exception. In its place it keeps only fraud in getting the authorization, plus a line that the bill doesn’t remove the duty of reasonable care. The product exclusion was also shortened: the first substitute listed claims over a “defect, dangerous condition, or failure to warn” in a product, and the second says “a products liability action.”

Votes on record so far: the House Judiciary Committee recommended the original bill 7–0 on Feb. 2, 2026 (four absent). The House passed the first substitute, the version with the negligent, reckless or deceptive-conduct exception, 65–0 on Feb. 10. The second substitute, which removed that exception, was adopted in the Senate Economic Development and Workforce Services Committee on Feb. 17 (3–0 to substitute, 4–0 to recommend), and the Senate passed it 20–5 and then 17–7 on Feb. 25, with Winterton voting yes. The no votes: Sens. Blouin, Escamilla, Kwan, McKell, Pitcher, Plumb and Riebe. Among other senators with 2026 case files here, Buss (SD-11) voted yes, and Kwan (SD-12) and Plumb (SD-9) voted no. The House accepted the Senate’s version 50–15 on Feb. 26, and Gov. Cox signed it March 18, 2026.

S.B. 15 (2026): a county vote requirement removed

Winterton’s S.B. 15, “County Forms of Government Amendments” (House sponsor Rep. Mike Kohler), was signed March 17, 2026. Per its enrolled summary, it:

• “repeals a requirement that a majority of a county’s registered voters must vote to amend an optional plan that changes the status of a county executive or legislative body from full-time to part-time, or from part-time to full-time.” Such a change can now be made the way other plan amendments are, by a two-thirds vote of the county legislative body, unless it also changes the body’s size or makeup or the split of powers, which still go to voters.
• “repeals a restriction on a county with a population of 225,000 or more from including in an optional county government plan a full-time county commission in an expanded county commission form of government.”

Votes on record so far: the Senate passed it 27–0 on Jan. 20, 2026, the first day of the session, on second and third reading together under a suspension of the rules. The House Political Subdivisions Committee recommended it 8–0 on Jan. 29 (four absent); per the minutes, Winterton presented it, no one else spoke, and Rep. Kohler, its House sponsor, made the motion. The House passed it 51–20 on Feb. 5. Of the four House members whose districts sit inside SD-20, Reps. Tiara Auxier and Scott Chew voted no and Reps. Mike Kohler and Christine Watkins voted yes. Among other candidates with case files here, Rep. Doug Fiefia (SD-18), Rep. Jill Koford (SD-5) and Rep. Jake Sawyer (HD-9) voted no; Rep. Jason Kyle (HD-8) voted yes.

S.B. 266 (2026): limits on appointed county managers, not passed

Winterton’s S.B. 266, “County Governance Revisions,” had no House sponsor and was filed without passing on March 6, 2026. As introduced, in counties run by an elected council and an appointed manager, it would have:

• vested the county’s executive powers in the elected council instead of the manager, with the council chair ratifying executive actions;
• barred councils from handing the manager the powers of a county executive or of any elected county officer, or requiring elected officers or department heads to report to the manager;
• made the manager an at-will employee and, for contracts approved on or after May 6, 2026, barred automatic renewals, terms over four years, severance, and automatic or special raises; and
• said statewide that “an unelected county employee or officer may not perform the duties of an elected county executive.”

What happened: on Feb. 11, 2026, Winterton presented the bill to the Senate Government Operations and Political Subdivisions Committee, which he chairs; Sen. Evan Vickers took the chair for the item. Per the draft minutes, speaking in favor were Tooele County Recorder and Surveyor Jerry Houghton, Utah County Commissioner Amelia Powers Gardner and Maryann Christensen of Utah Legislative Watch. Speaking against were three Summit County officials, whose county is in SD-20 (Council Members Roger Armstrong and Megan McKenna and Clerk Eve Furse), Tooele County Council Member Kendall Thomas, and Lincoln Shurtz of the Utah Association of Counties. Winterton then moved to hold his own bill, and the committee agreed 6–0 (Plumb absent). On March 4 the committee returned it to the Senate Rules Committee, and its enacting clause was struck at 11:59 p.m. on March 6, the session’s last night.

S.C.R. 4 (2026): asking for a state role in federal drilling permits

Winterton’s concurrent resolution (House sponsor Rep. Carl Albrecht, who also sponsored the House substitute that passed) was signed March 7, 2026. A resolution states the Legislature’s position; it does not change law. As signed, it:

• says delays in Bureau of Land Management permitting “are impacting resource development in the state”;
• supports an agreement under which the state could take “the lead on the technical review of an Application for Permit to Drill” on BLM land, and “urges the Division of Oil, Gas, and Mining to immediately initiate negotiations” with the BLM; and
• says the final agreement must state that the Secretary of the Interior or the BLM “retains the ultimate, non-delegable authority and final decision-making authority” over federal leases and permits.

The House substitute: per the compare document, it replaced the original’s “memorandum of agreement (MOA)” with a “resource-sharing focused cooperative agreement” that either side can leave, and otherwise kept the same terms.

H.B. 457 (2026): automatic annexation of county islands

Winterton was Senate sponsor of Rep. James Dunnigan’s H.B. 457, “County Governance Modifications,” signed March 26, 2026 in its fifth substitute. As signed, it:

• on July 1, 2027, automatically annexes small unincorporated “islands” in counties of the second class into the city that surrounds them: areas of 55 acres or less, completely surrounded by one city, that the city already serves with sewer or culinary water, or that have no public infrastructure or infrastructure that meets the city’s standards;
• requires the county to mail notice and post it on the Utah Public Notice Website by May 1, 2027;
• lets the county legislative body exempt an island by resolution by May 1, 2027, in second-class counties under 600,000 people, and lets the surrounding city do so in counties of 600,000 or more; and
• in counties run by a council and an appointed manager, strikes two conditions from existing law on handing the county’s accounting services to the manager or a department head: that “the county auditor provides preapproval or postpayment review for all payments by the county,” and that the delegation be made “by ordinance passed on or before December 31, 2021.”

How it changed: the first and third substitutes were titled “County Growth Planning and Annexation Amendments” and also required certain third-class counties to plan for urban growth areas; that part was dropped. The first and second substitutes limited automatic annexation to second-class counties of 350,000 people or fewer; the signed version covers all second-class counties. The accounting change appears only in the later substitutes; it is not in the first three. The House passed the third substitute, still titled “County Growth Planning and Annexation Amendments” and without the accounting change, 62–2 on Feb. 27, 2026 (Reps. Leah Hansen and Trevor Shelley voting no). That means the growth-planning section came out, and the auditor-review change went in, after the bill reached the Senate, where Winterton was its sponsor. The House Political Subdivisions Committee had recommended it 7–2 on Feb. 24 (Reps. Leah Hansen and Mike Kohler voting no); per the minutes, Dunnigan presented it with Weber County Commissioner Gage Froerer and Chris Gamvroulas, president of Ivory Development, and Weber County Economic Development Director Stephanie Russell and the Utah League of Cities and Towns spoke in favor. In the Senate, the Government Operations and Political Subdivisions Committee, which Winterton chairs, replaced the third substitute with the fifth on March 3, 6–0, on a motion by Sen. Mike McKell; per the draft minutes, Dunnigan presented it there with Russell, and the League of Cities spoke in favor. No one spoke against it at either hearing, per the minutes. Then, on March 6, the session’s last day, the Senate passed the fifth substitute 25–1 on second and third reading together under a suspension of the rules (Sen. Heidi Balderree voting no). The House accepted the Senate’s version 61–6 at 8:40 p.m. that night, and Gov. Cox signed it March 26.

Residents of an island don’t vote on the annexation; the exemption decision rests with the county or city.

Who it reaches: the Utah Association of Counties lists Davis, Utah and Weber as the state’s second-class counties (260,000 to 1,149,999 people). In Weber, a second-class county under 600,000, the county commission decides which islands to exempt. Weber County’s own planning page says the county “has a number of unincorporated islands.” Inside SD-20, Summit County is third class; TownLift reported that the third substitute’s growth-planning rules would have applied to counties like Summit before that part was removed in the Senate. TownLift also reported that Ivory Homes’ president told the House committee he approached Rep. Dunnigan directly about the bill.

The mineral lease fund and his former employer

Winterton’s 2019 Senate disclosure form listed his employer as Jones and DeMille Engineering, “Client relations consultant.” Jones and DeMille is listed on the Rural Utah Infrastructure Coalition’s (formerly the Seven County Infrastructure Coalition’s) website as its planning and engineering provider. Winterton was the primary sponsor of S.B. 176 (2021), a change to how the Permanent Community Impact Fund Board may spend mineral lease money that critics tied to the Coalition’s Uinta Basin Railway and Winterton called an “innocuous clarification,” and of S.B. 111 (2022), which restructured that board. His 2026 form lists a different previous employer, Civil Consulting & Funding LLC of Roosevelt, described with the same words: “Civil engineering services, Client relations consultant.”

Two tribal bills, opposite directions (2026)

With Rep. Christine Watkins, Winterton carried H.B. 61, which adds a records exemption and reduces reporting detail on the Navajo Trust Fund (Bill-Tracker, grade F), and H.B. 75, signed Feb. 27, 2026 (graded A on the Bill-Tracker’s water, land and local power page). H.B. 75 requires the State Board of Education to adopt an American Indian and Alaska Native education state plan by Jan. 1, 2027, after “meaningful consultation with stakeholders and tribal leaders,” with “a process for sharing data with tribal education leaders”; and it adds yearly reports on which schools get the program’s grants and how well the money works. The amended version (Jan. 30) keeps all of that and adds that school districts’ local plans must reflect the state education vision and mission in Section 53E-2-301. The signed (enrolled) text matches that amended version word for word. The House Education Committee recommended it 10–1 on Jan. 22, 2026, with Rep. Nicholeen Peck voting no; the House passed the amended bill 72–0 on Jan. 30, Peck included. The Senate Education Committee recommended it 6–0 on Feb. 6 (Fillmore absent), and the Senate passed it 22–0 on its consent calendar on Feb. 12, with Winterton voting yes.