Utah Gov. Spencer Cox will veto several bills before the Thursday night deadline, he told reporters. And he expects the Legislature to call a special session to override at least some of his decisions.

His vetos, which will be announced later Thursday, will center around bills he thinks could have been solved with a “phone call” to his office and others that deal with the governor’s “ability to work closely with the Legislature,” Cox said early Thursday at his monthly PBS press conference.

But Cox’s biggest worry is not with a particular bill. State legislators have been passing too many bills each session, Cox said.

The 2024 Legislative work period saw lawmakers introduce nearly a thousand bills and pass a record 591 during the state’s short 45-day legislative session. The total exceeded last year’s record of 575 bills which was already a significant increase from most sessions.

“My greatest concern with this legislative session is just the sheer number of bills,” Cox said. “We haven’t added an extra 20% of days to work on those bills and I think we start to see the quality suffer a little bit.”

Sometimes in the rush to get every lawmakers’ prized legislation through both chambers, the most substantive parts of bills are removed or bills are passed that do not require a legislative remedy, Cox said.

Utah lawmakers passed more bills this year than ever before despite Senate President Stuart Adams, R-Layton, and House Speaker Mike Schultz, R-Hooper, committing during the session to not break last year’s record.

Cox said lawmakers have always been able to introduce as many bills as they want but that a “cultural piece” has changed in recent years that needs to be addressed so lawmakers “start to focus on the more substantive pieces (of legislation).”

“There’s so many great bills that were passed this session,” Cox said. “But I think there is some self-selection that could be helpful. We can be a little more discerning about what really needs to be done.”

The volume of bills passed has made the governor’s job of vetting each piece of legislation more difficult because the 20-day period he has to sign or veto bills has not been extended, Cox said, adding he has been forced to forego other gubernatorial duties in order to review the bills in time.

Cox said he has asked the Legislature each year to slow down and decrease the number of bills they consider and pass.

“It’s impossible for citizens of Utah, it’s impossible for me, and you in the media, to really understand all the bills that passed,” he said.

However, Cox has previously said his goal is to veto as few bills as possible, even if he doesn’t completely agree with them. On Thursday he said high profile vetoes are rarely needed because his office is so involved in legislative negotiations during the session and that lawmakers often agree to work on problematic legislation over the interim based on suggestions from the governor.

Cox said overusing his veto would hinder his ability to pass his own priorities and would result in the Republican supermajority overriding his vetoes more often. But Cox also said he would “never sign something that I thought did lasting harm to Utah.”

The governor signed two of the session’s most controversial bills, dealing with diversity, equity and inclusion programs in public institutions and privacy laws in gender-specific restrooms, at the beginning of the session.

Cox will also sign a bill that would give the state greater oversight over the preservation of coal-fired power plants in the state, but he said the bill will likely need to be fine tuned during a special legislation session “to make sure we get this right.”

Despite the inevitable back-and-forth between lawmakers and the governor’s office, Cox said his relationship with the Legislature is the best he has seen in recent Utah history.

“It’s been an exhausting process,” Cox said. “While we didn’t agree on everything, we appreciate how most legislators respected the process and worked with us to find solutions to some of the most pressing challenges that that are facing our state today.”

This story will be updated.