There are couple of more citizens' ballot initiative stories this morning in the northern Utah press which are well worthy of note. From this morning's Salt Lake Tribune:
As ethics-initiative backers scramble to gather enough signatures to place their measure on November's ballot, opponents hope to make it easier for some of those names to disappear.Read all about it here:
In a statement last week, Utah's conservative Sutherland Institute labeled the measure put forward by Utahns for Ethical Government "dangerous" and asked lawmakers to streamline the name-removal process for folks who signed but changed their minds.
On Saturday's Red Meat Radio show on 630 AM, Sen. Howard Stephenson said he would file a bill today to do just that.
• Ethics initiative battle heats upAnd that's not the only SL-Trib story reporting on the efforts of the forces of the status quo to thwart citizen efforts to impose real ethics reform upon our Utah legislature. The Trib also reports on a second proposed measure which could create a potentially serious roadblock to citizen initiative efforts in Utah:
A bill that would remove the time constraints under which the Utah Supreme Court must act when dealing with citizen initiatives and referendums is on its way to the House floor after unanimously clearing the House Judiciary Committee last week.Read the full story here:
HB112, sponsored by Rep. Brad Dee, R-Ogden, would allow Utah's high court to set its own timetable when reviewing citizen-led legislation.
"It leaves the initiative process in place," Dee said, "but gives the court the opportunity to deliberate and it does not require, based on any statutorial time limit, that they must make that decision and curtail their deliberations."
Dee says the bill would affirm the Legislature's commitment to separation of powers between the branches of government.
But citizen-led legislation fans see it differently.
• Initiative efforts may face obstacleWhat's painfully obvious is that opponents of serious, citizen-driven ethics reform in Utah are sweating bullets, and pulling out all the stops in order to prevent the angry lumpencitizens from finally having their way with our out-of-touch legislature. And in that connection, here's a new development that's likely to ratchet up the tension of the powerful and privileged at least a few more notches:
We're pleased to announce this morning that the Utahns For Ethical Government's (UEG) ethics reform petition is NOW AVAILABLE FOR SIGNATURE ONLINE!
• Sign the UEG Ethics Petition electronically right hereYou know what to do, gentle readers. If you haven't already signed the petition... do it NOW... and do it online.
(Links to the full complement of active Utah online initiative petitions are also available here, and in our WCF right sidebar, btw.)
