Upset with the Utah Supreme Court's decision that makes it easier for everyday Utahns to write their own laws, some legislative leaders are vowing to make sure rural residents have a say in the citizen initiative process.
"This ruling goes way too far," Sen. Ron Allen, D-Stansbury Park, said. "I think we should fix it and get the rural voice back into this."
Senate Minority Leader Mike Dmitrich, D-Price, offered a new tactic: Since Utah's top court struck down a requirement that petition supporters gather 10 percent of voters' signatures in 20 of Utah's 29 counties to qualify for the ballot, why not require a certain percentage from all 29 of the state's Senate districts instead? Dmitrich promised last week to introduce such a bill in 2003.
It was a hotly debated topic that resonated in several legislative meetings this past week.
Meeting as the Legislature's Management Committee, several leaders groused about the high court's 3-2 decision for nearly 30 minutes before Dmitrich asked chief counsel Gay Taylor if his idea to mandate signatures from all Senate districts could pass court muster.
The Supreme Court set a "high, a strict standard" in its ruling, Taylor said. Maybe Dmitrich's bill could pass the court's test, but maybe it couldn't. Most likely, someone would challenge Dmitrich's new law in court, she said.
Leaders suggested a two-step process — first a new law, like Dmitrich's, that gives rural Utahns a play in the initiative process, then a constitutional amendment in 2004 along the same lines.
"That way you insulate yourself" from future Supreme Court rulings that legislators wouldn't like, said Senate President Al Mansell, R-Sandy.
Asked after the meeting how he would craft his bill for the 2003 Legislature, Dmitrich said he would require that a set percent — maybe 8 percent or 10 percent — of voters in all 29 Senate districts must sign a petition before it could qualify for the general election ballot.
The Government Operations Committee didn't discuss Dmitrich's proposal specifically but formed a subcommittee to study different options and report back after November's general election.
Legislation will probably be ready by the time lawmakers convene in January.
Sen. Lyle Hillyard, R-Logan, said there's a sense of urgency because now the only requirement for an initiative to be placed on the ballot is to collect 76,180 signatures from registered voters. Those signatures don't have to have any geographic requirement; all could come in Salt Lake County, for instance. That caused one legislative staffer to quip all the signatures could be gathered in one afternoon standing outside a football stadium on a Saturday.
The issue arises because the high court ruled the Legislature's current standard of getting 10 percent of voter signatures in 20 of the 29 counties violated the basic one-man, one-vote equal-protection section of the Utah and U.S. constitutions. The signature of a rural voter carried much more weight proportionally than that of a urban voter, the court said.
The court then ordered that a citizen initiative petition on increasing hazardous-waste fees, which had 10 percent of Utah voters' signatures but fell short of getting 10 percent in 20 individual counties, be placed before voters Nov. 5.
And that angered a number of legislative leaders.
After Taylor said the court decision set several new standards, chief among them that the citizen initiative process is a "fundamental right" that can't be abridged by the Legislature, several leaders sounded off on the court.
"The Utah Supreme Court is out of step with every other court in the nation," Mansell said.
The court said it is a right of every free citizen in a free society to have the power to pass new laws through the initiative process, said House Assistant Majority Whip Greg Curtis, R-Sandy, who is also an attorney. But only 23 other states, besides Utah, even have an initiative process. "So they're saying people in half the states are denied this fundamental right? How can that be? This is an unprecedented ruling and very concerning to me."
The court also assumed, said House Speaker Marty Stephens, R-Farr West, that if the Legislature had known that putting a geographic component into the initiative process — to ensure a rural voice — was unconstitutional, it wouldn't have done it.
"But that's not right," he said.
In fact, the Legislature was determined to find some way to include the rural voice, if not geographically then some other way, Stephens said.
And Dmitrich's proposal may be the other way. "We have to make sure they can't leave us (rural Utah) out," he said.
But House Minority Leader Ralph Becker, D-Salt Lake, said legislators should be careful or they will just pass some new law that makes it harder for citizens to get an initiative on the ballot.
"The court said the Legislature went too far, that we can't be a hindrance" to the constitutionally protected right of a citizen initiative petition, he warned. "The court sent a clear message not to undermine the initiative process."
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