The latest attempt to repeal Proposition 4 comes with a familiar warning: If we’re not careful, Utah will become another California. The argument is meant to evoke images of ballot chaos and runaway direct democracy. But that comparison is a smokescreen — one designed not to protect our state from disorder but to shield lawmakers from accountability. — one designed not to protect our state from disorder but to shield lawmakers from accountability.
The fear only works if Utahns forget how limited and cautious our direct democracy system already is. The truth is simple: Utah is not California and never has been, and our initiative process ensures it never will be.
Geographic hurdles
Utah’s initiative system is among the most restrictive in the nation. It functions less as an open invitation to special interests and more as a constitutional emergency brake — an option the public can use only when the normal machinery of representative government fails to address serious or structural problems. Anyone who has ever attempted an initiative knows the process is not a shortcut. It is far closer to scaling a fortress than opening a floodgate.
Consider the basic requirements. To qualify for the ballot, initiative sponsors must collect signatures from 8% of all active registered voters statewide — more than 140,000 people—while also meeting that threshold in at least 26 of Utah’s 29 Senate districts. This extraordinary geographic requirement ensures broad, statewide involvement. It prevents domination by the Wasatch Front, blocks national groups from parachuting in with a one-county strategy and guarantees that rural, suburban and urban communities all have a meaningful voice. No other political process in Utah imposes this level of mandatory geographic supermajority.
And the barriers do not end there. Initiative sponsors must hold public hearings across the state, provide a detailed fiscal impact statement, and withstand months of scrutiny about the substance and cost of their proposal. Supporters must show not only that an idea is appealing but also that it is responsible, transparent and financially sound. Any initiative that clears these hurdles has already passed one of the country’s toughest tests of public legitimacy.
The reality: A history of caution
When critics insist that Utah is turning into California, they ignore more than a century of evidence. Utah voters have repeatedly demonstrated restraint and seriousness. Since 1895, only 28 citizen initiatives have ever reached the ballot. Of those, only seven have been approved. Utah voters are not impulsive or reckless. They are conservative and cautious with their ballot power.
Proposition 4 was one of the rare initiatives that succeeded because it reflected a broad, statewide view that fair maps matter. Utahns from every region — urban neighborhoods, rural communities, suburbs and small towns — signaled that partisan self-dealing had gone too far. They concluded that an independent advisory redistricting commission was necessary to restore trust in a system that had tilted toward political insiders. Prop 4 did not pass because voters were swept up in some wave of democratic excess. It passed because they reached a thoughtful, grounded judgment that structural reform was needed.
The true threat to representation
Opponents now argue that initiatives like Prop 4 threaten Utah’s “representative republican form of government.” But the real threat comes from a Legislature seeking to eliminate one of the few tools citizens have to correct governmental abuses — especially abuses that protect incumbents at the expense of voters. The Utah Supreme Court has affirmed that citizen initiatives are a constitutionally protected means of fixing systems that no longer serve the public. When lawmakers attempt to repeal Prop 4, they are not defending representative government. They are undermining it by rejecting the principle that in a republic, the people — not sitting politicians — are the ultimate sovereign.
It is time to drop the comparison to California. This debate is not about runaway direct democracy. It is about whether elected officials can erase the will of the people when that will becomes politically inconvenient. Utahns use the initiative process rarely and only when normal channels have failed them. When they do speak, their voice should matter. Prop 4 is a constitutional reminder of who Utah’s government is meant to serve.