SB157 would require the Utah Department of Safety to assist counties and municipalities in establishing “citizen advisory boards.” Such local boards would have the “authority to review and make recommendations” regarding “police conduct or misconduct.”
The Senate passed SB157 on February 17, 2021, by a vote of 21 to 6. We have assigned pluses to the nays because unelected ‘civilian review boards’ are an attempt to exert control over state and local law enforcement, a power that, under both Article IV, Section 4, and the 10th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, is guaranteed to be reserved to each state and–by devolvement–local government. In a republic, government is limited to rule of law of, by, and for the people, whose representative officials shall alone exercise legitimate civil authority.