Utah lawmakers can raise taxes with a simple majority. If voters approve Amendment B in November, citizens who try it through a ballot initiative would need 60%.
The amendment would apply to any statewide citizen initiative that creates a tax or raises an existing rate. It also covers property taxes. If state law is set to lower a property tax rate, an initiative that would keep the rate above that level would need 60% to pass. The requirement would not apply to tax bills passed by the Legislature or to local citizen initiatives.
What it would have meant for Prop. 3
Amendment B would have changed the outcome of Proposition 3, the 2018 initiative that expanded Medicaid.
For years after the Affordable Care Act passed, the Republican-controlled Legislature refused to adopt full Medicaid expansion. Because of that, thousands of low-income Utahns fell into a so-called “coverage gap,” meaning they earned too much to qualify for traditional Medicaid but too little to qualify for federal subsidies on the healthcare exchange.
In 2018, a group called Utah Decides Healthcare collected enough signatures to put Prop. 3 on the ballot. It expanded Medicaid to non-elderly adults earning up to 138% of the federal poverty level. The federal government covered 90% of the cost, and the state covered the rest. To pay for the state’s share, Prop. 3 raised the state sales tax, excluding groceries, from 4.70% to 4.85%.
Prop. 3 passed with 53.3% of the vote. Under Amendment B, it would have failed.
How it got on the ballot
Republican lawmakers placed Amendment B on the ballot in 2025 by approving SJR 2, sponsored by Sen. Lincoln Fillmore, who said that the proposal would ensure that any citizen-led tax increase has a broad consensus of support.
"This proposes that we ask the voters a simple question. How easy do you want it to be for your neighbors to raise your taxes?" Fillmore said when he presented his bill to the Senate's Revenue and Taxation Committee.
No Democrat voted for the proposal in either chamber.
The idea was first proposed a year earlier. In 2024, Rep. Jason Kyle sponsored two bills (HJR14 and HB284) that would have done much of what Amendment B and SB73 now do. He dropped both in the session’s final week because lawmakers had already put three constitutional amendments on the ballot.
Beehive State Politics Facebook group
If you're looking for substantive discussion about Utah political news instead of the usual social media free-for-all, this is the group for you.
A second hurdle for initiative sponsors
Amendment B goes hand-in-hand with another measure approved by legislative Republicans in 2025. SB73, also sponsored by Fillmore, requires initiative sponsors to show how their proposal would be paid for before they can collect signatures.
If the program requires new funding, sponsors have to identify the new tax rate or say how much an existing tax rate would increase. Sponsors who plan to use existing revenue must list the programs or budget lines that would get less money and describe the likely impacts of those cuts.
SB73 requires the lieutenant governor to consult legislative fiscal analysts and reject an application if the explanation for its funding does not meet the requirements or is unlikely to provide enough money for the proposed law.
Voters would be told not only what a ballot proposal would cost if approved or what other spending would be reduced to pay for it.
If you have a news tip that we should investigate, email us at tips@utahpolitics.news or send your tip through our secure online form.
Only one other state
If voters approve Amendment B, Utah would become the second state to impose a 60% requirement on ballot measures that raise taxes.
The first was Arizona. In 1992, voters there approved Proposition 108, which requires a two-thirds vote in both chambers of the Legislature to raise taxes. Since then, tax increases there have come through voters rather than lawmakers. They include a $700 million sales tax increase in 2000 and an $800 million increase in 2020 for public schools, which was later struck down as unconstitutional.
In 2022, Arizona voters approved Proposition 132, which requires 60% approval for any ballot measure that raises taxes.
