COURT EDITS STATEWIDE INITIATIVES

Utah Supreme Court justices said Thursday the Legislature's law office
slanted the wording of two statewide ballot questions. Then they
rewrote the ballot initiatives themselves.

Supporters of the English-only and property-rights initiatives
applauded the court's final editing. Utahns for a Common Language,
advocating "Initiative A," and Utahns for Property Protection,
advocating "Initiative B," had separately complained about the way
their ballot questions had been rewritten by the Legislative Office of
Research and General Counsel.

"It's a victory for the initiative process," said Lisa Watts Baskin, an
attorney for the English-only proponents who noted that voters resort
to initiatives only when they think lawmakers have ignored the public's
will.

The English-only initiative would designate English as Utah's official
language. The forfeiture measure addresses what law enforcement can do
with property seized in crimes.

Richard Strong, who leads the Legislature's legal staff, defended his
office's work and insisted the ballot questions accurately told voters
what was being proposed.

"We feel we met the provisions of the statute," said Strong, pointing
out his office routinely writes unbiased laws and opinions for people
of both political parties and all ideological stripes.

"We absolutely can be impartial, and we've done it for years and years
and years."

But the state's highest court disagreed.

Justices used a fast-track decision-making process to review the case
in time for the printing of voter pamphlets and ballots. In the end,
four of the five justices substituted their own wording , which closely
follows the text originally suggested by initiative proponents.

State law says the ballot-question rewrites must be fair. The
Legislature's law office must "to the best of its ability, give a true
and impartial statement of the purpose of the measure," according to
the law.

"The ballot title may not intentionally be an argument, or likely to
create prejudice, for or against the measure," the law concludes.

Baskin noted -- and the court seemed to agree -- that there was a
conflict of interest in the Legislature writing about the initiatives.
It was legislators who rejected the initiatives during the lawmaking
process. So how, the proponents asked, could they then write unbiased
wording for the Nov. 7 ballots?

Since lawmakers rejected the English-only idea, proponents for that and
the forfeiture initiative took their ideas to voters. Both proposed
changes in the law required the signatures of at least 67,188 voters
before they could land on the ballot.

A former staff attorney in the Office of Legislative Research and
General Counsel, Baskin said the Legislature's lawyers naturally would
resist the proposed changes. "They are going to take umbrage the people
are trying to circumvent their process," she said.

The justices interpreted the initiative-wording law for the first time
in this case. And, in their decision, they effectively affirmed the
importance of giving voters an impartial description of the proposed
law change.

Janet Jenson, who is leading the property-protection initiative,
agreed with that conclusion and added that many voters would have been
turned off by the way the Legislature's lawyers had worded the ballot
question. For example, the Legislature's lawyers specifically mention
protecting the rights of "persons accused of any of the specified
crimes," while initiative proponents say that they are concerned about
property seized from "an innocent owner [who] neither knew of nor
consented to the crime."

"My impression is they [the Legislature's lawyers] were not very fair,
and they are biased against it," said Jenson, who praised justices for
their rewording of the ballot question.

Chief Justice Richard C. Howe wrote a dissenting opinion. A former
state representative and one-time state senator, he said the court
should defer to the experts in the Office of Legislative Research and
General Counsel, rather than reworking the wording.

"Both of the initiatives before us have a number of purposes," wrote
Howe. "There is no correct and complete way to express the most
important of those purposes."