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Utah House passes bill to restore local initiative revote option on water fluoridation
Summary
The Utah House approved House Bill 64 to restore a local initiative mechanism allowing municipalities and counties to seek a revote on fluoride in drinking water after lawmakers and members debated timing and constitutional limits. The measure passed 64–10 and was sent to the Senate.
Representative Roger Barris, sponsor of House Bill 64, told the chamber the bill "is here before us for 1 reason, and 1 reason only" — to correct an omission in the Safe Drinking Water Act that removed a local revote mechanism on fluoridation. He traced the history of the law and cited a recent judicial ruling that, in his words, left citizens without a local remedy to change a prior voter decision.
Supporters emphasized restoring access to the initiative process. Barris said the current statute left communities without the ability to hold a revote and cited local cost estimates and a Davis County court ruling in which, he said, a revote petition could not be treated as an initiative because statutory text had removed that path. "Once you've done it, you have no mechanism at all," Barris said, arguing the legislature must correct the omission.
Opponents and some members raised constitutional and procedural concerns about proposed timing restrictions. An amendment considered in committee would have limited revotes to once every five years and another proposal would have restricted revote elections to even-numbered (general election) years. Representative Thompson and others warned such timing limits could place an undue burden on the initiative process and cited court precedent protecting ballot access; Representative Cox and Representative Sherrill urged restricting revotes to even-numbered years to increase turnout and reduce costs.
Representative Harper moved to delete committee amendment lines that would impose time-frequency limits, telling colleagues that the language could raise constitutional questions about imposing "unreasonable restraints" on initiative rights. Debate focused on whether deleting the lines would conflict with existing statute that already sets when elections may be held and on balancing voter access with minimizing repeated special elections.
After extended debate and floor summations, the House voted to advance HB64 as amended. The clerk announced "64 yes votes and 10 no votes," and the bill was referred to the Senate for further consideration.
The sponsor and several members pointed to local cost concerns and a recent county ruling as key drivers of the legislation; the transcript records no further Senate action in this session. The bill’s next step is consideration in the Utah Senate.
