‘Watershed moment’: What Utah’s redistricting ruling means for voters’ ability to change laws

Utah voters have visited polls in three election cycles since the last time they had a chance to fill in a bubble for a citizen-led effort to popularly change state law in 2018.

But political insiders say the Utah Supreme Court’s decision on Thursday that the Legislature overstepped its bounds when it rewrote a 2018 voter-approved ballot initiative that established an independent redistricting process could open the floodgates for grassroots measures that have been waiting in the wings over the last half-decade.

Efforts by lawmakers to undo passed ballot measures render meaningless a clause in the Utah Constitution that guarantees citizens the political power to reshape their government, the court said in its unanimous opinion.

“We hold that when Utahns exercise their right to reform the government through a citizen initiative, their exercise of these rights is protected from government infringement,” Justice Paige Petersen wrote in the ruling. “This means that government-reform initiatives are constitutionally protected from unfettered legislative amendment, repeal, or replacement.”

The decision goes beyond its likely impact on congressional districts in the state, and how those maps are drawn, to bind the Legislature from usurping voters’ will when codifying future ballot measures, plaintiffs’ attorney David Reymann told a crowd celebrating the ruling last week.

“There are many gerrymandering cases that just deal with gerrymandering,” Reymann said. “What the [Utah] Supreme Court did today was establish a new framework in Utah that doesn’t just apply to citizen initiatives about gerrymandering, but any democracy furthering government reform initiative. It is a watershed moment.”

Taylor Morgan worked on the Count My Vote initiative, which sought to require candidates to gather signatures to qualify for a primary, but ended in the dual-path compromise where candidates could qualify through signatures or the party nominating convention.

He said that after legislators rewrote three ballot initiatives that passed in 2018 — the independent redistricting commission, legalization of medical cannabis and expansion of Medicaid coverage for low-income Utahns — few were willing to put up the time and money to pursue another initiative.

“That definitely had a chilling effect on ballot measures here in Utah,” Morgan said.

The political consultant continued, “In fact, in conversations I’ve had over the last six years, talking to local groups, national partners and national investors about prospective ballot initiatives here in Utah, my advice to those groups up until [Thursday] is a ballot initiative in Utah could not be justified due to the extreme difficulty and the very high price tag of qualifying, to start, but also knowing the [ability of] the Legislature to preempt or undo a successful ballot measure.”

In 2020, a year after the legislative session during which lawmakers swapped the cannabis and medicaid initiatives for their own versions, now-House Minority Leader Angela Romero, of Salt Lake City, opened a bill to limit her colleagues from going against the will of Utahns in implementing initiatives.

It outlined “that, if the Legislature repeals or materially amends an initiative, the repeal or amendment does not take effect unless and until approved by the voters.” House leadership did not allow it to advance to a public debate.

Making ballot initiatives harder to pass

Over the six years since voters signed off on three major law changes that vexed the legislative majority, over a dozen bills that would change the initiative process have come up for consideration at the Capitol.

Some of the bills have made needed technical changes, and others, like one passed this year that makes signing initiative petitions more accessible to disabled people, have made it easier for Utahns to get initiatives off the ground. But others have been introduced with the aim of raising the bar for mostly grassroots law proposals qualify for the ballot

Within months of the three 2018 initiatives’ victories, lawmakers passed a trio of laws making citizen-led initiatives more difficult.

Those measures delay ballot measure implementation until legislators have a chance to adjust or repeal it in a general session; require initiative campaigns to submit signatures on a rolling basis; and extend criminal penalties for fraudulent signature gathering. They also moved the signature window earlier in the election cycle while raising the signature threshold by changing the standard from 10% of votes cast in the last presidential election to 8% of active voters.

A couple years later, in 2021, lawmakers placed restrictions on initiative campaigns using paid signature gatherers — those limits did not apply to candidates who collect signatures to qualify for the primary ballot.

And for the last two years, state legislators have weighed requiring a 60% voter approval, instead of a majority, for ballot initiatives that would raise taxes. Political operatives expect that proposal may return.

To what extent the decision might put off similar moves from lawmakers is unclear. Since 1952, only 26 ballot initiatives have qualified for a vote, and seven of those have passed.

For now, the tide appears to be changing for Utahns wanting to put questions to voters.

“My advice has been to everyone that a ballot initiative isn’t worth it here in Utah. It’s not,” Morgan said, adding, “However, [Thursday’s] ruling fundamentally changes that. My opinion now is that ballot measures here in Utah are absolutely viable and impactful again.”

What’s to come

While voters prepare to cast yet another ballot without a citizen-led initiative this fall, scores of Republican state lawmakers reacted to Thursday’s ruling with contempt, hinting they may be teeing up more initiative restrictions.

“This is one of the worst outcomes we’ve ever seen from the Utah Supreme Court,” a joint statement from House Speaker Mike Schultz, of Hooper, and Senate President Stuart Adams, of Layton, read.

The Republican leaders continued, “As the litigation continues in the lower court, we believe the Utah Constitution’s text shows that the Legislature should ultimately prevail. Despite this inaccurate interpretation, we remain committed to crafting policies that strengthen statutes and protect Utahns.”

Multiple GOP lawmakers followed their lead, with Morgan Rep. Kera Birkeland posting, “We’re FAR from the end on this issue,” and House Majority Leader Jefferson Moss, of Saratoga Springs describing the ruling as complicating “our ability to uphold the legislative process and enact policies that benefit Utahns.”

“I’m afraid if something isn’t done to mitigate the consequences of this decision, Utah … will be a shell of its former self,” South Jordan Rep. Jordan Teuscher wrote on X.

Such efforts would not come as a surprise to Katie Wright, the executive director of the organization that headed up the independent redistricting initiative, also known as Better Boundaries.

“Every single legislative session there’s an effort to make it harder for all of us to enact our constitutional right to ballot initiative,” Wright told reporters Thursday. “I do not see that slowing down.I absolutely see it ramping up.”

Meanwhile, firms hired to help manage ballot initiatives are preparing proposals of their own.

Matt Lusty, a partner in the firm Election Hive, said he has been contacted by several out-of-state groups interested in running ballot initiatives — including one that would change elections so five candidates would be on the ballot for the general election, regardless of party, and the winner decided using instant-runoff voting.

But each time the groups backed off, unwilling to invest the time and money when the Legislature can simply undo the initiative results if they pass.

Now, he said, he expects those national groups and many others to take a renewed interest in initiatives in the state.

Another possibility, Morgan said, is an initiative to use ranked choice voting or other runoff measures in elections, as is done in Idaho, Alaska and Maine.

In 2023, the group People4Utah was formed with a goal of getting an initiative on the 2024 ballot that would have replaced the current partisan primaries with so-called “jungle primaries,” where all of the candidates go on the ballot and the top two advance to the general, regardless of party affiliation.

Barbara Stallone, the executive director of the group, would not say if the group is planning another initiative push in 2026, but said the court’s ruling “restores hope that the people of Utah can be heard, even when elected officials aren’t listening.”

“This ruling is really about legislators being responsive to their voters. If they were, citizen initiatives would seldom happen,” Stallone said.