Court Opinion

ID: 9782027
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 17:50:42.365774+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:34:44.520249
License: Public Domain

DURHAM, Chief Justice,
concurring:
197 I concur with Justice Russon's opinion, with the exception of Part B ("Federal Equal Protection"). Having concluded that *1100the multi-county signature requirement violates the Utah constitution, the court ought not, in my view, offer what is in effect an advisory opinion on the federal question. When this court has determined that state constitutional law does not permit the challenged legislative action, the case is fully resolved, and the federal claim becomes moot. This seems to me to be a fundamental characteristic of federalism, and consistent with the perspective that courts should generally resolve cases on the narrowest applicable grounds unless specific reasons exist for offering broader guidance. I agree that the federal question is an important one, and perhaps the United States Supreme Court would appreciate this court's analytic contribution when and if the question reaches that court (in Idaho Coalition United for Bears, for example), but I think that this is fundamentally a state law case, given the unique role that initiative lawmaking has in the state system, and the absence of any federal constitutional counterpart.