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 state Supreme Court, lawmakers called a special session to consider amending Utah’s constitution to give themselves power over citizen initiatives that the state Supreme 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.
Voter rights groups filed suit after lawmakers ignored a district map drawn up by the commission and instead passed their own that divided liberal Salt Lake County into four congressional districts, all of which have since gone to Republicans by large margins.
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 Utah did. Lawmakers quickly put a new amendment on the ballot to reverse some of the key elements, and 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 advocacy group in Ohio won a ballot spot for a bill that would appoint a new commission to draw up maps for the legislature and Congress. Republican Attorney General Dave Yost twice objected to the bill’s language.
A lower court in Utah will also reexamine the process for redrawing the state’s congressional districts following the Supreme Court’s ruling, but the current boundaries will remain in place for this election cycle.
