Transparency that depends on self-reporting isn’t transparency

Transparency that depends on self-reporting isn’t transparency

People arrive to work at the Capitol in Salt Lake City on the first day of the legislative session, Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2026. (Photo by Spenser Heaps for Utah News Dispatch)Utah’s public-records law broke down in the simplest possible way: I asked for records, the Jordan School District said it had none because an elected official used a personal Gmail account, and when I pressed further, I was told he frequently deleted messages and had produced …