Estimated read time: 5-6 minutes
- State Sen. Lincoln Fillmore proposes a constitutional amendment requiring 60% voter approval for tax-related initiatives.
- Critics argue this could hinder citizen-led initiatives, like the 2018 Medicaid expansion, which passed with 53.3%.
- The proposal aims to balance legislative power and prevent out-of-state influence on Utah's laws.
SALT LAKE CITY — Maybe the third time's the charm for efforts to raise the bar on citizen initiatives in Utah.
State Sen. Lincoln Fillmore, R-South Jordan, sure hopes so in light of a recent court ruling that protects some initiative outcomes from most legislative amendments.
On Wednesday, Fillmore defended a resolution that would put a constitutional amendment before Utah voters that would raise the threshold to 60% of the vote to pass citizen initiatives that increase taxes.
It exited committee with a positive recommendation, as it did in 2023 and 2024, and will now appear before the Senate for a floor vote, where it stalled in the previous two legislative sessions amid concerns about overwhelming voters with too many ballot initiatives in 2024.
This time, as opposed to past attempts, Fillmore is launching the proposal from the Senate side, and Senate leadership has voiced a strong desire to rebalance state lawmaking power between the people and their elected representatives.
"This resolution proposes that we ask the voters a simple question: How easy do you want it to be for your neighbors to raise your taxes?" Fillmore said Wednesday. "It would be much better when it comes to initiatives that raise taxes just to ensure that there is a broad consensus of agreement among the citizens that that's the right thing to do."
What would the constitutional amendment do?
The Utah Constitution states that legislative power is held equally by the 104 members of the state House and Senate, who meet 45 days a year to pass new laws, and the state's 2 million registered voters, who may occasionally make policy via citizen initiatives.
But the people's power must be tempered by processes that encourage informed and representative legislation, according to Fillmore.
The resolution, SJR2, presented by Fillmore on Wednesday, would require citizen-initiated legislation to pass with at least 60% of the public's vote — instead of a bare majority — if the initiative:
- Imposes a new tax.
- Expands an existing tax to include additional transactions.
- Increases an existing tax rate.
- Changes a property tax rate more than outlined by current law.
Billy Hesterman spoke in favor of the bill on behalf of the Utah Taxpayers Association, pointing out that the proposal would put the question of initiative requirements before voters.
"This is simply asking the voters: Do they want to put this restriction on themselves when raising taxes?" Hesterman said. "Taxes should be hard to raise."
In 2018, Utahns passed a ballot initiative that expanded Medicaid eligibility to all Utahns in households earning 138% or less of the federal poverty level and raised the sales tax on nonfood purchases from 4.7% to 4.85%.
Critics of Fillmore's proposal point out that this initiative, which received 53.3% of the vote, would not have passed under the new constitutional amendment.
Kael Weston, a former Democratic candidate for Utah's 2nd Congressional District, said Fillmore's bill could be a direct response to citizen initiatives from recent years with an intent to make them more difficult.
"The bar is being raised higher for us, but not for you," Weston said. "You get to spend our money when we elect you, and if we're happy, we keep you in office, but our Constitution, very much, is clear that all political power rests with us."
The state's citizen initiative process, which already requires the gathering of almost 141,000 voter signatures from across the state, is already one of the more onerous processes among the 26 states that allow initiatives or referendum, critics argued.
What are the worries?
In his opening day remarks, and later media availability, Senate President Stuart Adams, R-Layton, said he believed that a recent Utah Supreme Court decision could undermine the state's republican form of government and would set the state on a path to becoming like California and Oregon.
In July, the Utah Supreme Court ruled that the Utah Constitution prohibits lawmakers from altering the results of citizen-led ballot initiatives that reform the government unless the changes are narrowly tailored to meet a compelling government interest.
In September, the state's highest court upheld a decision from a 3rd District Court judge that voided "Amendment D," a ballot initiative crafted by legislative leadership that would have amended the Utah Constitution to allow lawmakers to amend or repeal citizen initiatives in all cases.
Last week, Adams warned that if the state fails to respond to the July ruling which limited legislative changes to citizen initiatives, then Utah could become the next "Petri dish of America," where activist groups from other states can pass ideological or unwise positions into law.
The September ruling stated that all constitutional amendments must include 60 days of continuous advertising in every county that has a newspaper, for an estimated cost of $1.4 million, according to an appropriations request that was paired with Fillmore's resolution.
Adams has also backed a new bill sponsored by Fillmore this session that would apply this same requirement, and other steps required of the Legislature, to citizens trying to put an initiative on the ballot.
Should citizen initiatives include a funding source?
Fillmore's Statewide Initiatives Amendments, SB73, would mandate that an application for a citizen initiative include a detailed description of the revenue source for the policy change.
The revenue explanation would need to outline the fiscal impacts of the initiative on tax rates and existing government programs.
It would also require the initiative sponsors to publish the entire initiative petition in at least one newspaper in every county of the state where there is a newspaper for the two months preceding the general election.
If the funding proposal for the initiative does not fully address the fiscal impact — as assessed by the the Lieutenant Governor's Office and the Office of the Legislative Fiscal Analyst — then the lieutenant governor would be required to reject the initiative application.
If the citizen initiative does not achieve strict compliance with the publishing requirements the court recently articulated for the Legislature, then the initiative will be ruled void, just like Amendment D.
Fillmore's bill would create "parity" between lawmakers and voters on the newly interpreted requirements surrounding constitutional amendments, Senate Majority Whip Kirk Cullimore, R-Draper, told reporters on Wednesday.
The bill soared through the Senate's supermajority almost entirely along party lines in committee and in a floor vote last week. It will soon be up for consideration in the House Business, Labor, and Commerce Committee.
