Citizens in Charge

Utah Senate Bill 275, sponsored by the apparently less-than-voter-friendly Sen. Howard Stephenson, has passed both houses and now sits on the Governor’s desk. The bill would give opponents of an initiative one month more to try to get voters to take their names off of a petition than initiative proponents have to get voters to put their names on. This not only gives opponents an unfair advantage in their campaigns, but opens up voters to harassment.

Under current law voters may remove their signature from a petition by notifying the local elections official via a written and notarized statement of their desire to do so. The effective deadline for this is April 15, the date that signatures for initiatives are due. Once those signatures are given from local officials to the Lieutenant Governor, they become a matter of public record.

Under the new law, which could go into effect April 1, 2010 if not vetoed by the governor, voters would be able to remove their signatures by filing an un-notarized request by May 15, 30 days after initiative supporters must submit their signatures.

Citizens in Charge Foundation believes that voters should be able to remove their signatures from a petition if they feel they no longer support it, but similar constraints should be in place when removing a signature as are in place when putting one on. Because this bill gives extra time for signatures to be removed from a petition, without giving proponents of that petition effort time to make up for removed signatures, this bill makes the process unfairly tilted toward signature removal.

The fact that names on a petition become public record would combine with this law to subject voters to harassment. Opponents of a petition effort could use the list of those on a petition to go after and harass those voters to remove their signatures, potentially putting a chill on the willingness of voters to participate in their initiative process.

It is interesting to note that a similar Florida law was struck down by that state’s supreme court because it unfairly burdened petition proponents and violated the state constitution’s guarantee to the right to initiative. That case was Florida Hometown Democracy v. Browning.

Advocacy groups and candidates have came out in opposition to the bill, and calls are reportedly coming into the governor’s office from citizens all over the state asking him to veto the bill. If he does not veto the bill by April 1 it will become effective that day, potentially impacting efforts that are currently collecting signatures.