Utah lawmakers move to set higher bar for ballot initiatives — but voters will have a say in 2026

Yahoo

11-03-2025

The Capitol in Salt Lake City is pictured at dusk on the last night of the legislative session, Friday, March 7, 2025. (Photo by Alex Goodlett for Utah News Dispatch)
During a session underscored by efforts to assert legislative control, the 2025 Utah Legislature made moves to set new requirements on Utahns' ability to enact laws via ballot initiatives — but the most significant proposed change can't take effect without voter approval.
The Republican-controlled Utah legislature passed two pieces of legislation that would set new limits on ballot initiatives, but one will be going on the ballot in 2026 for voters to consider. The question? Should ballot initiatives to enact laws that would require tax increases be required to receive at least 60% of the vote, rather than a simple majority?
Here are two pieces of legislation impacting ballot initiatives that lawmakers passed:
SJR2 puts a question on the 2026 ballot for voters to either approve or reject: Should ballot initiatives that would require a new tax or a tax hike only be allowed to take effect if at least 60% of voters approve it? Currently, the Utah Constitution only requires a simple majority vote for ballot initiatives to be enacted as new laws.
SB73, if signed by Gov. Spencer Cox, sets new requirements for ballot initiative applications. It would require initiative backers to include in their application for the initiative a detailed description of how the proposed law would be funded and if it would require a tax increase. If they successfully get the initiative on the ballot, it would also require initiative backers to follow the same publication requirements that lawmakers do when they put proposed constitutional amendments on the ballot, which could increase the cost of ballot initiatives by an estimated $1.4 million — though that could change.
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Currently, the Utah Constitution requires that constitutional amendments be published in newspapers statewide for 60 days before the next election. However, lawmakers want voters to consider changing that, which would impact not just proposed constitutional amendments, but also ballot initiatives. Here's why:
Utah lawmakers also passed a resolution and a companion bill that could remove that newspaper publication requirement from the Utah Constitution and leave it up to lawmakers to decide how voters should be notified before an election. They included:
HJR10 places this question on the November 2026 ballot for voters to consider: Should the Utah Constitution be changed to strike the language requiring that proposed constitutional amendments must be published 'in at least one newspaper in every county of the state where a newspaper is published, for two months' immediately preceding the election, and should the constitution instead say those proposed amendments be published 'in a manner provided by statute, for 60 calendar days' immediately preceding the next general election?
If voters approve the question from HJR10, then another bill — HB481 — would take effect, setting a state law that requires proposed constitutional amendments and ballot initiatives be published as a 'class A' notice on the Utah Public Notice website or a government's official website for '60 calendar days immediately preceding' the next general election.
Proponents of setting the new rules for ballot initiatives — including Sen. Lincoln Fillmore, R-South Jordan, who sponsored SJR2 and SB73 — argued that Utah voters need to know the fiscal impact of proposed ballot initiatives, and that if they come with a price tag that would require a new tax, those initiatives should only be approved with 'broad' voter support.
'The question that (SJR2) will pose to the voters … is how easy do you want it to be for your neighbors to raise your taxes?' Fillmore said in a House committee on Feb. 26, during the resolution's second public hearing.
Fillmore added that 'citizen initiatives are an important part of Utah's government and Utah's constitution,' but he argued it should take more than 50.1% of the vote to raise taxes 'on the other 49.9%.'
'We really need to have a broad consensus for that kind of policy,' Fillmore argued.
As for SB73, Fillmore addressed criticisms that his bill will make running ballot initiatives in Utah unnecessarily harder — when it's already hard enough — head on.
'There is nothing in here that makes it more or less difficult to run a citizens initiative,' he said. 'However, it does recognize that Utah's constitution requires a balanced budget.'
Utah lawmaker wants to ask voters to set higher bar for ballot initiatives that raise taxes
He also argued that voters should change the constitution to take out newspaper publishing requirements because 'there's no need for either the Legislature using taxpayer money or taxpayer backers using donated money to pay to advertise in newspapers that nobody will read.' Digital publication requirements, he said, would be a 'more efficient way' that 'really can spread the word better and do it for far less money, in fact, for literally $0.'
However, groups including Better Boundaries (which successfully ran the 2018 ballot initiative that sought to enact an independent redistricting commission) and the League of Women Voters of Utah and Mormon Women for Ethical Government (the plaintiffs that sued the Legislature after it repealed and replaced that initiative, turning that commission into an advisory role that lawmakers could — and did — ignore) spoke against the bills.
They argued that together, SB73 and SJR2 would set unnecessarily high and in some cases impossible thresholds for ballot initiatives to succeed.
Katie Wright, executive director of Better Boundaries, urged lawmakers to oppose SB73, saying it's part of a yearslong effort to tamp down on ballot initiatives.
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'We have seen over the past decade a concerted effort to make our constitutional right to ballot initiative near impossible to exercise,' she said. 'This bill is just one more roadblock in people's ability to exercise that right that's in our constitution and constitutionally protected.'
While speaking against SJR2, Katherine Biele, president of the League of Women Voters of Utah, told lawmakers that voters are 'much smarter than you think,' and they already place enough scrutiny on ballot initiatives, especially costly ones. Additionally, she said lawmakers still have the power to change ballot initiatives.
'You are able to revise any initiative that passes, as you have in the past many times,' she said.
Dallin Robinson, while arguing against SJR2, said young voters are 'furious' about recent ballot initiatives in Utah. He didn't name them specifically, but after three ballot initiatives were approved in 2018 — one for full Medicaid expansion, one to legalize medical marijuana, and one to create Better Boundaries' redistricting commission — lawmakers repealed and replaced all of them.
Both the Medicaid expansion and medical marijuana initiatives included tax increases. So if they had been subject to the new thresholds outlined in SJR2, neither would have passed.
'This is an undemocratic bill,' Robinson said about SJR2. 'This bill silences the people of Utah. And the people of Utah are not as dumb as you think. We understand tax policy, and we are absolutely confident enough to speak and vote on our own tax policy.'
In that House committee, Rep. Jason Thompson, R-River Heights, argued in favor of SJR2, saying it's a question that voters should have a chance to weigh in on.
'I too find it ironic that where this Legislature is trying to give the people of this state the opportunity to have their voice heard by having this put on the ballot, that the Legislature could be attacked in the way that it's being attacked, saying that it's wanting to quiet the voice of the people of this state,' he said. 'I reject that notion.'
However, Rep. Andrew Stoddard, D-Sandy, argued against SJR2, saying it would place higher requirements on ballot initiatives than the Legislature when it comes to passing laws that would come with a price tag.
'It's unfair for us to say, 'Hey citizens, you require a higher threshold when you're raising taxes. We're not imposing the same requirement on us as legislators,' Stoddard said.
Both SJR2 and SB73 passed the House and Senate along mostly party line votes, with Democrats voting against.
The other proposals (HB481 and HJR10) to change publication requirements, however, passed with unanimous support from both bodies.
Both SB73 and HB481 now go to the governor for his signature or veto. Cox, however, does not need to weigh in on resolutions, so SJR2 and HJR10 will be enacted without his signature.
Lawmakers' had their crosshairs on ballot initiatives during the 2025 session that ended at midnight on Friday as part of the ongoing fallout from a Utah Supreme Court decision over the summer in the League of Women Voters of Utah and Mormon Women for Ethical Government's redistricting lawsuit. The ruling asserted the Legislature does not have unfettered power when it comes to altering 'government reform' ballot initiatives.
That unanimous July 11 opinion explicitly said 'this does not mean that the Legislature cannot amend a government-reform initiative at all,' but rather it made clear that lawmakers' power to amend certain initiatives has limits and that the Utah Constitution protects 'government reform' initiatives from being overridden by lawmakers without a compelling government interest.
Amendment D ballot language was misleading to voters, Utah Supreme Court affirms
And yet, fearing that ruling will turn ballot initiatives into 'super laws' that lawmakers can't change and that it will open the floodgates to 'outside money' and California-style lawmaking in Utah, Republican legislative leaders set out to do something about it — after their first plan of action, Amendment D, crashed and burned.
The courts voided Amendment D — which would have enshrined the Legislature's power to alter any type of voter-approved ballot initiative — after lawmakers both failed to follow newspaper publication requirements in the Utah Constitution and after characterizing the proposed constitutional amendment's effect in a misleading way on the November ballot.
Now, until voters potentially change those publication requirements, Utah lawmakers want ballot initiative backers to adhere to the same constitutional requirements they face for proposed constitutional amendments.
Senate President Stuart Adams, R-Layton, has repeatedly characterized unchecked ballot initiatives as a threat to Utah's future. He has argued that the current balance of Utah's democratic republic form of government has served the state well and that the Utah Supreme Court's ruling upset that balance.
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In his opening speech on the first day of the 45-day session, Senate President Stuart Adams, R-Layton, urged lawmakers to act to preserve the state's 'republic,' while promising 'I will do everything I can to keep it.'
'We cannot let unelected special interest groups outside of Utah run initiatives and override our republic, destroy our businesses, demean, impugn and cast aside those who are duly elected to represent their neighbors and friends in Utah,' Adams said. 'We cannot let the Utah Dream die. We will not let initiatives driven by out-of-state money turn Utah into California.'
Citizen initiative backers, however, argue that setting higher bars for ballot initiatives will have the opposite effect by making it impossible for every-day citizens to exercise their power, leaving only well-resourced groups to have any chance of success.
'Together with SJR2, (SB73) really makes it nearly impossible for grassroots efforts to succeed while large, well-funded interests can still navigate the system,' said Helen Moser with League of Women Voters of Utah, in a House committee hearing.
Moser argued that Utah 'already has safeguards to ensure responsible initiatives.'
'These extra barriers,' she said, 'only silence the people.'
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