“How do you like our new Constitution?” Thomas Jefferson wrote to John Adams in mid-November 1787. Jefferson mostly wanted to vent. The two-month-old document left him reeling, especially in its provisions for a new chief executive. The American president, grumbled Jefferson, “seems a bad edition of a Polish king.”

Utah Senate President Stuart Adams warned that if the state fails to respond to a recent court ruling that limited legislative changes to citizen initiatives then Utah could become the next “Petri dish of America.” Adams predicted that lawmakers will ...