Opinion ID: 2548863
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: One-Year Requirement

Text: ¶ 50 Finally we address the constitutionality of the One-Year Requirement. Under this provision, initiative sponsors are required to qualify the petition for the regular general election ballot no later than one year after the application is filed. Utah Code Ann. § 20A-7-202(4)(a) (2003). If initiative sponsors are unsuccessful in obtaining the requisite number of signatures within one year's time, the sponsors must submit a new application and collect signatures again. Id. § 20A-7-202(4). This provision, introduced by S.B. 28, replaced a similar requirement in the previous initiative statute that allowed sponsors two years in order to obtain the needed number of signatures. Utah Code Ann. § 20A-7-202(4) (1998). Safe Havens contends that this new requirement has no legitimate legislative purpose, but was passed simply to make it more difficult to place initiatives on the ballot. ¶ 51 Although there is little in the record pointing to the precise legislative purpose underlying the One-Year Requirement, the State indicates that all of the provisions challenged by Safe Havens are designed to ensure ... that there be an orderly, known and efficient process. Further, in its discussion of the One-Year Requirement in particular, the State alludes to a number of other possible legislative purposes, citing American Constitutional Law Foundation, Inc. v. Meyer, 120 F.3d 1092 (10th Cir.1997). There, the Tenth Circuit upheld a regulation of Colorado's initiative procedure that required initiatives to qualify within six months. Id. at 1096, 1098-99. Proponents of the regulation assert[ed] several interests: preserving the integrity of the state's elections, maintaining an orderly ballot, and limiting voter confusion. Id. at 1099. The State also maintains that the One-Year Requirement does not unduly burden the initiative process, pointing to three prior initiatives that sponsors qualified for the ballot within six weeks, three months, and five months, respectively. ¶ 52 It is clear that the legislature, in carrying out its duty to regulate the initiative process, has the authority to set time limits. Utah Const. art. VI, § 1 (The legal voters of the State of Utah in the numbers, under the conditions, in the manner, and within the time provided by statute, may [] initiate any desired legislation....). Indeed, the legislature must set such time limits if the initiative process is to proceed in any kind of order. We only require that these time limits be reasonable in that they do not unduly burden the right to initiative. In Tobias v. South Jordan City Recorder, we approved a thirty-five-day statutory time limit for submitting referenda. 972 P.2d 373 (Utah 1998). We acknowledge[d] that the statutory timetable is extremely short and that [s]ponsors of referendum petitions must move promptly to gather the required number of signatures, but nonetheless approved the time limit. Id. at 374. The signature requirements for initiative petitions are somewhat more exacting than those required for referendum petitions; however, based on the evidence before us, we cannot articulate any basis upon which a one-year time period would be unreasonable. Setting a one-year window in which initiative sponsors must demonstrate support for their cause is not an unreasonable restraint on the initiative right, but rather merely ensures that there is an orderly, known, and efficient process. Thus, this requirement, like the Senate District Requirement and the Signature Removal Provision, does not violate article VI, section 1 of the Utah Constitution, but is a reasonable, regulatory provision.