Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Salt Lake Tribune: A Bar Too High

An invitation to WCF readers to roll up their sleeves and hit the streets to put the UEG petition drive over the top
It's the political equivalent of pole vaulting over the Wasatch Front. The Legislature has set the bar way too high for citizen ballot initiatives, making it nearly impossible for the people to exercise their constitutional right to make laws.

Salt Lake Tribune Editorial
A bar too high
April 20, 2010

Fine editorial in today's Salt Lake Tribune, chastising the State legislature for restrictive regulations undermining the right of the people to enact laws through the constitutionally provided citizen initiative process and urging the legislature to "lower the bar":

A bar too high
Do we believe today's editorial will spark action in the legislature to lower the ridiculous high signature numbers bar? Fat Chance!

This morning's editorial follows up Friday's disappointing news wherein Kim Burningham, leader of the initiative group Utahns for Ethical Government, conceded publicly for the first time that the UEG drive probably fell short in at least some Utah districts:

Ethics initiative probably out for this year's election

Sadly, we learn from the latter story that our own Weber County was one of the areas where the UEG petition drive probably came up short:
In Weber County, an estimated 4,400 signatures were submitted, far short of the 7,250 that would be needed to reach the 10 percent threshold, even if every one of them is valid.
Happily however, gentle readers, the UEG is not ready to simply throw in the towel. The UEG website will soon resume accepting electronic signatures; and petition sponsors inform us that within the next week or so, the organization will be seeking extra Weber County volunteers to assist in the commencement of a stepped up hard-copy Weber County signature drive. Even in the event that petition sponsors failed to meet the April 15 deadline with the requisite signatures to place the initiative on the November 2010 ballot, they'll now be shooting for a new mid-August deadline, to qualify the initiative for the 2012 ballot.

In that connection, we invite any WCF readers who'd like to roll up their sleeves and volunteer to hit the streets to put the Weber County petition drive over the top, to contact us via our email contact link in the upper right sidebar. We'll be compiling a list of those readers who'd like to get involved, and will attempt to help coordinate our WCF volunteers to work with UEG sponsors, in assisting during the next four months toward the UEG's renewed petition signature gathering effort.

Duty calls, Weber County proponents of robust ethics reform in Utah. If we seriously desire true ethics reform in our state legislature, this may well prove to be our last chance.

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