The Referendum 1 Timeline
February 2, 2007: By a one vote margin (38-37), the Utah House of Representatives – led by Speaker Greg Curtis (R-Sandy) – passes House Bill 148, Education Vouchers, sponsored by Rep. Stephen Urquhart (R-St. George). The Utah State Senate follows suit, voting 19-10 to approve the voucher program.
February 12, 2007: Utah Governor Jon Huntsman, Jr. “quietly” signs House Bill 148 into law.
March 1, 2007: Utahns for Public Schools – a coalition of pro-public education advocates (including the Utah Education Association) – files an intent to pursue a ballot referendum on the voucher law. The petition drive begins.
March 9, 2007: KSL Television releases a poll saying 80 percent of Utahns would sign a petition to put education vouchers on the ballot.
March 27, 2007: Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff issues a legal opinion stating that a bill amending House Bill 148 – House Bill 174 (Education Voucher Amendments) – can stand on its own and create a Utah voucher program, regardless of what happens to House Bill 148.
April 30, 2007: Utah Lt. Governor Gary Herbert announces that Utahns for Public Schools has collected 124,218 certified signatures – more than enough to allow Utah voters to decide the fate of House Bill 148 in a statewide election.
May 9, 2007: Governor Jon Huntsman, Jr. issues an Executive Order, calling for a statewide special election on the referendum challenge of HB 148 on November 6, 2007.
June 8, 2007: The Utah Supreme Court rules that if voters repeal the voucher program under House Bill 148, then a second voucher bill, House Bill 174, also fails.
August 7, 2007: The Salt Lake Tribune reports on a strange radio advertisement, by an “anonymous client,” that says “the Angel Moroni wants you to support vouchers.” After discovering the advertisement was a bit polarizing, the ad company, Crowell Advertising, pulled it off the air.
August 15, 2007: Utahns for Public Schools is alerted regarding a “push poll” in which voters are asked: “If you knew that the same liberal national teachers union that opposes vouchers also supports higher taxes, same-sex marriage, and . . .” The poll is clearly designed to help pro-voucher groups prepare attack ads against the UEA and NEA.
August 29, 2007: Utahns for Public Schools launches their campaign, urging Utahns to vote against what they call a “flawed voucher law.” State education leaders, lawmakers and educators make stops in Salt Lake County and Weber County as part of a school bus tour that leaders say is the first leg of a new effort to defeat the controversial private school voucher program.
August 31, 2007: Utahns for Public Schools begins a major media campaign designed to inform voters about the flaws in House Bill 148.
September 25, 2007: The Deseret Morning News reports that GOP leaders told businessmen and health experts that their plan to provide affordable health insurance to 360,000 Utahns may fail in the 2008 Legislature unless they support vouchers on the November ballot.
October 10, 2007: The Salt Lake Tribune reports on a phony website – www.utahnsforpublicschool – that lures people in thinking they were getting anti-voucher information (the Utahns for Public Schools site is www.utahnsforpublicschools) only to find anti-union and pro-voucher propaganda instead.
October 17, 2007: Utahns for Public Schools publishes an open letter to Gov. Jon Huntsman, Jr. as a full-page ad in The Salt Lake Tribune. In the letter, UTPS asks Gov. Huntsman to help ensure an election that is run with the integrity, honor and transparency that Utah voters deserve, and in particular, to help put an end to the reprehensible practices of Referendum 1 supporters.
October 18, 2007: Key Republican lawmakers speak out against vouchers during a press conference at the Utah State Capitol.
October 22, 2007: The KSL Editorial Board releases an editorial urging taxpayers to vote against private school vouchers. The statement says: “Our opposition to vouchers boils down to a fundamental question: Is Utah’s public school system broken and in such disarray that doing something as radical and unproven as directing precious tax dollars toward private schools, many of them parochial, the answer? We think not!”
November 2-5, 2007: The Salt Lake Tribune, Ogden Standard-Examiner, Davis County Clipper, and the (Park City) Park Record all come out against vouchers.
November 6, 2007: Utah voters reject vouchers by a margin of 62 percent to 38 percent.