Merrill Cook, the self-proclaimed "master of the Utah political initiative process," made Utah history Monday as he lugged an overstuffed cardboard box of petitions into the Salt Lake County elections office, slid it onto the counter and calmly pronounced, "This contains the last 26,000 signatures."
That makes 136,643 signatures total, a record for initiatives and well over the 76,000 he needed to get his term-limitation and run-off election initiative on November's ballot.Cook wants voters to decide if state and county officers and Utah members of the U.S. House of Rep-resentatives should be limited to not more than eight consecutive years in office and U.S. senators limited to two six-year terms. The change would take effect this year, but time served by current incumbents would not be counted, so the first elected officials wouldn't be forced from office until 2002.
"My motivation is having a citizens government," Cook said. "We are doing this for the future, not an attack on any sitting office-holder."
Another initiative calling for income tax reform and backed by Utah's Democratic Party fell short of the required signatures by Monday's deadline.
But Cook, who placed a sales tax- cut initiative on the 1990 ballot, knew what it would take to canvass the state and collect names. This time around, it took him more than a year using a small army of volunteers, and he ended up hiring help as well.
He claims to have exceeded the minimum of 10 percent of active voters in 15 counties by garnering more than 10 percent in all 29 counties. Even with the usual 20 percent of the signatures ruled invalid during the verification process, if Cook's numbers are accurate, his initiative will easily clear the 76,253 required to make a general election ballot.
"Merrill Cook is a master of the Utah political initiative process," his campaign manager Shari Holweg said proudly at a press conference.
But his critics, while supportive of limiting terms of elected officials, are calling Cook's proposal self-serving and sneaky. They also say the initiative is fraught with legal problems.
"There is already a law, passed by the Legislature in an open process," said state Republican Party Chairman Bruce Hough, who lobbied for the bill that limits politicians to no more than 12 years in the same office. The federal official term limit kicks in only if at least 25 other states impose similar limits.
"Merrill Cook even signed off on it as acceptable to him," Hough said. "Now he wants the people to vote on something he wrote without public input and with a provision to get him elected."
Hough was referring to the runoff provision, which mandates a runoff election between the two top vote-getters if a candidate does not win by a majority in the general election. In Cook's past two bids for governor, the GOP winner captured less than 50 percent of the vote.
Hough added that runoff elections are costly and unconstitutional in Utah, where the constitution requires the final election take place the first Tuesday in November.
If Cook's initiative passes, it would take effect this year. Cook, founder of the Independent Party of Utah, is running for the 2nd Congressional District against Democratic incumbent Karen Shepherd and GOP challenger Enid Greene Waldholtz.
Shepherd, who is pushing for term limits in Congress, called Cook's move "an old politician's trick." She added that the federal courts have ruled against states limiting terms of federal office holders, and the U.S. Supreme Court is expected to rule against an Arkansas term-limits statute. "That's why I have turned up the heat where it counts - in Congress," she said.
But fellow Democrat and Senatorial candidate Pat Shea, standing at Cook's side during a press conference Monday, said something also needs to take place on the state level "to move this along."
Shea, who said he backs Shepherd's bid for Congress, noted that the nation's founding fathers spoke against professional politicians and that long-term incumbency creates "gridlock and entrenched partisanism."
Earlier in the day, Utah Democratic Party leaders and others supporting an income tax reform initiative sugar-coated their failure to gather enough signatures to place the issue on November's ballot.
They explained that the quest for a voter referendum this year was just one of three objectives. They said they accomplished the others: to build public awareness of Utah's outdated income tax system and create a coalition behind changing the system.
In four months, organizers believe they collected about 12,000 signatures. But they insist it wasn't for lack of support. The proposal included a significant tax cut for middle-income households.
"The problem with this issue is that it is complicated," said House assistant minority whip Grant Protzman, D-North Ogden, who is also a director of Citizens for Tax Fairness, which organized the petition drive.
It took time to explain the proposal of realigning tax brackets and the resulting shifts in tax burdens to signature gatherers and potential signatories as well.
Added to the complexity of tax reform was the difficulty of organizing a petition drive in just four months. Democrats hoped to use their party structure and volunteers from the League of Women Voters, AFL-CIO and the Utah Education Association to gather signatures in a short time. But many of the activists were already committed to other political campaigns both in time and money.
The effort has not stopped, however. Organizers hope to gather the required 38,000 signatures by year's end, which would force the Legislature to vote the rebracketing proposal up or down in 1995.