SALT LAKE CITY — Before a constitutional amendment or statewide initiative can make it to your ballot, the Utah Constitution requires a public notice in a physical newspaper in every county in the state where one is published at least two months before the election.
“And back in the day, that was a great way of communicating with people,” state Rep. Anthony Loubet told fellow lawmakers during a committee hearing last year. “People received their newspapers daily, and that would be a good method of notification.”
But “unfortunately,” he added, “nowadays that’s not true any longer.”
That’s the primary impetus behind Constitutional Amendment A on this year’s ballot.
The battle has begun over Utah's Amendment B on your ballot:
If it passes, the state’s lieutenant governor would still be required to publish the full text of proposed constitutional amendments and ballot questions with 60 days' notice. But instead of in a physical print newspaper, they would be published “in a manner provided by statute."
Under a companion bill that would take effect if Amendment A passes, that manner would be on the state’s public notice and lieutenant governor’s websites – a method proponents say would improve accessibility to information for voters throughout Utah.
“I think we live in the digital age, and we should be notifying people digitally,” state Rep. Paul Cutler said while considering that bill, HB481, last year.
While changing media habits are one rational for the change, the proposal also comes after the Utah Supreme Court struck down a controversial constitutional amendment in 2024 in part over a failure to follow the newspaper publication rule.
Loubet and Sen. Daniel McCay wrote an argument in favor of the amendment in this year’s Utah voter information pamphlet. Because the Legislature unanimously adopted Amendment A, the guide included no formal argument against it.
But at least one Utahn expressed concerns during public comment on HB481 last year.
“I just really wonder how this gets to the public,” Katharine Biele told lawmakers. “I know there are many people – certainly in rural Utah – who aren’t able to get onto websites or aren’t even aware of it, and many of them don’t take The Salt Lake Tribune or the Deseret News, maybe not even The Spectrum.”
Legislators, however, argued that news outlets would still widely cover amendments online, which is where most people get information now.
If Amendment A passes next month, the voter pamphlet says it could reduce state costs for newspaper publication by up to $1.4 million every two years. The state guide also notes that it wouldn’t change how voters propose or approve constitutional amendments or ballot initiatives, only how they learn about them.