The Utah Supreme Court has firmly struck down Amendment D, rendering it void and thus ineligible to be counted in the November election. As detailed by ABC4, Justice Diana Hagan, writing the unanimous opinion, held that the measure failed to follow the requisite constitutional process, emphasizing that "Amendment D was not submitted to the voters in the way our constitution requires."
Expanding on the court's decision, the ballot language of Amendment D would potentially have misled voters about its true implications, as reported by The Salt Lake Tribune. The Court pointedly noted that the legislature's ability to undo voter initiatives must be limited and only actioned for a compelling reason, rejecting any form of legislative overstep that would ignore or undermine the will of the people. According to the Tribune, the justices previously asserted the Legislature must respect the intentions behind voter initiatives.
In a related event, detailed scrutiny of the ballot measure by the Utah Supreme Court highlighted the legislative overreach in an attempt to undo Proposition 4, as chronicled by Fox13. Originally, Proposition 4 was designed to create an independent redistricting commission. However, lawmakers sought to override this with Amendment D, earning the ire of groups such as the League of Women Voters of Utah and Mormon Women for Ethical Government, eventually leading to legal action.
The Supreme Court's scrutiny did not solely rest on the misleading nature of the ballot phrasing, as noted by Fox13. The Court also took exception to the Legislature's attempt to redefine the publication requirement, calling out its failure to properly advertise the amendment in a statewide newspaper. "We are seldom faced with interpreting a constitutional provision so specific," Justice Hagen wrote, disavowing the legislature's modern interpretation of "newspaper" irrespective of the context the Utah Constitution requires. She continued, "We simply cannot read the word 'newspaper' out of the Publication Clause."
