Rep. Trevor Lee, R-Layton, presents HB399 to the Utah House Education Committee on Feb. 12, 2026 (Screengrab via Vimeo)
Rep. Trevor Lee, R‑Layton, styles himself as one of the Utah Legislature’s loudest culture warriors. So far this session, he’s 0‑for‑3: his headline‑grabbing bids—including over‑the‑counter ivermectin and easier opt‑outs from school vaccine rules—have died in committee.
On Thursday, make it 0‑for‑4: the House Education Committee shelved HB399.
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Lee claims that public schools have implemented character education programs to track and measure kids’ “attitudes, beliefs and values, identities and feelings.”
Is your child an empathetic communicator? Does your child have integrity? Is your child social‑justice‑minded? You and I wouldn't want these things measured in us—we’d call it biased and unfair. Integrity according to who? Whose definition of empathy? If we wouldn't want it done to us as adults, we shouldn't be doing it to kids,” Lee said.
He warned that those grades are used to create a “personality passport” that can follow them into adulthood and be used to discriminate against them “if they don’t have the correct traits.” His bill would ban “character tracking” and “personality passports” in Utah schools.
Alarming if true—except no one at the hearing could point to it actually happening.
“What are these passports? I’ve never heard of such a thing,” Rep. Carol Spackman Moss, D-Salt Lake City, said. “I’m pretty connected in my district to the schools. I taught five or six thousand students over three decades. My daughter teaches at a high school, has for many years. I’ve never heard of passports to anything in regard to education.”
Lee’s bill is part of the ongoing war by far-right groups, primarily Moms for Liberty, against “social and emotional learning” (SEL) in schools. Critics insist SEL is a Trojan horse for progressive politics, from LGBTQ+ inclusion to gun control to wealth redistribution.
Throughout the hearing, committee members struggled to understand the point of Lee’s bill and what problem it was trying to fix.
Rep. Jason Thompson, R-River Heights, asked whether the bill would hamstring teachers who are trying to teach “durable skills” like coping with adversity, working with peers, and basic respect.
“We need to teach these durable skills more. We need to teach leadership more. We need to teach these kids to believe in themselves and to be able to be prepared for the world they're getting ready to enter,” Thompson said. “Where’s the line of, ‘I can talk about this, and it’s a character development trait, but I crossed the line here, so I’ve gone too far?’”
Rep. Doug Welton, R-Payson, pushed it further.
“If I'm taking a business course, and part of business is being able to work with other students, that is something that we look at and we measure when you're doing group projects and things like that. So now I'm actually kind of tracking it as part of their grade. Is that something that you're trying to say is not allowed? So we can't say do you work well in your group?” Welton asked.
Committee members also had a problem with several of the enforcement provisions in Lee’s bill. It orders the Utah State Auditor to investigate complaints and withhold school funds until “violations” are fixed; after three violations in five years, the Auditor must refer the district to the U.S. Department of Justice for possible civil rights prosecution. It also opens a litigation lane for parents, with attorney fees and damages on the table.
Lee couldn’t overcome the bipartisan skepticism. The committee voted unanimously to hold HB399.