Ethics petition gathering will carry on till mid-August

SALT LAKE CITY — As expected, leaders of Utahns for Ethical Government citizen initiative petition said Tuesday that they failed to get enough signatures in 26 of 29 state Senate districts and so will continue their petition gathering until mid-August.

Thus, the legislative ethics petition won't be on the November ballot for Utahns to vote on. None of the other initiative petitions being circulated made the required number of voter signatures by April 15, either.

Last week UEG leaders announced they would continue gathering voter signatures beyond an April 15 deadline — in hopes of getting the measure on the 2012 ballot — but were unwilling or unable at that time to say whether they had gathered the required 95,000 signatures statewide, with at least 10 percent coming in each of 26 of 29 state Senate districts.

"We have sufficient results" among the 29 county clerks tallying hundreds of UEG paper petitions "to say we have not made it in enough Senate districts," said Kim Burningham, UEG chairman.

"We're organizing right now" to identify the Senate districts in which the petition fell short.

Once those districts are identified, "we'll go right away" into them to gather more voter signatures, Burningham said.

The UEG initiative would set up an independent ethics commission for legislators, cap campaign contributions, ban lobbyist gifts and make other changes.

By state law, to get their legislative ethics changes on the November 2010 ballot, UEG had to turn in the required signatures by April 15.

But state law gives petition organizers 12 months to hand in signatures from the time the original petition is filed. If they make that deadline (Aug. 12 for UEG), then the initiative may go on the next general election ballot — in this case November 2012.

UEG supporters said last week that many paper petitions were being handed in by volunteers to their local county clerks. And thus UEG didn't then know if it made either the 95,000 statewide number, or 10 percent in 26 Senate districts until those petitions were added up.

"We still don't know if we made the 95,000 overall number," Burningham said Tuesday. "To get to that number, it's likely we would have to include electronic signatures" gathered on UEG's website.

But Lt. Gov. Greg Bell, state elections officer, has already ruled electronic signatures invalid.