Voucher author knew hill was extremely steep

In violation of the cardinal rule of column writing I learned during my sports writing days — whatever you do, avoid the losing locker room — I called Steve Urquhart anyway.

It was Wednesday, the day after private school vouchers were soundly defeated in the general election, 309,528 to 188,123.

If it had been a football game, voucher backers would be complaining about voucher foes running up the score. Who do they think they are, they'd wonder, the New England Patriots?

Urquhart described it as "a sound thumping."

Urquhart is the St. George legislator who sponsored the voucher bill that was passed into law by the state Legislature last February.

It was his bill that, in turn, prompted 124,218 Utah citizens to sign a petition in April that qualified the voucher question to make it onto Tuesday's statewide ballot.

I asked Rep. Urquhart how it felt to know you were down more than 124,000 votes before the game even started?

"I knew it would be extremely difficult," he said. "It was obviously an extremely steep hill."

"I regret the outcome, of course," he said, and then, thinking it over, added, "But I better not call the people who elected me or my colleagues anything less than brilliant."

That would be the majority he's talking about.

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Even though the referendum doubled back and smacked him up the side of the head — and not just him but the majority of his legislative colleagues who voted to make vouchers the law — Urquhart said he has no fight with referendums, at least not with the way they're structured in Utah.

State law allows referendums onto the general ballot only after a substantial number of people — at least 10 percent of the turnout from the most recent election for governor, representing at least 15 of the state's 29 counties — sign their names to a petition.

The 124,000-plus from 26 counties who petitioned that the voucher question be put up for statewide vote exceeded the 10 percent requirement by more than 32,000 names.

"I like our referendum system," Urquhart said. "It's significant enough of a hurdle that I think it provides a real emergency cord if the public thinks it's necessary. But it's not something that can be exercised in willy-nilly fashion.

"And I think it's healthy for the people to have that check on the Legislature because ultimately we do work for them."

Still, there's nothing fun about seeing your bill overturned by something approaching a 2-to-1 margin.

"I wish we would have done a better explanation of the finances," said Urquhart. "All the money would be new. That's an important point that needed to be stressed."

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