Mar 17, 2025, 6:34 PM
FILE – The Utah State Capitol stands in Salt Lake City on the first day of the legislative session on Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2025. (Isaac Hale, Deseret News)
(Isaac Hale, Deseret News)
BY
KSLTV.com
SALT LAKE CITY — Utah groups are up against the clock as they try to overturn a bill recently signed by the governor.
HB 267 would ban collective bargaining for public labor unions. It’s set to go into effect later this year.
Utahns opposed to the legislation only have so much time to meet the qualifications to get this referendum on the ballot.
Hinckley Institute of Politics director Jason Perry said the referendum process is difficult by design.
“The clock is ticking even right now, so that’s why you start seeing them go to neighborhoods,” Perry said.
Petition signing parties and door knocks are happening across Utah. A Daybreak woman invited people to her home for a signing party Sunday.
Labor unions filed an application with the lieutenant governor’s office to begin a referendum campaign. A coalition of Utah public union workers formed called, Protect Utah Workers.
“They had to actually give notice to the lieutenant governor that they’re going to do a referendum within five days of the legislative session ending, which they did,” Perry said.
He said successful referendums are hard to achieve.
“It doesn’t happen very often, across the country or even the state of Utah,” Perry said.
First, they need enough people to sign a petition. Signing opportunities are available at some public union officers, homes and through neighborhood door knocking.
“It’s a high bar, almost 141,000 signatures in 30 days after the end of the legislative session,” Perry said.
That’s eight percent of Utah voters in at least 15 counties.
After the 30 days are up, other groups who oppose the referendum have 45 days to try and convince signers to remove their names.
“It’s a strategy in some places, if you have to get a certain number of Senate districts and you have a particular part of the state of Utah that has a very small population, it’s easier to knock five or seven signatures off of a place in a rural part of the state than in a very urban part of the state,” Perry said.
He said Utah’s referendum process is challenging compared to some other states, but it’s not the most difficult. Not every state has a referendum process.
“It’s not the highest bar in the country, but it is quite the standard that has to be met if you want to take a law off the books,” Perry said.
If the pro referendum group meets qualifications, Perry said the law goes on hold until voters see it on their ballot.
“What you’re going to see here is some kind of language based on this referendum about whether or not this bill that was passed should go into effect,” Perry said.
He said the process is difficult, and that’s by design.
“If we’re going to pass a bill as your representative and you don’t agree with that, there is a process, but it is a process to make sure that it is the majority of Utahns that want a certain outcome and not a minority of Utahns,” Perry said.
If voters choose to support the referendum on the ballot, he said the law will not go into effect.
It doesn’t happen often.
“The last time was in 2007 here where a referendum was run going after school vouchers,” Perry said. “They were successful not just in that referendum, but ultimately the voters of the state of Utah had decided to vote against that voucher process.”
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