Utah Small Business Scorecard Shows 54 Legislators at 100% — What Chamber Leaders Should Do With That Data
NFIB Utah graded the full legislature on eight business-climate votes. Fifty-four lawmakers scored perfect marks. Here is how downtown and chamber advocates can use that list.
Every session, the National Federation of Independent Business releases state-level legislative scorecards, and most chamber professionals glance at them and move on. The 2024 Utah edition is worth a longer look. According to NFIB Utah, 54 members of the Utah Legislature earned a 100 percent small business voting record, meaning they voted the right way — by NFIB's measure — on all eight issues the organization tracked this session. That is not a majority of the 104-member body, but it is a meaningful bloc, and it has practical uses for anyone running a downtown association, a BID, or a local chamber.
NFIB has been issuing these scorecards for decades. The Utah chapter scores lawmakers on votes that directly touch operating costs: tax policy, workforce regulations, liability exposure, and the like. The specific eight votes from the 2024 session have not been publicly itemized in a single release as of this writing, but NFIB's methodology is public record, and the organization does respond to direct records requests. If you need the vote-by-vote breakdown for advocacy work, ask for it. For more on the topic discussed above, see Main Street Press USA.
Why the Raw Number Matters More Than the Score
A perfect score is useful marketing for a legislator, but for a chamber director, the number 54 is what matters. It tells you roughly half the legislature voted in lockstep with NFIB's priorities on every tracked bill. That is a coalition, even if it was not organized as one. It also means the other 50-odd legislators did not — and understanding why is the more productive question for local advocates.
Utah has 29 state senators and 75 state representatives. The 54 perfect scorers likely skew toward the House, where the Republican caucus holds a supermajority. Cross-referencing NFIB's list against your specific district is straightforward. The Utah Legislature's website, le.utah.gov, publishes full member rosters with district maps. If your BID or chamber covers Salt Lake City's downtown core, for instance, your relevant legislators are almost certainly not in the 54 — Salt Lake City's legislative seats tend to go to Democrats, whose priorities on labor and tax votes diverge from NFIB's grading criteria.
That is not an argument for or against any party. It is an argument for precision. Blanket statements about pro-business or anti-business legislators are less useful than knowing exactly where your specific representatives landed on specific votes that affect your members' payroll costs, lease terms, or liability exposure.
The Practical Step
Pull the NFIB Utah scorecard and map it against your membership's districts before your next board meeting. Identify which of your members' legislators are in the 54, which are not, and which votes accounted for the difference. That gives you a factual basis for a targeted advocacy conversation rather than a generic one. Chambers that show up to those conversations with specific vote data tend to get more traction than those carrying generalized talking points. The scorecard is a starting point, not a conclusion.