Utahns File Second Legal Claim Over Rushed Constitutional Amendment Process

Salt Lake City, UT — On Saturday, the League of Women Voters of Utah (LWV Utah), Mormon Women for Ethical Government (MWEG) and a bipartisan group of Utah voters filed a second challenge to the legality of Constitutional Amendment D. 

The Utah Constitution requires that the full text of a proposed constitutional amendment be published in at least one newspaper in every county of the state for the two months prior to the election. The legislature failed to meet that deadline.

This challenge is the second that Utahns filed to protect the rights clearly established by the Utah Constitution. Another filed late last week challenged Amendment D’s deceptive ballot language, which was written by the very same people who are pushing the amendment forward. 

That problem has been compounded by the Legislature’s failure to comply with its constitutional obligation to provide voters the proposed amendment’s text in a timely manner to allow voters to determine for themselves how to vote. The Legislature plans to present a false description on the ballot while simultaneously withholding the text of the amendment from voters.   

“The League of Women Voters takes seriously our mission to empower voters and therefore provide them with timely and accurate information. That has proven impossible after the legislature failed to release the text of Amendment D as required, and put out ballot language which is both biased and incorrect. It is unfair to their constituents who need time to examine their ballots and make informed decisions. We believe that the Utah Constitution recognizes that voters are integral to our democracy and that neither they nor the Constitution should be taken lightly or ignored. Voters deserve better from their representatives,” said Katharine Biele, president of League of Women Voters of Utah.

“The Utah Constitution includes an amendment notification provision for a reason – so that the people have the opportunity to read and consider what will be voted on. While the misleading ballot language has been shared far and wide by legislative leadership, the actual text of the amendment has been obscured, in clear violation of the Utah constitution. This is the latest move in a series of rushed political maneuvers that undermine Utahns’ constitutional rights,” said Emma Petty Addams, co-executive director, Mormon Women for Ethical Government.

Background:

In 2018, Utahns exercised their right to reform their government by passing a bipartisan initiative, Prop 4, also known as “Better Boundaries.” This effort created the Utah Independent Redistricting Commission (IRC) and banned partisan gerrymandering.  

In response, in 2020 the Utah Legislature repealed Prop 4 and replaced it with SB 200, which gutted the key redistricting reforms in Prop 4, and enacted a congressional map that is an extreme partisan gerrymander, in direct contradiction to the will of the voters. Additionally, in 2023, Utah politicians attempted to raise the threshold for the passage of ballot initiatives from a simple majority to 60%.

After the Utah Supreme Court reaffirmed the rights of the people to alter or reform their government, and rejected the Legislature’s disregard of the voters’ wishes, the legislature rushed into emergency session seeking to advance a constitutional amendment to invalidate the voters’ constitutional rights. As part of the rushed process, the legislative leadership then rushed misleading and inaccurate ballot language forward, while ignoring their constitutional duties to publish the full and accurate text in advance of the election. 

CLC is representing the League of Women Voters of Utah (LWV Utah), Mormon Women for Ethical Government (MWEG), and a bipartisan group of individual voters in the ongoing lawsuit.