There’s a new wrinkle in the tug-of-war between lawmakers and voters over ballot initiatives.
The League of Women Voters of Utah and Mormon Women for Ethical Government claim the language on the ballot “seeks through deception to mislead Utah voters into surrendering their constitutional rights.” To that end, they’ve asked a judge to scrap it.
Amendment D was added to the ballot following a last-minute special session that lawmakers called in response to a Utah Supreme Court decision on citizen-led ballot initiatives. The Legislature is seeking the power to significantly change or repeal those voter-approved measures.
It reads:
Should the Utah Constitution be changed to strengthen the initiative process by:
- Prohibiting foreign influence on ballot initiatives and referendums.
- Clarifying the voters and legislative bodies’ ability to amend laws.
If approved, state law would also be changed to:
- Allow Utah citizens 50% more time to gather signatures for a statewide referendum.
- Establish requirements for the legislature to follow the intent of a ballot initiative.
KUER approached people on campus at The University of Utah and spoke with them about the above text. They were asked to read Amendment D and then we asked them what they thought it meant. Their responses show there is confusion about what the question would accomplish.
“It's vague, so you don't really know what it's about,” Kristen West said about the amendment. “They should be more transparent.”
At first glance, Emma Vanderbloemen said the amendment is “trying to get citizens to have more rights and more say in what the state's doing.”
That was also Chasen Robbins’ assessment. He said it “sounds like they're asking Utah voters if they want more constituents in Utah to have autonomy to initiate local reforms in the state and reduce out-of-state influence on reforms.”
Kelly Robbins saw it the same way. She added that she thought the ballot language would allow more time for “Utah citizens to take action around laws and amendments they're trying to make, and put more onus on [the] Legislature for how they go about that.”
Most people were drawn to two of the amendment’s aspects. The part that would prohibit “foreign influence on ballot initiatives and referendums” and that it would give Utahns “50% more time to gather signatures for a statewide referendum.”
Given the language about “foreign influence,” two people we spoke to believed the ballot question had to do with forbidding non-citizens from participating in Utah elections.
“My immediate translation of this would be like something to do with perhaps restricting the ability of migrants to vote,” Sean De Oliveira said.
The amendment, however, has nothing to do with the predominantly Republican-led conversation that non-citizens are voting in American elections. It’s a subject that Utah Sen. Mike Lee has been preoccupied with as well.
Furthermore, giving organizers more time to gather the required amount of signatures to get an initiative on the ballot is conditional. For that to happen, voters would need to approve the amendment. If they do, then a separate trigger law passed during the special session would take effect.
Senate President Stuart Adams and House Speaker Mike Schultz crafted the ballot language – only because the Legislature gave them the power to do so during the 2024 Utah legislative session. Until this year, the nonpartisan legislative legal counsel was tasked with drafting ballot language.
Quin Monson, political science professor at Brigham Young University, said the ballot language that will appear before voters does not match the constitutional amendment language.
“Legislative leadership that wrote this language is being very strategic and putting language on [the ballot] that will help shift things in the direction that they want,” he said, “which is for this to pass.”
For Monson, the word “clarifying” isn’t representative of what lawmakers are asking voters to sign off on.
“You should rather say they're ‘greatly strengthening the Legislature's power,’ if they wanted to be honest about it,” Monson added.
“They're basically asserting the supreme power of the Legislature over the power of the people.”
The Utahns KUER interviewed initially thought lawmakers were attempting to provide voters with more control over the initiative process while weeding out potential foreign actors from influencing outcomes.
That view changed, however, once it was explained to them after their initial impressions that, if approved, it would grant the Legislature the authority to repeal and alter voter-approved ballot measures.
In reaction, people then described the language as “manipulative,” “not great,” “knowingly nebulous” and “misleading.”
McKay England said she “wasn’t that surprised” to learn she misinterpreted the language because in her view the Legislature is “just trying to control as much as they can.”
After she read the amendment again, Kelly Robbins said it’s “not actually giving more power to the voter or to the citizen,” but she understands how someone might think it does based on how it’s phrased.
In a statement, President Adams and Speaker Schultz called the ballot language “straightforward and concise” that gives voters the opportunity to “easily understand the core of the proposed changes.”
Additionally, leadership said voters will have access to “comprehensive analysis and arguments both for and against the amendments,” which has been available for previous ballot questions.
“Those who label these efforts as deceptive are often the ones attempting to mislead voters,” they said.
