SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Utah’s Republican-controlled state legislature will meet Wednesday to decide whether to ask voters in November to surrender some of their rights to lawmakers who want the ability to change the state’s election bills after they pass.
Frustrated by a recent ruling by the Supreme Court of the Statelawmakers called a special session to consider amending Utah’s constitution to give themselves power over citizen initiatives that the state’s highest court has said they do not currently have. The legislature used its broadly worded emergency powers to hold the session.
If the amendment passes this fall and is approved by a majority of Utah voters, it would give lawmakers the constitutional power to rewrite ballot measures passed by voters as they see fit, or to repeal them entirely.
The proposal would also allow lawmakers to apply their new power to initiatives from past election cycles, including the redistricting measure that sparked the state Supreme Court case limiting the legislature’s authority.
Utah voters passed a law in 2018 that creates an independent commission to redraw districts every 10 years and send recommendations to the Legislature, which can approve those maps or create its own. The law also banned district boundaries from being drawn to protect incumbents or favor a political party — language the Legislature tried to eliminate in 2020 and replace with looser provisions.
Voting rights groups filed suit after lawmakers ignored a congressional map drawn up by the commission and passed one of their own that divided the liberal Salt Lake County between four congressional districtswho have since then all voted for the Republicans by a large margin.
Last month, all five Republican-appointed justices on the state Supreme Court sided with their opponents, who argued that the Republican two-thirds majority undermined the will of voters when it amended the ballot initiative banning partisan gerrymandering.
Utah’s Constitution gives significant weight to statewide referendums. If passed, they become laws equal to those passed by the legislature. Currently, legislators cannot change laws passed by referendum unless they strengthen them without impairing them or serve compelling state interests, the Supreme Court ruled.
Now lawmakers are trying to circumvent this ruling by expanding their constitutional powers – but voters have the final say.
Democratic lawmakers in the House have criticized the move as a “power grab,” while Republican leaders, Senate President Stuart Adams and House Speaker Mike Schultz, argue that it is dangerous to have certain laws that cannot be significantly changed.
Utah isn’t the only place where lawmakers want the power to undo ballot measures — at least under certain circumstances. Changes in the political mapping process have sparked such efforts in several states.
Missouri voters approved a new redistricting process in 2018 – the same year as Utah. Lawmakers immediately put a new amendment on the ballot to undo some of the key elementsand voters approved the new version in 2020.
In 2022, Arizona lawmakers put a proposal on the ballot that would allow them to amend or repeal entire measures passed by voters if any part of it is found unconstitutional or illegal by the state or federal Supreme Court. Voters rejected the proposal.
This year, an interest group has a place on the Election in Ohio for a measure that would establish a new commission to draw House and Congressional maps. Republican Attorney General Dave Yost twice objected to the language of the ballot measure.
A lower court in Utah will also reexamine the process of redrawing the state’s congressional districts following the Supreme Court’s ruling, but the current boundaries will remain in place. this election cycle.
