Utah’s Republican-dominated legislature voted on Wednesday to place a constitutional amendment on the general election ballot that would explicitly allow lawmakers to amend or repeal voter-approved initiatives―including a 2018 measure that could put an end to partisan gerrymandering.
Republicans called a special session just weeks after the state Supreme Court unanimously ruled that legislators had acted improperly when they gutted the redistricting reform initiative voters passed six years ago. While the justice did not strike down the state’s congressional map, which was designed to ensure that Republicans would control all four of Utah’s U.S. House seats, an attorney for the plaintiffs expressed optimism that new districts could be drawn in time for the 2026 elections.
The GOP, however, is now asking Utahns to amend the state constitution so that the legislature can rewrite or overturn such citizen-sponsored initiatives. The Republican amendment, which needs only a simple majority to pass, also contains a separate provision that would bar foreign entities from contributing money to state initiative campaigns.
The inclusion of that seemingly unrelated ban is central to the GOP’s strategy of convincing voters to cede some of their own power. Republicans have engaged in similar chicanery in Missouri, where the practice is known as stuffing an amendment with “ballot candy“—sweeteners the Kansas City Star defined as “inserting unrelated but popular ideas into a measure to encourage people to vote in favor of it.”
The term does not appear to have caught on outside the Show Me State, though as Utah’s legislature demonstrated on Wednesday, Republicans across the nation understand the tactic.