Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff will urge the governor to call a special legislative session this summer - in advance of a fall referendum - to clarify a cloudy school-voucher law.

The question is whether legislative leaders will go along.

"I think it is a long shot, frankly," Shurtleff said Saturday. But the attorney general plans to give it a try.

Mike Mower, spokesman for Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr., would not say whether his boss favors a special session, but acknowledged Huntsman is displeased with how muddled the process has become.

"We all have some work to do on the voucher question," Mower said. "We all recognize that the status quo on the voucher question is confusing and unacceptable."

Senate President John Valentine, R-Orem, took no position Saturday on a special session, saying he first would have to discuss it with Huntsman, Shurtleff and House Speaker Greg Curtis, R-Sandy.

However, Valentine, too, conceded that vouchers have produced a "considerable amount of confusion."

While the state marches toward a November referendum - supposedly to decide the fate of Utah's voucher program - voters still don't know whether their ballots will have any power to keep vouchers out of schools.

Trouble is, voucher foes succeeded in putting only one of two private-school voucher bills before voters.

The first measure, HB148, is the meat and potatoes of the voucher law. It contains the program's framework and $9.2 million to pay for it. The second, HB174, was meant as an amendment and passed by a referendum-proof majority.

But the lesser of the two bills has become the biggest headache for voucher opponents.

Shurtleff ordered the Utah Board of Education this month to implement the voucher program, ruling that HB174 contains enough language to put it into effect - with or without the first bill.

So what's at stake in November? Good question. That's what Shurtleff and state education officials want to clarify.

"The public deserves to have a clear decision," said Kim Burningham, chairman of the state Board of Education. "Are you for the voucher concept or not?"

Shurtleff believes a special legislative session - which could merge or modify the bills - is crucial to tidying up the voucher mess.

House Majority Leader Dave Clark, R-Santa Clara, characterized it as "improper" to reconvene a legislative session to tweak the bills.

"I'm opposed to changing rules in the middle of the stream," he said last week. "Those that would like to say, 'Let's combine these two bills,' I think that's exactly the wrong thing to do."

The state board is scheduled to huddle with the governor Friday. It remained unclear Saturday whether Shurtleff and education officials would use that meeting to pitch the proposal.