As part of their lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the Utah Fits All Scholarship Program, the Utah Education association, two parents, a public school teacher and a Utah State Board of Education member on Wednesday filed a motion asking a district court judge to void another proposed constitutional amendment on Utah’s Nov. 5 ballot, Amendment A.
If approved by Utah voters, Amendment A would nix the state’s nearly 100-year-old constitutional earmark reserving income tax revenue (which currently reserves that money for public and higher education and some services for children or people with disabilities) and allow income tax dollars to fund other state needs.
The change would also specify in the Utah Constitution that the state can only use those dollars for other priorities after it uses a portion of revenue growth for “changes in student enrollment and long-term inflation” — something that’s already in state statute but would be codified in the constitution.
Utah’s Republican legislative leaders have long argued the state needs to remove that earmark to allow more budgetary flexibility and address a structural imbalance between sales tax revenue and income tax revenue, because income tax revenue growth has long outpaced other types of revenue growth.
But the Utah Education Association has opposed the amendment, arguing it would allow income tax revenue to be funneled away from public education needs in a state that they say already underfunds public schools.
The UEA and other plaintiffs allege the Utah Legislature violated the constitution because Amendment A’s ballot language “obscures the intent and effect” of Amendment A, and because lawmakers failed to publish the actual text of the proposed amendment in newspapers across the state, “thus making it even more difficult for voters to understand the true effect of the amendment.”
Attorneys for the UEA and other plaintiffs are following a similar strategy that opponents of Amendment D — a constitutional amendment that would enshrine the Utah Legislature’s power to amend and repeal ballot initiatives — successfully used earlier this month. They argued Amendment A’s language was “false and misleading” and didn’t follow constitutional publishing requirements. Last week, a judge agreed and voided Amendment D while leaving it on the Nov. 5 ballot. In less than a week, the Utah Supreme Court is slated to hear the Legislature’s appeal.
Read the full story at UtahNewsDispatch.com.
