Utah Supreme Court to decide whether Amendment D can be voted on

SALT LAKE CITY — The Utah Supreme Court is poised to decide whether Amendment D — a controversial proposal to change Utah’s constitution over citizen initiatives — can be voted on in the November election.

The Court notified lawyers of oral arguments today, and has scheduled them for Sept. 25 at 9:30 a.m..

On Friday, the lawyers for the Utah Legislature appealed a decision by a lower court judge to void Amendment D from the November ballot because of it’s ballot language which she deemed misleading.

Anticipating the appeal, Judge Dianna Gibson allowed the amendment to be printed on ballots, but no votes would count. If the Supreme Court reinstates the amendment, ballots would not need to be reprinted.

On Wednesday, the legislature lost their case in a lower court where Judge Gibson ruled that the ballot language, written by Utah’s House Speaker and Senate President, failed to hit on the crux of what the amendment would do. In her ruling she wrote that the ballot question omitted the “chief feature” of the amendment change.

That feature, according to Gibson, was that “the legislature will have the unlimited right to change law passed by citizen initiative. The omission entirely eliminates the voter’s fundamental right.”

The decision from Utah’s highest court to hear the case is a significant step in finalizing a month of debate over the ballot language, and even longer over the initiative process. It was a July Utah Supreme Court ruling that first limited the Utah legislature in changing laws created by citizens that delt with the structure of government. It ruled that the Utah legislature may have overstepped by altering a citizen-led ballot measure aimed to prevent partisan gerrymandering. The outcome of that case is still pending in Utah’s lower courts.