The Utah Senate has voted to confirm Gov. Spencer Cox’s appointment of Lonny Pehrson to be the first-ever director of the state’s newly created Government Records Office.

The Senate on Wednesday, during an extraordinary session to consider several judicial and executive branch nominations, voted 18-8 to approve Pehrson’s appointment. Democrats, without debate, voted against.

The vote came after Pehrson’s appointment was favorably recommended earlier this month by the Senate Government Operations Confirmation Committee after an hourlong hearing, with some airing concerns over whether Pehrson will be an unbiased and transparent records czar.

The new office he’ll be heading has also been a focus of controversy. The Utah Legislature earlier this year created it to replace the 30-year-old, seven-member State Records Committee, which previously decided disputes over public records.

Lawmakers argued the new office would cut down on wait times for records decisions, be more efficient, and replace the State Records Committee with someone with more legal expertise. Critics, including media professionals, argued the move would consolidate too much power with one person and lead to less transparency.

The Society of Professional Journalists awarded the Utah Legislature its annual Black Hole award for the passage SB277, which created the new office, along with another bill, HB69, which made it difficult for people who challenge the government over public records denials to recoup their attorney fees.

Pehrson, who has worked as records counsel for the Utah Attorney General’s Office since 2016, told lawmakers during his confirmation hearing that in his new role, his focus will be on ensuring government entities are following Utah’s open records law when it comes to which records do or don’t get released to the public.

His supporters applauded him as a professional with deep expertise in Utah’s open records laws. Critics, including Sen. Nate Blouin, D-Salt Lake City, opposed Pehrson’s appointment during the hearing. While Blouin acknowledged Pehrson is clearly qualified for the position, he said he has “frustrations and concerns” over the “optics” of selecting someone from the Utah Attorney General’s Office, which under former Attorney General Sean Reyes faced criticism for a lack of transparency.

Pehrson, in his previous role as records counsel for Reyes, argued against releasing Reyes’ work calendar in response to requests from local news outlets KSL and The Salt Lake Tribune.

In the dispute over those records, the State Records Committee ultimately sided with reporters, and in February a judge ruled that Reyes’ official calendar should be released. But the same day as the judge’s ruling, the Utah Legislature passed a bill to allow elected officials and government employees the ability to keep their calendars — including work meetings — private moving forward.

Reyes didn’t seek reelection last year after concerns surfaced over his past relationship with  the embattled anti-trafficking nonprofit Operation Underground Railroad and its founder, Tim Ballard. Earlier this year, a legislative audit of Reyes’ administration concluded that “insufficient transparency” resulted in “a lack of accountability for the position of the attorney general.”

Pehrson, in his comments in front of the committee, addressed those concerns.

“I recognize and appreciate the concerns that have been expressed about my experience with the Attorney General’s Office and whether it might hamper my ability to faithfully carry out this new role,” Pehrson said. “While understandable, I believe these concerns to be unfounded.”

As assistant attorney general, Pehrson said he had an “ethical obligation to selflessly represent my client to the best of my ability.”

“I have always tried to do this, regardless of whether I agreed personally with the position taken or not,” Pehrson added. “However, having also worked extensively in a judicial setting, I understand very well the difference between representing a client and acting as a neutral arbiter of disputes.”

Thus, Pehrson said he didn’t believe his time in the Attorney General’s Office “would in any way compromise my ability to lead the Government Records Office or to fairly and impartially decide records disputes that might come before me.”

Utah News Dispatch is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.