Utah
Not happy with the way their petition drive ended, members of Kaysville Citizens for Responsible Government addressed the city council Tuesday, asking council members to put the initiatives on the ballot anyway. “I’m not here to appeal to you,” said Walt Parrish, “frankly, I feel it would be futile.” He said the residents’ rights to freedom of speech and to petition the government were denied for “frivolous reasons” in the process, which he called “highly unusual if not criminal.” Parrish said citizens were competent to make their own decisions, “and as elected officials, you must let them,” he said.
Local illegal immigration opponents joined a statewide effort Tuesday to toughen Utah’s illegal immigration laws through a 2012 ballot initiative. If passed by voters, the initiative would require Utah businesses to perform an E-Verify check of immigration status on all applicants and increase the penalties for those that hire illegal immigrants.
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.
Proponents of changes in Kaysville government were struck with another blow Monday, but apparently aren’t giving up their fight. The Davis County Clerk’s office, after consulting with the offices of the state Attorney General and the Lieutenant Governor, determined that insufficient signatures could be verified to put three initiative petitions on the ballot in November. “We very thoroughly examined these petitions,” said Pat Beckstead, election director for the county. “We double checked (election law) and we had a second person look at them and make sure that we were accurate.”
Two proposed citizens initiatives may be going before the Utah State Supreme Court for judgement on questions of initiative legality. Lehi City Council members moved to instruct the city recorder to find two citizens initiative petitions legally insufficient Tuesday night at City Hall.
The decision as to whether two citizen initiatives will be on the November ballot are on hold until Lehi City has had the opportunity to seek independent legal counsel. The petitions were not delivered to the Lehi recorder’s office Thursday. Instead, the Utah County deputy chief clerk/auditor gave the city assistant attorney and recorder the staff synopsis of their findings.
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.
Signature sheets are in the hands of petitioners, who are now working to collect the almost 1,500 signatures required to get three measures on the Kaysville ballot in November. The final hurdle, a fiscal impact estimate on the initiatives that would alter Kaysville’s governance, was completed by Dean Storey, finance director, on Tuesday and signature sheets were prepared by Linda Ross, city recorder, by Wednesday.
As we mentioned last week on our website and on this blog, Utah’s Governor recently signed a bill that outlaws using electronically collected signatures in a petition campaign.
Utah State University students were also upset at the governor for signing the bill into law, but for slightly different reasons than we here at Citizens in Charge were:
Utah has suddenly exploded with initiative & referendum related news. You may recall last year we held a joint press conference with Utahns for Ethical Government as they attempted to defend their right to put a measure on the ballot. They are still trying to get their ethics commission measure on the ballot and it seems that the Utah Legislature and Governor are doing everything they can to stop it. To the courts we go:
A group trying to get an ethics initiative onto the 2012 ballot claims Utah Lt. Gov. Greg Bell is violating state law with rules for petition signatures. Utahns for Ethical Government will announce the details of the lawsuit Monday. The group says Bell, who oversees the state elections office, is not giving them 12 months to gather signatures, which is the allotted time in state law.
As the deadline nears for two of three Lehi initiative petitions to gather signatures to get on the ballot in November, some voters are bandying harsh words with one another and illegal signs have been reported. “We have the initiatives, and it appears to be getting ugly,” said Councilwoman Kaye Collins at the late close of the March 8 Lehi council meeting. “There are some employees that are not acting in professional ways,” she said. “I have had people who have told me they have threatened them.” Lehi city administrator Jamie Davidson said he was not familiar with any threats, but he agreed that such behavior was not acceptable.
Electronic signatures will be prohibited through a bill passed by Utah lawmakers Wednesday night. The Salt Lake Tribune says Senate Bill 165 will require a registered voter to sign a petition in person instead of online. The bill passed the House 52-23 Wednesday. It now goes to Gov. Gary Herbert.
In action on two bills about elections on Tuesday, the Senate passed one to make it tougher for voter initiatives to appear on ballots — and killed another that would have allowed candidates to receive nominations from more than one party. The Senate voted 26-1 to pass SB165 by Sen. Curt Bramble, R-Provo, and sent it to the House. It would prohibit using electronic signatures on websites to help qualify a candidate, party or referendum for the ballot. It also would base the number of signatures needed to get an initiative on the ballot on the number of votes cast for president in the last election, instead of those cast for governor — essentially requiring more signatures.
Last week Citizens in Charge Foundation - a partner organization to Citizens in Charge - sent a letter to Secretaries of State and Attorneys General in 12 states asking them to stop enforcing unconstitutional restrictions on ballot initiative rights. In light of recent legal action in which Kansas officials agreed with petition advocates that the state’s law against petition circulators from other states was unconstitutional, Foundation President Paul Jacob asked officials to “do the right thing” and stop enforcing similar