Citizens in Charge

(Salt Lake City, Utah) – Today, Paul Jacob, President of Citizens in Charge, the only national transpartisan voter rights group dedicated to protecting and expanding the ballot initiative process, spoke at a press conference with Utahns for Ethical Government on the steps of the capitol rotunda in Salt Lake City, Utah and called on Governor Herbert to protect the initiative rights of Utah citizens by vetoing House Bill 112. This bill will have a chilling effect on the initiative process in Utah, and make it more difficult to get a measure placed on the ballot.

“Utah citizens have a fundamental constitutional right to propose reforms to their government through the initiative and referendum process,” said Citizens in Charge President Paul Jacob. “We are here today because political leaders are attacking and seeking to destroy that right in an arbitrary and self-serving way.”

If signed into law, House Bill 112 would allow the state Supreme Court to block an initiative by failing to rule until after an election. Currently, the State Supreme Court must review and approve challenges to a citizen initiative within a certain amount of time, but HB 112 removes that requirement.

“As if to demonstrate even greater disdain for the constitutional rights of citizens, HB 112 lacks any coherent rationale,” said Jacob. “By removing the time limits entirely, the courts have been encouraged to take their time on such challenges, delaying a vote or even holding them indefinitely, for no vote at all.”

Over the weekend, Governor Herbert signed Senate Bill 275 into law. This new law will create an unfair inequality in Utah’s initiative and referendum process. Opponents of an initiative will now have an extra 30 days to try and convince citizens to remove their signatures from a petition, while supporters or the initiative are left defenseless.

Both of these changes threaten initiatives that are currently circulating signatures, effectively changing the rules in the middle of the game for those initiative efforts.

“Citizens in Charge takes no position at all on the ethics initiative that seems to have so discombobulated legislators. We certainly believe politicians have every right to oppose the measure,” added Jacob. “But legislators and the governor do not have the right to alter the rules for initiatives in the middle of the effort, perverting public policy to serve their own narrow interest of keeping an idea they oppose off the ballot and away from the voters they are supposed to represent.”

ABOUT CITIZENS IN CHARGE:
Citizens in Charge is a 501(c)(4) citizen-powered advocacy organization that works with activists, legislators, media, opinion leaders and voters to protect the initiative and referendum process where it exists in 24 states and to expand the process to the 26 states where voters currently lack that right. Citizens in Charge partners with the Citizens in Charge Foundation, which educates and litigates to protect First Amendment rights. The organizations are the only national transpartisan voter rights groups dedicated to protecting and expanding the ballot initiative and referendum process. We believe good government starts with the voter. For more information visit www.CitizensInChargeC4.org and www.CitizensInCharge.org.