Summary
The Utah Supreme Court held that voter initiatives concerning salaries and residency requirements for Lehi City employees were legislative in nature and therefore properly subject to the municipal initiative process. The court rejected the city's argument that the initiatives were administrative and held that Utah Code section 10-3-818 did not bar them. The court also addressed the timeliness of the petition for extraordinary relief and overruled contrary reasoning in Low v. City of Monticello prospectively.
Topics
Practice areas
Questions Presented
- Whether the petition for extraordinary relief was timely when filed more than ten days after the city recorder's refusal but within the period calculated under the parties' reliance on Low v. City of Monticello.
- Whether initiatives establishing municipal employee compensation limits and residency requirements are legislative measures within the people's initiative power under article VI of the Utah Constitution.
- Whether Utah Code section 10-3-818's public-hearing requirements for municipal governing bodies also apply to voter initiatives concerning city-employee compensation.
- Whether the initiatives' alleged impairment of contracts, due-process defects, and interference with mayoral appointment or removal authority could be adjudicated before the initiatives were enacted or applied.
Holdings
- Utah Rule of Civil Procedure 6(e) does not add three days to the ten-day filing period under Utah Code section 20A-7-507(5)(a), because the statutory period is triggered by the recorder's refusal rather than service of a notice. The court nevertheless treated the petitioners' filing as timely because they reasonably relied on Low v. City of Monticello, and applied the new rule prospectively.
- The people's initiative power under article VI of the Utah Constitution is parallel and coextensive with the legislature's legislative power, subject to geographic limits for local initiatives and to the constitutional distinction between legislative, executive, and judicial functions.
- A ballot initiative is legislative when it establishes a generally applicable rule based on broad policy considerations and governing future cases, even if the rule affects only a small number of people. It is executive or judicial when it applies existing law to particular individuals or circumstances.
- Initiatives One and Two are proper legislative exercises of the people's initiative power. Salary limits for city employees and residency requirements for city officials establish generally applicable rules based on policy considerations concerning offices and classes of employees.
- Utah Code section 10-3-818, which requires a municipal governing body to hold a public hearing before adopting employee compensation schedules, does not impose those procedures on voter initiatives.
- The city's contract-impairment, due-process, and mayoral appointment or removal challenges were not ripe because the initiatives had not been enacted or applied.
Key quotations
“The power of the people to legislate by initiative does not depend on the degree to which the people may wish to depart from existing law or on the proposed initiative's consistency with the general policy of existing law.” (145)
“The true limit on voter initiatives, then, is that they must be a valid exercise of legislative rather than executive or judicial power.” (148)
“A ballot initiative should be deemed an appropriate legislative act where it proposes a law of general applicability.” (151)
“We therefore decline to reach the substantive issues raised by the City.” (164)
Factual background
In December 2010, Lehi City voters submitted two initiatives for the 2011 municipal ballot. Initiative One proposed maximum salary and total-compensation limits for salaried city employees, and Initiative Two proposed residency requirements for specified city officials. Both initiatives obtained the required signatures and otherwise complied with the statutory initiative process, but the city council directed the recorder to refuse ballot placement.
Procedural history
Lehi City voters submitted initiatives concerning compensation limits for certain city employees and residency requirements for certain city officials. The city council determined that the initiatives were administratively rather than legislatively appropriate, potentially conflicted with state law, and might impair contracts, and directed the city recorder not to place them on the ballot. The sponsors filed directly in the Utah Supreme Court, which held the petition timely under the circumstances, concluded that the initiatives were proper legislative measures, rejected the city's statutory-procedure objection, declined to reach unripe substantive constitutional challenges, and affirmed the petitioners' right to place the initiatives on the ballot.