The Rules Keep Changing: How Utah's Referendum Law Got Harder to Use

How a Local Referendum Works Today

A referendum is when voters ask to undo a law their city or county already passed. Here are the hurdles a local land-use referendum faces today, and the bill (or court rulings) that put each one there. The order is simplified; every step comes from the sections below.

Each box is one hurdle. The bill that added it is in the box.

flowchart TD
  A["Council passes
a law"] --> B{"Land-use law,
unanimous or 2/3
(transit area)?"}
  B -->|Yes| X["No referendum
allowed
S.B. 199 (2023)"]
  B -->|No| C{"Legislative, not
administrative?
(court rulings)"}
  C -->|No| X
  C -->|Yes| D["10-day notice;
numbered, bound
packets
H.B. 38 (2023)"]
  D --> E["Signers must be
registered first
H.B. 218 (2022)"]
  E --> F["Higher land-use
signature bar,
spread by area
H.B. 119 (2019)"]
  F --> G["Law goes to
the voters"]

The two-thirds and unanimous paths are in Utah Code 20A-7-602.8 (Section 4). The "legislative vs. administrative" test comes from court cases, not a bill (Section 5). The signature bar is 16% of active voters for first-class counties and up to 40% for towns, with signatures spread across at least 75% of voter participation areas in larger places (Section 1).

1. The 2019 Overhaul: H.B. 119

H.B. 119 ("Initiatives, Referenda, and Other Political Activities," primary sponsor Rep. Brad Daw, Senate sponsor Sen. Curtis Bramble) is the single biggest rewrite of local referendum law in this record. Before it, signature thresholds were calculated as a percentage of the prior presidential-election vote count. The bill switched the base to "active voters" as of a fixed date set annually by the Lieutenant Governor's office — and, more consequentially, created an entirely separate, higher threshold specifically for referendums against land-use decisions.

H.B. 119 passed both chambers by lopsided margins in every recorded vote — this was not a close or contested floor fight, whatever friction it caused afterward among referendum sponsors dealing with the new thresholds.

The same bill created the Voter Participation Area (VPA) system: jurisdictions above a population threshold must be divided into 8 (or 4, for mid-size jurisdictions) contiguous areas, and referendum signatures must be distributed across at least 75% of those areas — not just added up citywide. A raw signature total large enough to clear the percentage threshold can still fail if it's concentrated in too few VPAs.

2. Locking Down the Petition Process: H.B. 218 (2022) & H.B. 38 (2023)

Two follow-up bills tightened the mechanics of running a signature drive, on top of the 2019 thresholds.

3. When Signature Gatherers Were Charged or Accused of Fraud

The petition-procedure tightening covered above (H.B. 218, H.B. 38) is usually framed around protecting the process from outside interference. But the criminal charges and fraud allegations filed in Utah in recent years have involved people working inside the paid-signature-gathering industry itself — companies hired by campaigns and committees to collect the signatures that get a candidate on the ballot or a measure in front of voters.

4. Two-Thirds Immunity: 1900 to Now

The rule that a law passed by a two-thirds vote of each legislative chamber cannot be referred to voters at all is not new — it's in Utah Constitution Article VI, Section 1, part of the original 1900 amendment that created the referendum right in the first place. It survived a full rewrite of Article VI in 1972 and a renumbering in 2000 without substantive change.

What is new: extending a version of that immunity down to the local level. S.B. 199 (2023), "Local Land Use Amendments" (Sen. Mike McKell), amended Utah Code 20A-7-602.8 to exempt a "transit area land use law" passed by a two-thirds vote from local referendum. McKell said in press coverage that referendums had been "weaponized" against housing developers. Confirmed directly against the current statutory text (20A-7-602.8): the two-thirds carve-out is exactly that narrow, scoped to transit area land use law — but the same section contains a second, separate immunity mechanism that earlier coverage of this bill didn't flag: a "municipal land use law" is independently exempt from local referendum if it passes by a unanimous vote of the local legislative body, with no "transit area" limitation. That is a lower bar to invoke procedurally (any council can vote unanimously on an uncontroversial-seeming item) even though it requires full agreement rather than two-thirds.

5. The Judicial Backdrop: "Administrative" vs. "Legislative"

Separately from anything the Legislature has passed, Utah courts have long held that only a local government's "legislative" acts — new laws of general applicability — can be sent to voters by referendum. Its "administrative" acts, applying existing policy to a specific situation, generally cannot. This distinction comes from case law, not statute, though the Legislature has since cross-referenced categories of it in Utah Code 20A-7-102 and 20A-7-602.8.

• 1936–39Keigley v. Bench — an early case holding bond authorization "legislative," and therefore referable.
• 1964 / 1982Bird v. Sorenson; Wilson v. Manning — held single-lot rezones "administrative," not referable.
• 2002Low v. Monticello — a council's exercise of a contract option held "administrative."
• 2008Sevier Power Co. v. Board of Sevier County Commissioners, 2008 UT 72 — the Utah Supreme Court struck down a legislative attempt to categorically bar land-use-ordinance referendums.
• 2012Carter v. Lehi City, 2012 UT 2 — the controlling modern framework: an act is "legislative" (referable) if it promulgates laws of general applicability or involves weighing competing policy considerations, replacing the older case-by-case approach.
• 2013Krejci v. Saratoga Springs, 2013 UT 74 — applying Carter, held site-specific rezoning is legislative (referable), reversing the older line of cases.
• 2018Baker v. Carlson, 2018 UT 59 — clarified that a development plan can be legislative while a development agreement covering the same project may be administrative.
• 2026 (pending)Box Elder County's attorney rejects B.E.A.R.'s referendum against the Stratos/MIDA project resolutions as "administrative" — the doctrine's newest live test, now on appeal. See the companion piece.

6. What Died, What Passed

Presented fairly, and checked directly against each bill's actual floor and committee vote record: every bill in this record that would have made a referendum easier to use or more effective died. Every bill that made the process harder passed.

7. Graded: Was Any of This Good for the Public?

Each bill graded on five standing criteria, independent of who sponsored it or what else that person has done: Power (does it add or remove a public check?), Transparency (can the public actually see the process?), Financial Accountability (does it change who pays or who's disclosed?), Environmental Impact (effect on water/wetlands/wildlife), and Community Impact (did the people who bear the cost get real standing?). A bill that died is graded on its content only, since it never took effect — marked accordingly. "N/A" means the criterion doesn't apply to that bill's subject matter, not a passing or failing score.

Why each grade

What Could Have Helped the Public Instead

Each low-graded bill had a real problem behind it — slow development timelines, disorganized petition packets, referendums used as a delay tactic. None of that required removing the public's check entirely. Paired here: the problem the bill was responding to, and a narrower fix that would have solved it without taking the vote away.

8. Full Timeline

• 1900Utah constitutional amendment creates the citizen referendum right, including the two-thirds-vote immunity provision, still in force today.
• 2006H.B. 120 (would stay a referred law pending the vote) dies 27-46 on the House floor.
• 2013S.B. 66 (same fix) passes the Senate 27-1, then dies when the House strikes its enacting clause.
• 2019H.B. 119 overhauls local referendum law: switches to an "active voters" base, creates a separate higher threshold for land-use referendums, and creates the VPA geographic-distribution requirement.
• 2022H.B. 218 (originally "Citizen Petition Amendments") passes House committee 10-0-0 and Senate committee 5-0-2 with only supportive testimony, then the full House 68-0-7 and Senate 28-0-1: adds electronic signature-gathering but tightens signer eligibility and expands public posting of signer data.
• 2022H.B. 185 (would lower the 2019 thresholds) dies when the House strikes its own enacting clause.
• 2023H.B. 38 lengthens hearing-notice requirements and formalizes petition-packet procedure.
• 2023S.B. 199 extends a version of two-thirds immunity to transit area land use law at the local level.
• March 2025Utah AG charges 11 circulators, at least five of whom worked for Gathering Inc., with forgery and fraud-related counts tied to 2024 primary candidate petitions. Gathering Inc.’s 2024 clients included Gov. Cox’s campaign.
• Feb. 2026Utah County Clerk Aaron Davidson flags what he calls the most extensive signature fraud he's seen in the Patriot Grassroots-run Prop 4 repeal effort; the campaign misses its Feb. 15 deadline well short of the required signatures.
• 2025H.B. 408 (would create a new referendum right over school-board tax decisions, with its own carve-out) clears House committee 7-3-3 on Feb. 19 over opposition testimony from Lexi Cunningham (Executive Director of both the Utah School Superintendents Association and the Utah School Boards Association) and Granite School District Superintendent Ben Horsley. Passes the full House 40-33-2 on Feb. 25. In Senate committee on March 3, Horsley again testifies against it, joined this time by residents and Utah Eagle Forum members testifying in favor; the committee fails to recommend it, 3-4-0. The Senate strikes its own enacting clause on March 7.
• 2026Box Elder County's attorney invokes the "administrative vs. legislative" doctrine to reject B.E.A.R.'s referendum against the Stratos/MIDA project — now on appeal.

9. 2026: Amendment B on the Ballot

Utah voters will see a constitutional amendment about citizen lawmaking on the Nov. 3, 2026 ballot. It is called Constitutional Amendment B. The official ballot question, as certified by Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson on Aug. 28, 2026, reads:

Where it came from. The Legislature passed it in 2025 as S.J.R. 2, “Proposal to Amend Utah Constitution – Statewide Initiatives.” The primary sponsor was Sen. Lincoln Fillmore. The House sponsor was Rep. Jason B. Kyle. A joint resolution like this does not go to the governor; it goes straight to voters.

What it would change. It amends Article VI, Section 1 of the Utah Constitution — the same section that holds the referendum right and the two-thirds rule described above. Under the resolution's text, a citizen-proposed law voted on after Nov. 1, 2026 would need at least 60% of the vote, instead of more than half, if it would:

• create a new tax;
• expand an existing tax to cover more items or transactions;
• raise an existing tax rate; or
• for property tax, change the rate so it goes down less than it would under current law.

If voters approve it, the resolution says it takes effect Nov. 23, 2026.

How it got here. Per Ballotpedia's summary of the vote record, the Senate passed S.J.R. 2 21–8 on Feb. 5, 2025, and the House passed it 55–17 on March 6, 2025. In that coverage, Sen. Fillmore framed the question for voters as “How easy do you want it to be to raise taxes on your neighbors,” and Sen. Kathleen Riebe, who voted no, called it “an onerous threshold for the public to speak.” (Final votes confirmed Oct. 1, 2026 from the state’s official 2026 amendments document on le.utah.gov: Senate 21–8–0, House 55–17–3. Dates and floor quotes are from Ballotpedia’s coverage.)

See Amendment B side by side with every local measure on MAP 009: What’s on Utah’s Nov. 3 Ballot. This page takes no position on how to vote on Amendment B. The official ballot wording and the full resolution text are linked in the sources below so readers can read them for themselves.

People in This Record

The legislators named on this page as bill sponsors. “Also in the Hive” links only where another Hive page names the same person in the same public role. A blank there means no other Hive page was found, not that there is nothing to find.

Public officials named elsewhere on this page in non-sponsor roles (for example, county clerks, testifying superintendents, and people charged in the signature cases) are not listed here. Charged is not convicted.

Questions Worth Asking

• Ask legislative sponsors (Daw, McKell, Musselman): what specific referendum fights motivated each bill, beyond the general "housing/development friction" framing given in press coverage at the time?
• Ask your county clerk's elections office: whether the H.B. 38 (2023) packet-binding procedure has produced other disqualifications beyond the Summit County case, in the two years since.
• Ask the city recorder or county clerk of any municipality that has used the unanimous-vote path under 20A-7-602.8: whether any council has knowingly used a unanimous vote on a land-use item specifically to foreclose a referendum, versus reaching unanimity for unrelated reasons.
• Ask your own state representative and state senator (find them at le.utah.gov): whether reviving H.B. 120/S.B. 66's stay-pending-referendum fix, or H.B. 185's threshold rollback, has been considered again since each died.
• Ask the Lieutenant Governor's Office of Elections (vote.utah.gov): where to find the official voter information pamphlet text for Amendment B, including the arguments for and against, so you can read both sides before voting.
• Ask your county clerk: when a referendum against a local land-use law is filed, how the office decides whether the law was passed by a unanimous or two-thirds vote that blocks a referendum under 20A-7-602.8 — and whether that decision is posted publicly.
• Ask the Utah AG's office and Utah County Attorney: for current docket status on the Gathering Inc. and Patriot Grassroots-linked cases, and whether any defendant has been convicted rather than merely charged.