Comments about ‘Strict initiative rules could deny Utahns their rights’

I agree with this column. Basically, it's difficult for citizens to put forth initiatives, but easy for special interests with money... This is the exact reason we need ethics reform.

Hear! Hear! Thank you so much for giving voice to my exact thoughts!! As a volunteer, I could have collected twice as many signatures if I was paid to do nothing else! Even if I was loaned a decent running car and a some food/gas money I could have traveled to the far flung counties to gather even more of the required signatures. It really does boil down to a test of monetary resources rather than the validity of an initiative proposal.

One thing that you forgot to mention is the onerous demand that you have to wait ten years before the same initiative can be brought before Utahns again. The emperor really does have no clothes! Shame on the Republicans and the Utah legislature!

Of course Mr. Bernick is right. If you can't win fair and square, change the rules. How about counting and recounting until the petition sheets are so smeared that nobody can read the names?

10%! That's all that is required. 10%. If an initiative can't get 10% without crying to the court that 10% is much to high a standard, then it's obvious that the people aren't interested in that initiative.

If people feel strongly about something, you would have no trouble getting many more than 10% of them to sign a petition.

Is it just possible that the initiative was poorly drafted? Is it just possible that the initiative fixes something that just doesn't need fixing? Is it possible that the initiative was sponsored by people who are not mainstream and that more than 90% of the voters think that the petition is ridiculous?

If I thought the initiative were important enough I would have helped gathered signatures which may have pushed them over the 10%. Unfortunately I and many others do not buy into to the importance of the petition. Therefore it lacks the grass root support to obtain 10%.

Of course legislators and their families and friends posting here are not going to help with the petition! Thankfully, as time went on, we did meet people who joined up to help with the effort after we knocked on their door to ask for a signature! And, if it was a straight 10%, we probably cleared that. It's ten percent in 26/29 of the senate districts which make it unfairly difficult.

Spot on Bob. The legislature should not be allowed to create procedures that erect such a barrier to the Constitutional guarantee citizens have to make law by petition that the right is effectively inaccessible. It's difficult to know where that line is. But you have persuaded me: if the only way you can feasibly get the required signatures to get an initiative on the ballot is to pay millions of dollars to hire people to gather those signatures, the legislature has crossed it.

I don't necessarily have a problem with the 10% requirement currently in the law. But the real killer is the requirement to spread that 10% out over 26 of 29 Senate districts.

I'd like to see the Supreme Court tackle the issue if neither initiative makes it to the ballot. But I doubt the Supremes would want to inject themselves into the fight and risk antagonizing the Legislature.

The initiative rules are the best way to keep power in the legislature and away from the people. NOT good. We need to take the power away from the legislature and put it where it belongs -- with us.

A Deseret News poll showed 2 out of 3 Utah citizens supporting the ethics initiative petition. Why was it hard to reach the number of signatures needed to put the petition on the ballot?
1. volunteers unless retired could not work full time.
2. most signatures had to be collected outdoors in publicly owned places: libraries and parks
3. Utah weather makes outdoor signature collecting nearly impossible during the winter months.

With only four good months in which to collect signatures we've come very close and may still make it. We never lacked for people wanting to sign. The more the legislature tried to block us the angrier citizens became.

THERE IS STILL HOPE. If we don't have enough signatures to get the initiative on the Nov. ballot this year, we can legally continue collecting signatures to reach the needed 95,000 until Aug. of this year. That will insure the initiative makes it onto the 2012 ballot. WE WON'T LET THEM WEAR US DOWN!! WE WILL PERSEVERE IN OUR EFFORTS TO REFORM ETHICS IN UTAH'S LEGISLATURE!!!