## Facts

- Lehi City voters submitted two citizen initiatives for the 2011 municipal election ballot.
- One initiative sought to impose maximum salary and compensation limits for salaried city employees.
- The second initiative sought to impose residency requirements for certain city employees, including high-level officials.
- The Lehi City Council adopted a resolution finding both initiatives legally insufficient and directed the city recorder not to place them on the ballot.
- The city asserted the initiatives were administrative rather than legislative and raised concerns about conflict with city law and potential impairment of existing employment contracts.
- Initiative sponsors petitioned the Utah Supreme Court for extraordinary relief seeking an order compelling ballot placement.

## Issues

1. Whether the proposed initiatives were legislative measures subject to the local initiative power or administrative measures outside that power.
2. Whether a municipality may conduct pre-election legal-sufficiency review and refuse to place an initiative on the ballot for threshold legal defects, including nonlegislative subject matter.

## Decision

- The Utah Supreme Court denied the petition for extraordinary relief.
- The court held both initiatives were administrative, not legislative, and therefore not proper subjects for the local initiative power.
- The court concluded Lehi City acted within its authority in declining to submit the initiatives to voters based on their legal insufficiency.
- Because the initiatives were outside the initiative power, the court did not need to decide contract-impairment arguments as an independent ground.

## Legal Principles

- Local initiative authority extends only to legislative matters and does not permit voters to direct day-to-day municipal administration.
- A measure is administrative when it governs specific managerial or operational decisions (including detailed personnel terms) rather than establishing general rules of public policy.
- In evaluating an initiative’s character, courts and municipalities look to the measure’s substance and effect, not its label or form.
- Pre-election review is permitted for threshold questions such as whether a proposed initiative falls within the initiative power; procedural compliance (e.g., signatures) does not guarantee ballot access.

## Conclusion

The court upheld Lehi City’s refusal to place the initiatives on the ballot because both measures controlled internal personnel administration rather than setting general legislative policy, and the city could screen such nonlegislative initiatives before an election.


Carter v. Lehi City, 269 P.3d 141 (Utah 2012)