Utah flags – the traditional one (l), new ‘Beehive flag’ (r).
SALT LAKE CITY — A month ago an effort was launched to repeal a bill passed during the last Utah legislative session that green lighted a new state flag for Utah.
On KVNU’s For the People program on Thursday, Chad Saunders who is leading the referendum said they need exactly 134,646 signatures to force the issue to possibly be decided by voters, and there are other requirements.
“It has to be eight percent of the voting population of the registered voters in 15 of the 29 senatorial districts,” said Saunders.
He talked about how the effort is going.
“When you go door-to-door or when you have people come up, most people are willing to sign without any real debate on it. I’d say 2 out of every 10 say no thanks. The other thing that’s important too is, we get a lot of- they didn’t know what was going on or they don’t know what’s going on or they’re not sure, and once we explain it to them, they’re like ‘No I don’t want that, let me sign.’”
The new flag, referred to as the Beehive Flag, was unveiled on November 11th and Saunders said during the legislative session they decided to change the flag for an eight-sided star to a five-sided star.
“Now, what’s interesting about that is, if you vetted this so well and you’ve talked to everybody and you want it to be inclusive of everybody, shouldn’t that have been something you figured out before you put it up for the people? You shouldn’t have to adjust it during the session.”
Saunders said when that was brought to lawmaker’s attention, they then added language to make it look like they were protecting the state flag.
He maintains that it was flawed legislation that did not include the wishes of Utah citizens.
He said as of now, they have, by an internal count, between 80 and 85-thousand signatures that have been submitted to county clerks or are in the process of being submitted.
They have until April 12th to get the required signatures. You can get more information at UtahFlagReferendum.com