A week after a Utah judge disqualified Amendment D — which would ensure the Legislature the power to repeal ballot initiatives — from the ballot, the Utah Education Association is asking that Amendment A, seeking to erase a constitutional guarantee that income tax revenue would fund public schools, be tossed out as well.
As was the case with Amendment D, the UEA argued in a motion filed Wednesday that the question that voters will be asked to vote on in November doesn’t make clear that the amendment would eliminate the 93-year-old earmark.
“It seeks to mislead Utah voters by implying that education funding will be preserved when in fact the Amendment eliminates the constitutional safeguard for that funding,” the suit states.
Currently, Utah’s income tax revenue is earmarked exclusively for three purposes: public education, higher education and services for children and people with disabilities. That revenue — an estimated $8.4 billion for fiscal year 2025 alone — cannot be used on anything else, according to the state’s constitution.
If passed, Amendment A would allow the Legislature to use income tax revenue for a broader range of unspecified “state needs.”
Amendment A would also enshrine the Legislature’s current practices for education spending — a formula that uses enrollment growth and long-term inflation to determine how many dollars schools receive per student each year — and savings into the state’s constitution.
Additionally, if the amendment passes, two companion bills from the 2023 legislative session would go into effect as new laws. One of those would eliminate the state portion of sales tax on food, which is 1.75%. Local governments levy an additional 1.25% sales tax on groceries, which would remain intact.
The other, HB394, “Hold Harmless for Public Education Enrollment,” would ensure that a school’s funding remains the same if student enrollment drops, which it’s predicted to do in the next decade. That law would remain in place for five years, but lawmakers would have the option to extend it for an additional five years.
Here’s how the question will be presented to voters:
“Shall the Utah Constitution be amended to allow income tax money to be used for all state needs and prioritize public education funding for changes in enrollment and inflation? If this amendment is approved, state statute will eliminate the state sales tax on food.”
Attorneys for the UEA argue that the question on the ballot fails to inform voters of the “reality that Amendment A would, if passed, eliminate one of the key constitutional obstacles to that program by allowing the Legislature to divert the currently dedicated income tax revenue to anything it chooses — including private school vouchers.”
UEA attorneys also argue the language “incentivizes” voters to vote “yes” because “the ballot language selectively identifies only one of the pieces of legislation conditioned on Amendment A’s passage — a tax cut that affects all Utah voters.”
Further, UEA attorneys contend the amendment should be disqualified because the Legislature failed to comply with a requirement in Article XXIII of the Utah Constitution, which requires the text of any constitutional amendment to be published in newspapers around the state 60 days before the election.
Based on similar arguments brought by opponents of the ballot initiative amendment, 3rd District Judge Dianna Gibson ruled last week that votes for or against Amendment D should not be counted, because the ballot language would deceive voters into believing the proposal would “strengthen the initiative process” rather than weakening it and because the Legislature failed to comply with the constitution’s Publication Clause.
The Legislature has filed an emergency appeal of that ruling with the Utah Supreme Court. A hearing on that appeal is scheduled before the justices next week.
In a declaration filed last week, the chief of staff for the House informed Gibson that the Legislature had purchased space in 35 newspapers around the state in order to publish the text of four proposed constitutional amendments on the November ballot. The ads began running this week but, as Gibson noted in her ruling, that still did not meet the constitutionally required deadline.
Amendment D was proposed in response to a unanimous ruling in July by the Republican-appointed Utah Supreme Court that held Utahns have a constitutional right to reform government through the ballot initiative process. By repealing part of an initiative that sought to ban partisan gerrymandering — drawing political boundaries to benefit one party while disenfranchising another — the Legislature had violated that right, the court ruled.
The Legislature called an emergency special session in August to put the amendment on the ballot to overturn that ruling and make clear the Legislature can repeal or amend any initiative it sees fit.
The description of all of the amendments on voters’ ballots — including Amendments A and D — was written by House Speaker Mike Schultz and Senate President Stuart Adams, under a law changed earlier this year. Previously, writing those descriptions had been the job of nonpartisan legislative attorneys.
UEA attorneys did not immediately respond to The Salt Lake Tribune’s request for information on when the judge is expected to rule on the complaint.
The organization, alongside other children’s advocates, will hold a news conference later Thursday morning and more details are expected to come.
This is a developing story.
