SALT LAKE CITY — A measure to extend the life of a special task force that's been investigating higher rates of murder of Indigenous people fell by the wayside as the 2025 legislative session came to an end.

Rep. Angela Romero, D-Salt Lake City, who's zeroed in on the issue and sponsored HB15, will keep pushing the matter and plans again to seek an extension during the 2026 session. Passage of HB15 was a priority for Romero.

"I'll continue to work on this issue because it's not going away anytime soon. It's a priority still for me and so I'll do, to the best of my ability as a lawmaker, what I can," she said Tuesday. The task force, she said, was a way to bring Native American leaders, law enforcement officials and others together "to have these conversations."

Lawmakers approved legislation creating what's now called the Murdered and Missing Indigenous Relatives Task Force in 2020 and issued a report in late 2023, highlighting the disparate rates of missing and murdered Native Americans in Utah, a national trend, as well. However, earlier legislation extended the task force's functions only until last November, and HB15 — which still lacked Senate scrutiny as the session wound down last Friday — would have kept the body operating until July 1, 2027.

Advances had been made in improving cooperation among tribal officials, county leaders, law enforcement and others in addressing the violence impacting the Native American community thanks to task force efforts, Romero said. "So it's unfortunate that we weren't able to renew the task force and continue to do our work," she went on. She senses support from Sen. David Hinkins, R-Orangeville, who's also served on the task force, to keep up the efforts as well, even if it's on a more informal basis.

American Indian and Alaska Native people account for around 1.6% of Utah's population, they account for more than 5% of murder victims, according to the 2023 task force report. A 2018 report by the Urban Indiana Health Institute, a division of the Seattle Indiana Health Board in Washington, found that Salt Lake City had the ninth-highest number of murdered or missing Indigenous females, 24, among 71 U.S. cities.

Those sorts of statistics are cause for alarm among people in the Native American community, and representatives from Restoring Ancestral Winds Inc., which addresses violence in Native communities, hosted a conference on the issue last month. Among other things, speakers stressed the importance of broad-based efforts to address the missing and murdered phenomenon.

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HB15 had called for another report by Sept. 30, 2026, looking into new ways to approach unsolved cases of missing and murdered people and ways to increase outreach to communities most impacted by the issue, among other things. It also would have broadened the makeup of the task force.

"It's still an epidemic within our communities, and so I'll continue to be an advocate, but there's only so much I can do as a part-time legislator," said Romero. She hopes for the eventual creation of a post within the governor's office that would be focused on the issue of missing and murdered Indigenous people, as is the case in Arizona.

HB15 passed in the House 61-0 and received a favorable 4-1 recommendation by the Senate Revenue and Taxation Committee. Romero had pressed for the measure to get full Senate attention in the waning days of the session to no avail.

Another bill focused on the Native American community, HB30, the Indian Family Preservation Act, never made it out of committee for full consideration by either the House or Senate. Also sponsored by Romero, it was meant to bolster the role of tribal officials in foster care cases involving Native American children.

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