Arizona’s State Legislators have lots and lots of power, but it’s never enough. They always want more and they want to take it away from the people whom they are supposed to be serving.
It got really ugly back in the 1990s when Republican-controlled legislatures would go to extremes to curry favor with the wealthy class, while ignoring the needs of the vast majority of average Arizonans. The Legislature would pass some outrageous bill, basically forcing the hand of the people to rise up and say, through voter initiative, “Oh, hell no!”
This process repeated itself multiple times before it came to a head. The voters passed an initiative and when the Legislature convened just a couple months later, the “lawmakers” set out to undermine and defund that which had been passed by the citizens of the state. It showed such blatant disregard to the people of Arizona that in 1998, Proposition 105 was put to a public vote. It passed and became an amendment to the Arizona constitution that was a massive “screw you” to the state Legislature.
What it said was that after an initiative or referendum was passed by a vote of the people, it could not be vetoed by the governor, nor could it be repealed by the Legislature. The Legislature could tinker with it; however (and this is delicious), it would require a three-quarters vote in both houses and the only changes that could be made would be those that would actually make that which had been passed even stronger or gave it even more funding.
The members of the Legislature would not be allowed to weaken the law, take parts out of it, or attempt to choke it to death through the withholding of appropriate funding.
Because of Prop 105, there has been wailing and the gnashing of teeth coming from the state Capitol for the past quarter-century. Their cry is usually, “Why do you people insist on passing laws that we refuse to? Don’t you understand that we know what’s best for you?” Or, “What do you think this is, a democracy?!”
The Legislature has tried to flat-out ignore that part of the constitution a couple times, but mostly, at the risk of serious legal ramifications, they just try to nibble around the edges. They’re back at it this year with another bold assault on the will of the people. Unable to get rid of the Prop 205 part of the constitution, they’re trying an end run to render it moot.
There is already one measure that has made it to the ballot and will be voted on in November. It’s vulgar and patently unfair, so, naturally, every Republican in the Legislature voted for it. (It passed by a vote of 31-29 in the House and 16-13 in the Senate.)
Currently, for a citizens’ initiative to be put on the ballot, backers must gather and submit a number of valid signatures equaling or surpassing 10% of the people who voted in the previous state gubernatorial election. In 2024, that number would be 255,949 (or, if you believe Kari Lake when she talks about the number of people who voted illegally in 2022, that number would be around 47 million).
Initiative backers will try to gather much more than the bare 10% of signatures, as a number of the signatures will be declared invalid for one reason or another (wrong address, signature isn’t a good match, etc.). Ten percent of the previous voting public is a high hurdle to meet and even then, it only guarantees that the measure will be on the ballot, not that it will be passed.
The number is even higher for proposed amendments to the Arizona state constitution. Those require hitting a target of 15%. (This year, that would be 383,923.)
Those numbers are pretty steep and they serve to limit the number of ballot initiatives. But that’s not good enough for the Republicans in the Legislature, who see direct democracy as an effrontery, a frontal assault on the lawmaker’s right to ignore the vast majority while focusing on the moneyed minority.
The initiative they have placed on the ballot for November should be called the “Up Yours, People” (not to be confused with the wholesome, white singing group of the 1960s). The monstrosity on the ballot keeps the 10 and 15 percent requirements (it has to, those are in the constitution), but now backers will have to gather those numbers in each of Arizona’s 15 counties.
That means that backers could gather the necessary signatures in 14 of the 15 counties, but if the rural folk in Greenlee County feel like giving the middle finger to the city dwellers, they could scuttle the entire operation. Now, if people want to live in Duncan or Wellton or Ash Fork, good for them. But their vote should never count more than mine does.
Giving one county the veto power over the entire state is ridiculous and un-American. It’s the political wet dream of a desperate minority that can’t win things fair and square.
I sincerely believe that once they find out what it is, Arizonans will vote it down and express their disdain for the craven crew that placed it in front of the voting public. But it shouldn’t have been on the ballot in the first place.
