From Deseret News archives:
Will voters be ignored on voucher subject?
Cities and a few counties are holding elections that day. Huntsman's order means county clerks will run a countywide vote on the school voucher referendum, as well.
Expanding the election will cost some cash; the amount of which Huntsman doesn't yet know.
But at least it won't be $3.5 million — the cost of the Feb. 5 presidential primary that legislators approved.
Huntsman has assurances from GOP legislative leaders that whatever the cost of expanding the Nov. 6 election may be, the Legislature will pay for that in the 2008 general session.
Republican legislative leaders were glad to accommodate Huntsman, partly no doubt because Nov. 6 is a logical time for the referendum, considering most Utahns would be going to the polls then anyway.
But there's a political side to the governor's decision, as well.
2008 is an election year for all 75 House members and half of the 29-member Senate, as well as Huntsman himself.
And several GOP leaders expressed concern that a Feb. 5 private-school voucher election would come right in the middle of the 2008 general session. Should voters reject vouchers, there would be great pressure applied in an election year for lawmakers to quickly fix the sticky problem of two voucher bills.
Let me explain.
By only one vote in the House, lawmakers passed the original — and main — voucher bill, HB148, in the 2007 session.
And pro-vouchers groups got the votes needed only after some critical compromises, like all the voucher tax money coming out of Utah sales tax revenues, not income tax funds which are dedicated to public and higher education.
Later in the 2007 session, pro-voucher lawmakers introduced a second voucher bill — termed at the time as a "cleanup" measure. That bill carried much of the original HB148's voucher-implementing language, but not all of it. The second bill, HB174, also provided additional voucher funding.
HB174 passed by more than two-thirds vote. That's because a number of Democrats and moderate Republicans who voted against HB148, voted for HB174, because it made the original voucher bill — still much hated by them — better and provided additional money.
Now, the Utah Constitution says any bill that passes by two-thirds vote CANNOT be subject to a referendum repeal vote.
And thus the sticky wicket: Utahns could well vote down HB148 — and thus vote down private-school vouchers — and the state would still have HB174 in place.
