It's the political equivalent of pole vaulting over the Wasatch Front. The Legislature has set the bar way too high for citizen ballot initiatives, making it nearly impossible for the people to exercise their constitutional right to make laws.

This year, three determined efforts by energized citizen groups failed to pass muster. Utahns for Ethical Government, proponents of comprehensive legislative ethics reform, believes it fell just short of acquiring the book-load of signatures needed to place its proposal on the 2010 ballot. Fair Boundaries, which espoused an independent commission to assist with legislative redistricting and limit gerrymandering, and The Peoples Right LLC, which proposed campaign finance and spending reforms, didn't even come close.

It's hard to believe that the failures resulted from citizens refusing to sign the petitions. Public opinion polls have shown that Utahns, as a rule, support ethics reform, campaign finance reform and nonpartisan redistricting. It's more likely that logistical problems -- the need to hold seven public hearings and canvass residents across the entire state -- led to the downfall of the petition drives.

The number of signatures required from registered voters to place an initiative on the ballot -- an amount equal to 10 percent of the votes cast statewide in the most recent gubernatorial election -- is onerous. This year, that worked out to 95,000 John Hancocks, a nearly insurmountable goal. While a high standard should serve to winnow out frivolous proposals, 10 percent is too high. Five percent -- in this case 47,500 signatures -- seems sufficient.

Even worse is the signature distribution mandate. Not only are 95,000 signatures required, initiative supporters must meet the 10 percent mark in at least 26 of Utah's 29 state Senate districts. That's absurd, not to mention undemocratic. All signatures should count equally, and the residents of a handful of Senate districts shouldn't be able to deny the rest of the state the right to sound off on proposed statutes. This requirement should be dropped.

But instead of making it easier for citizens to exercise their constitutional rights regarding initiatives, lawmakers made it more difficult. A new law approved this year makes it simple for citizens to withdraw their names from petitions, and thus makes it easier for initiative opponents to scuttle a successful petition drive by targeting signatories in districts where the minimum has barely been met.

These overly restrictive regulations undermine the right of the people to enact laws and, as such, they undermine the Utah Constitution. The Legislature needs to lower the bar.