05-02-2025
Utah lawmakers' constitutional changes could cost taxpayers millions in 2026
SALT LAKE CITY () — Two proposals to change Utah's Constitution have a price tag of $1.4 million each and a third proposal would likely cost the same if they each end up on the 2026 ballot.
That cost is something Utah's Senate leaders say they are trying to eventually solve, but if all three proposals are approved to be placed on the 2026 ballot, Utah taxpayers will be on the hook.
The cost is coming from a requirement in Utah's Consitution that dictates that the ballot proposals be published in newspapers in every county in the state. Fiscal notes for two proposed Constitutional changes currently have price tags of $1.4 million each for publication.
Additionally, a member of the Utah House confirmed with ABC4 that he's currently working on a third proposal to change Utah's Constitution to eliminate that cost. However, the costly publication requirement would still be in place for each of these ballot measures in 2026 as there would be no way for voters to change the newspaper requirement before they appear on the ballot.
That would mean that if each of the three proposals passes the legislature with the required two-thirds majority, they will be placed on the 2026 ballot and taxpayers would shell out over $4 million dollars for the proposals.
Rep. Anthony Loubet's third proposal, which has yet to be released, would ask voters to change Utah's Constitution to take out the newspaper requirement, swapping it instead for online requirements which Loubet said would be outlined in state law.
'We're looking at more like online type options — Utah public notice website, Lieutenant Governor's website, stuff like that,' Loubet said of the plans still in negotiations.
The other two proposals include SJR 2 — asking to change the Constitution so that initiatives dealing with taxes require 60% voter approval. And HJR 5 — which would prohibit changes to the way Utah's electoral votes are allocated.
Complicating things further, is a yet-to-be-approved provision in a substitute version of Senate Bill 73. That bill requires citizen-led ballot initiatives to follow the same publication rules as the Utah Constitution.
So, any citizen-led initiative slated to be run on a 2026 ballot would also incur the $1.4 million publication price tag before it could be changed.
Initiative supporters say that is a burdensome added cost that may even have constitutionality questions because it could be seen as interfering with Utahn's right to 'alter and reform' their government — a right the Utah Supreme Court recently guaranteed in Utah's constitution.
Senate leaders, and the Senate sponsor of S.B. 73, Lincoln Fillmore (R – South Jordan), defended putting three costly measures on the ballot, saying that their ultimate goal is to get both initiatives and legislature-led ballot measures to have the same reduced online publication requirements.
Senate President Stuart Adams (R – Kaysville) also signaled that he would be working to fix the $1.4 million dollar price tag per ballot measure.
'I probably need to talk to the advertising department and the papers because if we're running three constitutional amendments and they're running together, are they going to charge us a million four (for each one) or are they going to let us combine them?' he said, adding that he would ask to negotiate to get a 'quantity discount.'
The publication requirement, and the legislature's failure to do that, were the main reasons Amendments A and D were voided from the 2024 ballot by the courts.
Fillmore took issue with the way the courts interpreted the newspaper requirement 'so literally.'
'It's beyond me why the Supreme Court interpreted that so literally and so expansively when we can communicate to more people… in less money,' he said.
The Utah Constitution states that the legislature 'shall cause' the text of constitutional amendments to be 'published in at least one newspaper in every county of the state, where a newspaper is published, for two months immediately preceding the next general election.'
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