3754 W Pheasant Hollow Lane
Bluffdale, UT 84065
801-803-3289
For Immediate Release March 7, 2013
Contact:
Janalee Tobias 801-652-5816
Nancy Lord 801-688-4769
SB0066SO1 is an affront to the citizens of Utah
The Utah Legislature is currently considering SB 66, a bill which would add to Utah Code 20A-7-601 which governs citizen referendums.
If a group of citizens files for a referendum in protest of a law passed by a local governmental body, SB0066SO1 calls for the budget officer of the local government to prepare an “unbiased good faith estimate” of legal and financial costs if the law being challenged would to be overturned by a vote of the people in that jurisdiction in a citizen referendum. That estimate would be presumed to be accurate and unbiased by the Utah Supreme Court.
Under SB0066SO1, that “estimate” could be included in a government-issued voter information pamphlet prior to the election.
While SB0066SO1 would allow the government entity to prepare just a good faith “estimate,” it would require that petitioners who challenge that “estimate” “have the burden of rebutting the presumption by “clear and convincing evidence” - a much higher legal standard than required for the governmental entity.
“SB0066SO1makes referendums cumbersome, expensive, near impossible, and it is a complete insult to citizens’ integrity,” SaveGRAMA member Janalee Tobais said. “Government is supposed to be our advocate, not our adversary. Why do government entities continue to do everything in their power to stifle the voice of the people? Whatever happened to ‘vox populi?’”
Tobias recalled her years of experience sponsoring referendums dating back to 1998.
At that time, Tobias was part of a Utah Supreme Court case which determined whether South Jordan City Administrator Dave Millheim, acting as the city recorder, legally turned down a petition application by her group, S.O.S. and delayed the process.
“Any such determination is inappropriate until after the referendum petition has been completed and returned,” Chief Justice Richard Howe wrote. “…It is already difficult to succeed in the use of the referendum process due to the shortness of the statutory timetable.”
As reported by the Deseret News, May 5-6, 1998)
Although the court ultimately found against S.O.S., hen-Supreme Court Justice Michael Zimmerman, in a separate, concurring opinion, noted that if cities start the referendum clock when an ordinance first passes, a “clever local government” could evade referendums simply by enacting more statutes on top of the original. “This would not be a desirable result,” he wrote.
Zimmerman also stated, “We should not allow unauthorized delays by city administrators, those most likely to hope a referendum will fail, to make the process even more difficult,” (As reported in the Salt Lake Tribune, May 6, 1998)
It is widely known that sponsor Sen. Stuart Reid was asked to run this bill by the League of Cities and Towns. It appears that group wants to enable “clever local governments” to evade referendums completely, something the chief justices found undesirable.
“This makes it virtually impossible for the citizens to ever come forward with counter arguments,” SaveGRAMA member Nancy Lord said. “And it is just the citizens that are shackled by these requirements. This bill, if passed, would not put the same requirements on the local government entity when it first passes the law.”
SB0066SO1, passed in the Senate on Feb. 28 with a 27-1 vote. Originally scheduled to go before a House committee, it was pulled from the agenda and it appears it will go to the House at any time.
We call on our representatives in the House to recognize this bill for what it is – yet another attempt to render the people of Utah impotent in seeking to govern themselves through referendums, a right enshrined in the state constitution.
