Proposed changes to election laws could tighten requirements for state school board candidates.

Under the proposal presented Wednesday to the Government Operations Interim Committee, candidates for the state school board would be required to live in their district for a year before the election date. Currently, they are not required to reside in their district until they are elected.

The new residency requirements are more stringent than those for legislators, who need to live in their district for six months before the last day for filing for office. The proposed requirements are, however, on par with those of most local school districts.

Sen. Greg Bell, R-Farmington, suggested that the state school board have the same requirements as legislators, since they are state offices and more comparable to other state offices than local boards.

"It is to have parity between the (state school) board and the Senate and the House," he said. "I don't know why it should be different."

The committee did not vote on the proposal. Instead, members requested an outline of the residency requirements for every state and local office so they could try to make them as similar as possible.

Another change that was rebuffed by the committee would have reduced the amount of time given to groups trying to put an initiative on statewide ballots. The proposal by the state elections office would have required groups to submit a petition for signature verification 45 days earlier than they do now.

Currently, those deadlines are between June 1 and July 6, but the new rule would make the petitions due between April 15 and June 1. The change was requested by county clerks because primaries are also held in mid-June, and the workload can become too heavy for their staffs if they also have to verify signatures.

Committee members worried about further tightening an initiative law that is already considered one of the strictest in the nation. Also, they were concerned about backlash from the Utah Supreme Court, which has previously hinted that any further restrictions on initiatives would not be viewed kindly.

"I think we're talking a significant policy issue," said Rep. Ron Bigelow, R-West Valley. "I'm a little hesitant to even go on record of supporting" the drafting of a bill for changing the dates, let alone the rule change itself.

Instead, Bigelow suggested that if individual legislators are supportive of the change, they should sponsor the bill themselves. He did not think that the interim committee would be likely to support it.

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