From the Daily Herald:

SALT LAKE CITY — A lawsuit filed Thursday challenges the legality of a 14-part bill that became a catch-all law for many Utah education issues.

The lawsuit filed on behalf of 38 legislators, former lawmakers and education officials seeks an injunction to stop funding for parts of the law and a declaration that programs created by it are unconstitutional.The lawsuit in 3rd District Court accuses the Legislature of violating the Utah Constitution when it wrapped 14 separate bills into one. Under state law, bills are supposed to be limited to one subject and have a clear title.

Lawmakers say the bill does address one subject: education.

But an attorney for the plaintiffs, Janet Jenson, said lawmakers violated the spirit of the law with the omnibus bill. Several bills already defeated were brought back to life in Senate Bill 2.

Among them: money for the International Baccalaureate program for high-school students, a computer program for preschool students and revisions to charter-school funding.

“The reason that our constitution has the clause prohibiting omnibus legislation like that is so citizens have fair warning about what the bill can do, so legislators can get a clean up-or-down vote, so the governor can use veto power effectively, so the legislative process is not coerced,” Jenson said.

The complaint names Attorney General Mark Shurtleff, Utah Treasurer Edward Alter and Jeff Herring, executive director of the Utah Department of Human Resource Management, as defendants.

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