Appeals Court Considers Utah Amendment On Wildlife

Associated Press ^ | Nov. 16, 2005 | Associated Press

[girlangler]

Appeals Court Considers Utah Amendment On Wildlife

Conservation groups went before a federal appeals court Tuesday and challenged Utah's voter-approved requirement that ballot initiatives involving wildlife management get a two-thirds majority to pass.

Lisa Watts Baskin, who represents the Initiative and Referendum Institute, Humane Society of the United States, the Fund for Animals and other groups and individuals, said the requirement is so difficult to surpass that it violates the rights of people interested in proposing ballot measures.

``They are forestalled at the outset,'' she told judges of the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in a rare full-court hearing. ``It gives them unique limitations.''

Thomas Roberts, an assistant Utah attorney general, said the law does nothing to prevent or limit political speech, one of the key rights protected by the First Amendment. All it does is make it more difficult for certain ballot proposals to pass, he said.

``They say they have a sense of futility, so they're not going to do it,'' he said.

Several judges sharply questioned Baskin, at times talking over each other in asking how her clients' First Amendment rights were violated when they still had the ability to talk to voters or legislators about wildlife issues.

``Does this stop your clients from debating or arguing for any initiative?'' Judge Paul Kelly Jr. asked. ``Where does the First Amendment confer the right to legislate?''

The fact that Proposition 5 targets only a certain type of initiative makes it unconstitutional because it essentially denies some people political-speech rights enjoyed by people who propose ballot issues on other topics, Baskin argued.

Proposition 5 was proposed by a state legislator who feared out-of-state groups would try to persuade Utah voters to approve hunting limitations similar to those passed in other Western states around the same time, including bans on bear baiting or the use of steel leg-hold traps. It was approved in 1998 by a 56-44 margin and was upheld in a September 2001 ruling by a federal judge in Utah.

Baskin said the Humane Society and Initiative and Referendum Institute had been considering proposing a ballot initiative before voters approved the constitutional amendment. They decided not to try after the vote because they did not believe they could succeed.

She also said 25 Utah residents said in sworn affidavits that they felt the amendment silenced their efforts to change wildlife laws.

Several pro-hunting groups and individuals, including former Utah Jazz player Karl Malone, filed a ``friend of the court'' brief supporting the state's defense of the amendment.

The appeals court did not indicate when it would rule.

[girlangler]

The HSUS led ballot initiatives in the 1990s banned hunting mountain lions with hounds, hunting bear with bait, etc. out west.

[VRWCmember]

Darn, I thought maybe this was a polygamy article.

[girlangler]

That's funny VRWCmember.

[VRWCmember]

Thanks. Utah + wild life = multiple wives.