Initiative backers attack new law

Utah's law laying out how to get a citizens initiative on the ballot is under attack again in a lawsuit filed Wednesday that alleges recent changes to the law make it "truly impossible" to get a grass-roots initiative before voters.

The challenger this time is the Utah Safe to Learn-Safe to Worship Coalition, which seeks a ballot initiative to prohibit people with concealed carry permits from bringing guns into schools, universities and churches.

Plaintiff attorneys have tasted victory in the courts before in their tackling of Utah's old initiative law for backers of the controversial Radioactive Waste Restrictions Act. They succeeded in having the signature gathering requirements of the statute declared unconstitutional in a ruling last summer by the state Supreme Court and placing the act on the ballot.

Utah Assistant Attorney General Thom Roberts said the state stands by its changes to the initiative process.

"Their claim is that the provisions are unreasonably burdensome," he said. "It is the state's position that they are not — that an initiative with sufficient currency in popularity could gather the necessary signatures."

The coalition launched a citizens' drive in 2000, falling short of the old requirement to collect 76,180 signatures from 20 of Utah's 29 counties. It jump-started the effort again in 2002 but blamed lack of money for not collecting the necessary signatures.

Then in response the high court ruling, the Legislature in March adopted new amendments that petition backers say are even more stringent than the portion of the law declared unconstitutional last year.

In that ruling, Utah Supreme Court justices said the requirement that petition backers gather 10 percent of the signatures in the last gubernatorial election from 20 of Utah's 29 counties imposed an undue bias in favor of rural counties.

A signature from sparsely populated Duchesne County, justices said, carried much more weight than a signature from an urban county along the Wasatch Front, thus violating the "one man-one vote" tenet.

The lawsuit Wednesday alleges "harsh" reaction by lawmakers to the ruling that nullified that specific geographic distribution requirement — a reaction that led to substantial revisions in the law during the last legislative session.

Among those changes: