SALT LAKE CITY – Utah lawmakers will gather for a special Legislative session on Wednesday, Aug. 21 to vote on whether to send a constitutional amendment on voter initiatives to the statewide ballot in November.
The text of that amendment, according to a legislative press release, would prevent outside entities from contributing to ballot initiatives; add 20 days to the time period to collect signatures for ballot initiatives; and reaffirm the authority of the Legislature to change or veto ballot initiatives after they become law.
The legislative summons from Senate President J. Stuart Adams and House Speaker Mike Schultz came just three days after Utah GOP chairman Robert Axson and more than 60 Republican officials and their supporters send a letter to Gov. Spencer Cox, Adams and Schultz calling for adding the amendment to the state’s constitution.
While Cox was still considering his response to the GOP letter, Adams and Schultz exercised their own authority to recall the Legislature for a one-day session that will consider the proposed amendment.
At issue is the July ruling by the Utah Supreme Court that reversed a 3rd District Court decision to dismiss part of a lawsuit brought by the League of Women Voters of Utah (LWVU) that has been working its way through the state courts since 2022.
Utah voters passed a ballot initiative in 2018 to create an independent commission to redraw maps for Utah’s congressional districts, a process that takes place every ten years following the Census.
In 2021, however, the Republican majority in the Legislature opted to ignore the commission’s recommendations and drew its own districts.
The LWVU lawsuit had argued that the Utah Legislature violated Utahns’ constitution right to alter and reform the state government when lawmakers repealed and replaced Proposition 4.
A 3rd District Court had dismissed that claim, only to be overturned by the Utah Supreme Court in July, sending the case back to the lower court.
Seeing that ruling as a threat to Republicans’ continued dominance in Utah politics, Axson and GOP officials urged that Cox and lawmakers perform an end-run around the Supreme Court, making its ruling a moot point.
“Our founders wisely designed a representative republic to prevent the chaos of direct democracy,” Axson said in the Aug. 16 GOP letter demanding a special session and a constitutional amendment.
“This (Sopreme Court) ruling disrupts that balance, leaving Utah vulnerable to the whims of special interests and fleeting majorities.”
Adams and Schultz agreed, pointing to California as a prime example of a state where big money and out-of-control special interest groups run ballot initiatives to alter the government and push their own agendas.
But members of the Democratic minority in the Legislature say that ballot initiatives are a way for the people of Utah to challenge state laws they do not like. Giving the Legislature unlimited power to veto the voters’ intentions in that regard would be problematic, they insist.