As I have discussed in the past, I feel that the laws regarding passing a citizens initiative in Utah are so difficult that they are, for all intents and purposes, unconstitutional.

Well, late last night I received an email detailing the official results that can be found here. As you can see, both Fair Boundaries and Utahns for Ethical Government failed to reach their goal.  Though each group had over a year to collect signatures, they were sorely lacking in resources.  Indeed, Fair Boundaries averaged expenditures of about $800 a month over the year it was in operation – truly a grassroots effort. Utahns for Ethical Government averaged monthly expenditures of just under $4,750, still a small operation to say the least.

At the same time, Fair Boundaries was able to collect just under 45,250 signatures; Utahns for Ethical Government collected almost 73,250.  Although it is a bit of a small bit of data, we can project that a successful campaign needs to spend over $100,000 to have a chance at collecting the necessary amount of signatures to get on the ballot in November. Although not impossible, how many organizations are able to be organized from scratch and raise $8,400 a month, every month for one year? Furthermore, would you want to run an organization that is constantly on the verge of running out of money? Of course not.

It should become increasingly clear that successful initiatives require more than just the will of the people – a well funded and structured organization is required long beforehand to have any chance of success.

Sometimes, as with the case regarding school vouchers, the people are more than eager to sign a petition to change a law; but it is hard to deny that the anti-voucher campaign would have been successful had it not been principally supported by the Utah Educators Association and the built-in organization it provided. It should also be noted that the Utah State Legislature made the initiative process more difficult after the success of the anti-voucher (and anti-legislature) petition.

And so, the will of the people failed this time around. Perhaps a less democratic process is required to get things changed in our democracy.