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SALT LAKE CITY — Let the campaigning over the proposal to amend the Utah Constitution to allow lawmakers to revise citizen-led ballot provisions begin.
Foes of the proposal gathered Monday at the Utah Capitol to voice their opposition and kick off their "vote no" campaign.
"We have heard from thousands of Utahns from all backgrounds, from all political beliefs, united in defeating this power grab by politicians. Our constitutional rights are sacred and we will not give them away to politicians who think they know better than us — the voters," said Katie Wright, executive director of Better Boundaries Utah, the force behind the 2018 ballot provision, Proposition 4, that gave rise to the constitutional amendment proposal.
The demonstrators gathered on the south steps of the Utah Capitol in Salt Lake City to express their opposition to Senate Joint Resolution 401, the measure approved in a special legislative session last week that puts the amendment question on the Nov. 5 ballot, 10 weeks from now. The lawmakers who favored the resolution see it as a means of safeguarding their ability to change ballot initiatives approved by voters — threatened, they worry, by a July Utah Supreme Court ruling — and preventing abuse of the voter initiative process by outside interests.
The critics, however, see the proposal as a bid by lawmakers to assert their authority over the ability of the public to push for change via the ballot initiative process.
"Our state Constitution gives the people the right to ... enact laws directly through the initiative process, and it has become clear that when the people exercise this right, the Legislature gets defensive of what they view as their turf," said Ryan Bell, another speaker Monday and member of the Better Boundaries Utah board of directors.
Meantime, Utah Rep. Jordan Teuscher, R-South Jordan, co-sponsor of SJR401, said Monday that backers of the change are in the process of organizing their efforts to promote the initiative. "Everything's getting put together," he said, with a range of grassroots, business and other organizations favoring the change.
The issue, which publicly emerged only with news of last week's special session, could be a heated one as Election Day approaches. The proponents of constitutional change, Wright said, have "very carefully planned" message points. The foes, though, have quickly coalesced. Their campaign, she added, "will look like Utahns — from all over the state, from all different political beliefs — standing against this power grab, protecting our constitutional rights."
Rep. Dan Thatcher, R-West Valley City, one of a few Utah Republicans to vote against SJR401, also spoke Monday. He said he doesn't think the July 11 ruling behind the push for the amendment proposal impedes the authority of the concerned lawmakers to the extent they think it does.
"I don't believe that this restrains the Legislature from doing its job or staying within the bounds. I don't. I think it only requires justification for impairing or overturning the otherwise constitutional and lawful actions of the public," he said.
Moreover, Thatcher doesn't see the issue as a partisan one.
"Your vote isn't, 'Do I like the Legislature? Do I not like the Legislature? Am I not conservative?' That's not the question before us," he said. "The question before us is: Is there a limit? Either there is a limit and it is this reasonable boundary (set by the Supreme Court), or there is no limit and we surrender the final bulwark forever."
Teuscher, an amendment proponent, agrees the question isn't a partisan one. "It's not a left or right issue," he said.
Rather, the underlying issue, as he sees it, is about the sort of outside influence Utahns want to permit in the state. He, like other SJR401 proponents, fears the July 11 ruling paves the way for outside players, whether from the private sector or elsewhere, to be able to pursue ballot initiatives in the state with little pushback from state lawmakers.
"We don't want Utah to become California," Teuscher said, repeating the mantra of other amendment supporters and referencing what he maintains is the higher frequency of ballot initiatives in that state stemming from the looser restrictions they face.
Contrary to Thatcher, Teuscher argues that the July 11 ruling puts such limitations on lawmakers that proposals pursued by outside groups and approved at the ballot box couldn't be changed by the Legislature lest the body violate the court determination, prompting a court fight. "It puts a target on our state," he said.
With the passage of Proposition 4 in 2018, a commission was formed to draw political redistricting maps every 10 years. However, Utah lawmakers later watered down its role to an advisory one, with SB200 in 2020, and then adopted their own maps during the redistricting cycle in 2021. That action led to the lawsuit and then to the July Supreme Court ruling at the center of amendment proponents' worries.
According to Utah Rep. Rosemary Lesser, D-Ogden, the Utah Constitution was changed in 1899 to create the ballot initiative process. Since then, just seven citizen-led proposals have been put on Utah ballots, including Proposition 4 and two others in 2018. She also spoke at Wednesday's event.
