Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. said Thursday he and legislative leaders are putting together a letter pledging to honor whatever decision voters make about private school vouchers at the polls in November — even if Utahns reject the funding program.

The letter, which Huntsman said may also be signed by Attorney General Mark Shurtleff, "will essentially state that whatever the vote is in November will be respected as a vote up or down on vouchers."

The governor, speaking on his monthly news conference broadcast on KUED Channel 7, said the letter is a better solution than calling lawmakers into special session to address the question of what impact the vote will have on the voucher program.

"It accomplishes the same thing," Huntsman said of the letter, which should be finished within a few days. The governor said there wasn't the "political will" to deal with the issue in a special session.

But he said he was confident lawmakers would live up the promise made in the letter. His comments came just a few hours before a group of vouchers supporters were scheduled to hold a press conference announcing legal action.

Right now, Huntsman said, the vote to repeal one of the two bills passed to establish the voucher program "might be an incomplete target. ... It more or less today would be an opinion survey because (the other bill) would live on."

The letter, though, will spell out to voters that they will have the final say at the ballot — just as Huntsman has said repeatedly he wants them to have.

"If we as leaders agree that a vote in November would be definitive in the sense that it would be an up or down vote on vouchers and, if need be, action would be taken in the next legislative session to change the code accordingly, then I think probably that's what the people of the state need to hear and ought to hear," the governor said.

Earlier this Legislature passed the initial voucher law, HB148, which provides families with private-school tuition vouchers ranging from $500 to $3,000 per year, scaled to income.

But voucher opponents filed for a referendum in March to put the issue of a voucher program to vote. The referendum petition drive was successful and the vote was set for November.

However, HB174, an amendment bill that made some minor changes to the original voucher law, was also passed and became law last month.

Voucher supporters, along with Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff, say that measure has enough language in it to stand alone, though it lacks the $9.2 million appropriation that was in the original bill.

But critics, along with a number of state board members, say the bill is fragmented and missing some critical sections. And members of the state Board of Education say they aren't going to move to implement the second law until legal questions are answered — specifically, what power the state board has in filling in the missing pieces of the law.

Voucher applications were supposed to be available to families this month and the board's failure to implement the program has voucher proponents up in arms. And later today Utah legislators, parents and voters will announce a legal action seeking to end the legal confusion over Utah's school choice program.

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