Citizen initiatives to miss deadline

Supporters of citizen initiatives on legislative ethics and an independent redistricting commission say they will not gather enough signatures in time to meet a Sunday deadline that would force the 2010 Legislature to deal with their issues.

However, backers of both Utahns for Ethical Government and Fair Boundaries say the upcoming deadline won't keep them from reaching their ultimate goal — collecting 95,000 signatures from registered voters by April 15. If they do it, the measures will appear on next November's general election ballot.

In a related matter, House Speaker Dave Clark, R-Santa Clara, says he not only supports campaign contribution limits as suggested by a special democracy study panel, he also supports banning "all but minimus" gifts to legislators from registered lobbyists.

"No, we will not get the 5 percent" of registered Utah voters — more than 47,000 — who needed to sign the petitions by Sunday if the legislative ethics initiative was to go before lawmakers early next year, UEG chairman Kim Burningham said.

Glenn Wright, state field director for Fair Boundaries, said his group never aimed to get its redistricting commission before lawmakers anyway.

Legislators "would just do something funny with it" if it were introduced in the 2010 session, Wright said. "They would just tweak it to mean as little as possible, like they are dealing with ethics now," he added.

Under state law, any initiative petition that gets 5 percent of the number of registered voters who voted in the last gubernatorial election by Nov. 15 can be submitted to the next Legislature. Lawmakers must consider that petition.

If supporters get 10 percent of the signatures — in this case nearly 95,000 — by April 15, the petition is certified to appear on the next general election ballot. A majority vote would decide whether to make the initiative a state law.

In both the 5 percent and 10 percent scenarios, the supporters also must get 5 percent or 10 percent of their signatures in 26 of the 29 state Senate districts.

Burningham said UEG may have more than 5 percent of the necessary signatures statewide by Sunday but will fall short of getting the required numbers in each of 26 Senate districts.

Wright said his group never concentrated at all on the Nov. 15 deadline. "We thought that would not be productive. An up or down vote in the Legislature means little to us" because it is very unlikely the GOP-controlled Legislature would want an independent redistricting committee to recommend House and Senate boundary changes after each census. Independent redistricting bills have been introduced in the last seven Legislatures and never even got a public hearing, he said. "We'll just take it to the people."