As many of you either knew or could easily figure out – I have been working for the Fair Boundaries Initiative over the past four months.  Last Thursday, we finally submitted our signatures for final counting and, though nothing official has been released, I can tell you that we probably received half of our legally required goal of 95,000 signatures.

Now that I am free of the shackles, so to speak, I feel the need to tell the world how I feel about the initiative process in Utah.

It is unconstitutional.

Yes, unconstitutional. The state constitution states in Article 1, Section 2 that “All political power is inherent in the people; and all free governments are founded on their authority for their equal protection and benefit, and they have the right to alter or reform their government as the public welfare may require.”  One of the ways we can theoretically do this is through the referendum process if and when our government fails to act.

Ah, but our government has acted – to halt the referendum process.

Three laws are now on the books that severely limit the ability for people to petition our government.

1. Petition gatherers need to collect signatures equivalent to 10% of those who participated in the last gubernatorial election.
2. Petition gatherers need to collect 10% of signatures in 26 out of 29 senate districts
3. Petition gatherers must submit petitions to the various county clerks on April 15, however you can remove your signature up to one month after submission.

There are also a few procedural items that make the task even more difficult.

1. A signature may be deemed invalid, even if it is legal, if it is not submitted to the proper county clerk.
2. Electronic signatures will be counted by some clerks but not others.

Now, Fair Boundaries was extremity popular. In fact the Deseret News reported that two out of every three people supported the indicative and its goals, yet it still failed to reach its legal goal – why?

The laws in this state make it too difficult for people to petition their government and are, there fore, de facto unconstitutional.

As a point of fact, the nonpartisan Citizens in Charge gave Utah a grade of C- in the ability of its citizens to pass a referendum, however this document was clearly published before the rules were changed to up the required distribution to 26 out of 29 senate districts and to remove signatures. I would imagine that with this added information it would drop to a D- by the groups standards.

I also find it interesting that the very legislators who claim to be doing the will of the people get so frantically upset when the people wish to do something as patriotic as participating in their democracy.

The initiative process should be difficult, but not impossible. Sadly, it appears that only large sums of money, and not grassroots efforts can prevail in this state.

We as citizens have to ask ourselves if we want our democracy to be so blatantly bought and sold as to prevent the citizenry from ever participating in it.

Fair Boundaries was only disliked among the political elite who stood to loose something from making the system more equitable. The only reasonable objection I ever heard from a citizen was “who chooses the commission that sets up the boundaries in the first place?” Indeed, people should ask those questions – however most felt that it was an improvement over the current system.

So, sadly, Fair Boundaries failed. I will close with a story I have about the late Senator Ed Mayne that I have told in the past.

While working as Senator Mayne’s intern, we had a discussion about a bill he was running regarding health care spending for people with disabilities.  The bill was doomed to fail – and he asked me if it would.  After saying that it had no chance, he replied “I know it won’t pass; but damn it, it is the right thing to do.”

During the campaign I kept on my computer monitor a post-it note from a donor that made it all worth while:

Fair Boundaries was the right thing to do and I know that, in my own way, I have done something to help the state I love.