The Utah Supreme Court has agreed to decide if Amendment D will go on the November ballot.
On Saturday, the state’s top court agreed to take up the Legislature’s appeal of a lower court judge’s ruling that voided the constitutional amendment.
Earlier this week, 3rd District Judge Dianna Gibson sided with voter rights groups who argued the language going on the ballot for voters to decide was “misleading.”
Gibson on Thursday declared Amendment D — which would guarantee the Legislature can repeal voter-approved ballot initiatives — invalid, citing its deceptive presentation and the Legislature’s failure to publish the text of the amendment, as required by the Utah Constitution.
“Without transparent, accurate and complete disclosure about the amendments, there can be no meaningful right to vote,” Gibson wrote in a 16-page opinion issued.
The entire reason the Legislature proposed adding Amendment D to the Utah Constitution was to overturn a unanimous decision by the five Republican-appointed justices who ruled this summer that lawmakers could not simply repeal government-reform ballot initiatives without rendering the public’s constitutional right to the initiative process meaningless.
Now the justices will decide whether to let the Legislature move forward with that effort — despite Gibson’s finding that doing so could trick voters into surrendering any protections for any kind of ballot initiative.
Arguments before the state’s high court are expected later in the month.
— The Salt Lake Tribune contributed to this article. Read the FOX 13 story. The Tribune and FOX 13 are content-sharing partners.
