This election season, hunters around the West will be tracking a Utah ballot measure that could significantly limit the public's ability to change wildlife management policy.
Proposition 5 would amend the Utah Constitution to require a two-thirds vote instead of a simple majority to approve any state wildlife initiatives. If passed, it would be the first time in Utah history such a supermajority would be needed for any state ballot measure.It will also prove a test case for wildlife management throughout the West.
"The whole United States will be watching," said Don Clower of the Idaho-based Sportsmen's Heritage Defense Fund. "If sportsmen down there are successful, we'll probably try to go for the same thing here."
Idaho is among the Western states - including Colorado, California, Oregon, Washington, Alaska and Arizona - in which hunters like Clower have fought initiatives limiting hunts or hunting tactics such as bear baiting, hunting from airplanes and using hunting dogs.
The initiatives, on the whole, have seen mixed success.
Utah is an exception in that it is one of the few states never to have a wildlife initiative on a ballot. Last January, however, Humane Society of the United States President Wayne Pacelle said his group planned to put several wildlife initiatives on Utah's 1998 ballot.
The animal rights' initiatives failed, but the backlash gave birth to the supermajority movement in the state. Hunting enthusiasts then decided to make a once-and-for-all push for a constitutional amendment that would allow hunter groups to spend their money on wildlife habitat, instead of fending off ballot measures.
Don Peay, director of Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife and treasurer of Utahns for Wildlife Heritage and Conservation, said other states are watching the Utah vote carefully.
"They're tired of wasting millions of dollars on (public relations) campaigns fighting initiatives, when their real focus is on wildlife habitat," Peay said.
But opponents say Proposition 5 has little, if anything, to do with wildlife. Instead, they are calling it an anti-initiative proposition that puts citizens in the unique position of voting against their own ability to enact future policy changes.
"We see it as a change in the Constitution that puts power in the hands of the bureaucrats," said Janice Gygi, president of the League of Women Voters of Utah. "We think it's a bad precedent."
Rep. Dave Jones, D-Salt Lake City, agrees.
"What bugs me about it is the proponents are saying there are some ideas out there that are so dangerous or so complicated that the public can't be trusted to have an informed opinion about them," he said. "If wildlife issues are so complicated, what about taxation issues? What about education issues? . . . The same argument can be made for nearly any issue."
Craig Axford of the Utah Voting Rights Coalition, a group made up of the League of Women Voters, the Utah Progressive Network and the Audubon Society, said Utah already has one of the most difficult initiative processes in the nation, and passing the resolution "would spell the end, ultimately, of the ballot initiative process in this state."
But Proposition 5 backers say even if the amendment passes, public hearings will continue to be held to give citizens a voice each time wildlife policy is considered.
Sen. Leonard Blackham, R-Moroni, argues there are exhaustive efforts to encourage public input on wildlife policy, more so than any other area of government, and that will continue. "It's not going to be made by a bunch of bureaucrats," said Blackham, who sponsored the resolution in the Legislature to put the measure on the ballot.
Peay characterizes the vote as a referendum on the state's existing wildlife management system. He cites state Division of Wildlife Resource statistics showing remarkable rebounds in the populations of elk, antelope, deer, turkey, rainbow trout, pheasant and desert bighorn sheep in the past 75 years.
He contrasts that with California, where, since an initiative there put a stop to the mountain lion hunt, 45 of the 125 bighorn sheep collared since 1993 were killed by increased numbers of lions and there has been an alarming overall drop in the bighorn population.
"This (measure) says the current system, based on the best science, professional biologists and meaningful public input, is the best system available," Peay said.
Jones sees that approach as problematic.
"It just says that `we know best,' " said Jones. "The paternal forces that have established existing policy know best and will forevermore, unless two-thirds of you say otherwise."
Blackham disagrees.
"This will be decided by a majority vote and it could be changed again in the future with a majority vote," he said.
The measure gained approval in the Senate by a 25-3 vote and in the House by a 52-19 margin.
According to the 1997 end-of-year contribution report filed with the lieutenant governor's office, out-of-state interests also appear to have a hand in backing Proposition 5.
The report shows $23,200 of the $55,676 the Utahns for Wildlife Heritage and Conservation has raised has come from outside Utah. Another $5,603 came from small individual contributions with undisclosed origins.
According to the most recent Utah Voting Rights Coalition report, that group had raised only $1,710, all from in-state sources. Axford says to date his group has raised less than $20,000, with about $1,000 coming from outside Utah.
Peay said the numbers are misleading, with much of his group's money being channeled from Utah to national groups outside the state, then back into the cause.
"This is strictly a Utah-driven issue," he said.
The one thing both sides agree on is that the measure could be a watershed in the future of Western wildlife management.