Don't try to tell folks in Sigurd that you can't fight city hall. They've been doing it for years.

But it seems that for every battle the group wins, it attracts a new enemy and has to start all over again. Members of the Right To Vote Committee were largely responsible for getting plans for a power plant put on the local election ballot last fall over the vigorous objections of the Sevier County Commission and an unconstitutional law passed by Utah's anti-citizen-initiative Legislature.

Now the group is fighting Senate Bill 53, ironically the same designation as last year's bill that would have prevented the citizens initiative to halt the power plant. This year's SB53 would prevent the court from awarding attorneys fees to the Sigurd group after it won a decision over the legality of last year's law. And it would discourage groups from bringing similar suits in the future, effectively stifling court protests over governments or officials run amok.

SB53, The Sequel, would prohibit courts from invoking a common-law judicial practice called the private attorney general doctrine to award attorneys' fees to individuals and groups that challenge laws or government policies and win. If it passes, the Sevier County committee, a small group of individuals who simply wanted the right to vote on whether a power plant could foul the air in their rural county, would have to come up with about $35,000 to pay the attorneys who helped them win that right.

Sen. Stephen Urquhart, R-St. George, sponsor of SB53, says the doctrine is not based on statute and puts an unfair burden on taxpayers who may have to pay up when the government loses a case. But the common-law doctrine has long been recognized under federal law as a way for courts to protect the interests of justice. It can only be invoked when individuals or groups win a case in which they have alleged inappropriate or illegal government actions. They also stand to gain nothing of monetary value from the case.

It has been used rarely in Utah -- when a Midvale family successfully sued Salt Lake County and a developer for building a shopping center around their home, in a 1994 case against telephone rate increases, and with a decision last year in a 2002 Davis County case over water fluoridation.

Urquhart said Utahns should be content to let the state attorney general challenge government actions. But the political reality is that there are cases in which only citizen groups will take on a misguided government. When they do, and courts rule in their favor, they shouldn't have to pay the litigation costs out of their own pockets.