Deseret News
Former Utah congressman and frequent candidate Merrill Cook said Wednesday he’s starting yet another initiative petition drive, this time a county-by-county effort to stop Utah’s recently passed guest worker program. Cook, who headed up various unsuccessful initiative petition drives over the years that were mostly aimed at lowering taxes, said a new group expects to present its proposal to Salt Lake County next week.
Common sense says collecting the 1,400-plus signatures needed to bring a city government makeover to a vote would take more than 16 days. And it’s logical to think an effort to put three initiatives on the ballot in that same time frame would be three times as difficult. A group of Kaysville residents believe they have accomplished that feat, gathering enough written support from neighbors to land three issues on the ballot in November that would change how residents are represented in city hall and lower their power bills.
A public hearing Tuesday on a $15 million bond initiative to help pay for a new and improved Utah Museum of Natural History drew no public comment at the Salt Lake County Council chambers. The council voted in August to put the bond before voters, and the public hearing and approval of the wording of the referendum on Sept. 21 were the last steps the council needed to take to get the resolution on the Nov. 2 ballot.
State lawmakers make no bones about it, they don’t like citizen initiatives. They contend that the legislative process better serves the electorate because important proposals undergo the legislative hearing process, where members of the public can express their support or concerns for various proposals. Then, the legislation must pass both houses and be signed into law by the governor, who also has the option of a veto.
Ethics initiative organizers on Monday accused Gov. Gary Herbert of seeking to “stymie citizen participation” after he signed a bill that will make it easier to remove petition signatures. Herbert signed the controversial bill Saturday, despite a plea from initiative supporters calling on him to veto the legislation. Citizen-initiative advocates predict the law will result in campaigns to harass petition-signers, as opponents try to persuade them to remove their signatures.
Following testimony by a string of conservative activists, a House committee approved a bill Friday that revises the way residents may remove their signatures from an initiative petition. Representatives from Utah Eagle Forum and the Sutherland Institute were among those to speak in favor of the controversial measure. The bill’s sponsor, Sen. Howard Stephenson, R-Draper, said SB275 would give Utahns an easier way to remove their signatures after signing a petition.
Legislators, many of whom oppose two citizen initiatives now out for voter signatures, will look at making it easier for petition-signers to get their names removed from the documents, thus decreasing the odds that Utahns can vote on the measures this November. And the Utah Republican Party, which also opposes the initiatives, will consider organizing a formal effort to get names off the Fair Boundaries and Utahns for Ethical Government petitions, said GOP state chairman Dave Hansen.
A gun rights group says a citizens initiative to reform legislative ethics would require lawmakers to disclose whether they own guns. But a lawyer for the initiative calls that kind of talk about the measure’s wording on conflicts of interest “just crazy.” This week GOUtah!, a gun rights group, sent out a detailed e-mail objecting to the Utahns For Ethical Government’s initiative.
An idea to allow electronic signature gathering, now being reviewed by the state attorney general’s office, could drastically reduce the work required of citizens’ groups to get a citizen initiative before voters. Current rules do not explicitly bar electronic signatures, but the process is based on a system of physically gathering signatures on paper petitions.
Two citizens’ groups who want voters to decide if independent commissions should be involved with legislative ethics and redrawing legislative districts identified a common enemy Tuesday ”” the Legislature. The Fair Boundaries coalition and Utahns For Ethical Government are both working to put initiatives before voters in 2010 to change how the Legislature does business, and officials from both camps said push-back from lawmakers could drive up the cost of their efforts.
The latest effort to reform the way medical care works in Utah and around the country is as doomed as the half-dozen attempts since Harry Truman was president, according to Salt Lake physician and longtime health-care critic Dr. Joseph Jarvis. He believes true reform won’t happen short of putting it on the ballot, which he is trying to do through the Web with his Utah Health Care Initiative.