In Utah, Governor Spencer Cox’s (R) most recent budget proposal includes nearly $3 million allocated to increasing the number of justices on the state’s Supreme Court and its Court of Appeals by two justices each. Currently, the Supreme Court has five justices, and the Court of Appeals has seven.

Utah is one of 15 states that have five justices on its state supreme court, although one of Oklahoma’s courts also has five justices. The most common number of justices for a state supreme court is seven (28 states). Seven courts in six states have nine justices (both of Texas’s courts of last resort have nine justices). The most recent states to expand the number of justices on their court were Arizona and Georgia in 2016.

Utah selects its supreme court justices via an assisted appointment method. This means that the governor chooses a justice from a commission, although states vary in how the commission is appointed. In Utah, the commission is governor-appointed, a method which is used by nine other states. However, Utah is one of six states where the governor's choice requires confirmation in the state Senate. In total, 21 states use the assisted appointment method.

If the bill to expand the number of justices were to pass, Gov. Cox would appoint two new justices, with Senate approval. According to The Salt Lake Tribune’s Robert Gehrke, the bill’s passage would mean Cox “will have appointed five of what would be seven justices, and with [Supreme Court justice Matthew] Durrant, now 68 years old, Cox could potentially appoint a sixth, plus a new chief justice, before the end of his second term.”