Initiative law faces another challenge

The Utah Supreme Court is once again scrutinizing the state's initiative law and is being asked for a quick ruling so backers of a citizens' petition can get moving on putting their issue before voters.

Attorneys for the Utah Safe to Learn-Safe to Worship Coalition, or Safe Havens, are challenging a June ruling by 3rd District Judge J. Dennis Frederick, who upheld Utah's new statute on the public referendum process. Frederick said its provisions are not overly burdensome and the initiative sponsors have to abide by its requirements, which initiative sponsors say are unfairly being applied retroactively.

"Safe Havens would like a ruling on the constitutionality of the challenged provisions as soon as possible, so it may have time to gather and submit signatures after this court's ruling . . . . Stated another way, Safe Havens would prefer to avoid spending its scarce resources complying with statutory provisions that are ultimately judged unconstitutional," the motion states.

The coalition hopes the high court will again rule that Utah's initiative law is unconstitutional, allowing the group to get an issue on the 2004 ballot that would ask Utah voters to outlaw guns on school or church property, even if the gun owner has a state-issued permit to carry a concealed weapon.

Attorneys for Safe Havens were out of town Thursday and could not be reached for comment.

Petition backers say their initiative effort is a direct reaction to the Legislature's unresponsiveness to Utahns, who they assert overwhelmingly oppose the notion of being able to carry a gun into public schools.

If the court agrees to review Utah's new law, this will be the second time in a year the high court will probe the constitutionality of the state's initiative process, which was partially struck down last summer.

It was the same group of attorneys working on behalf of the coalition who won that challenge, which was filed then on behalf of proponents of higher taxes on radioactive waste.

In that August ruling called Gallivan v. Walker, the court said Utah's geographic distribution requirement presented undue burdens to the state's constitutional guarantee of a citizen's right to the referendum process. As part of a two-pronged requirement to get an issue on the ballot, Utah previously required 10 percent of the signatures recorded in the last gubernatorial election from 20 of the state's 29 counties.

Specifically, the court declared the distribution requirement a violation of the "one person one vote" tenet because it placed greater emphasis on the vote of a rural county resident than that of an urban resident.