What our legislators are doing instead of legislating
Yesterday I collected my mail and noticed something about the size of a phone book (if you are under 30 years of age, ask grandma and grandpa to define “phone book”) in amongst the campaign literature, . . . and one bill. As I sorted through what will soon be recycling, I came upon what we used to call the election publicity pamphlet – it is no longer a pamphlet, more of a book. Secretary of State Fontes describes this as an “essential resource to make informed decisions at the polls.” You could also describe it as similar to the study guide for the SAT’s.
So how did we get from “publicity pamphlet” to this opus? We can thank our legislators – the ones who don’t legislate and who currently are the majority party at the Arizona House and Senate. Any time that we have judges up for retention it produces a long ballot, but 2024 will be an epic year in that there are a total of 13 propositions. I can’t cite a reliable source, but in my experience, this is the most propositions to ever appear on a ballot. Two of the propositions, 139 (Amending Article II of the Arizona Constitution by adding a fundamental right to abortion) and 140 (“Make Elections Fair Arizona”) are citizen initiatives. In other words, citizens (including this one) spent time standing around in the Arizona heat with a clip board and petitions and asked random voters to sign those petitions in order to get a sufficient number of signatures to get these two propositions on the November ballot.
The other 11 propositions went through an entirely different process, resulting in the death of many trees, in order to create the “pamphlet” you now have before you. These 11 are the work of our Arizona legislature. Most were rushed through in the final days of the legislative session. And in news that may not be news to anyone paying attention, the guys in charge down at the legislature want to curtail registered voter’s ability to get propositions placed on the ballot in the future. For example, Proposition 134 adds a new requirement to the signature collection process. Not only does an initiative require a certain number of signatures to get on the ballot, but those signatures must include up to 15% of the qualified electors in each of the 30 legislative districts in Arizona.
In what could be a BIG VICTORY for that ever growing pool of entities that like to spend their spare time in court, there is Proposition 136. Why wait until a proposition becomes law before suing to have it overturned? Proposition 136 would amend the Arizona Constitution to allow a suit challenging the constitutionality of a proposition 100 days before the date of the election.
And finally in a direct attack on the effort to move away from partisan primaries (Proposition 140) our legislature gives us Proposition 133 which would REQUIRE partisan primaries. This would maintain the system in which Arizonans have less choice in who represents them down at the legislature. And Independent candidates would continue to be the ugly stepchildren of the electoral process, with little or no chance of being elected to office.
When I go the polls in November, I’m going to vote against all 11 of the propositions put forward by our legislature. All of them were rushed through at the last minute without sufficient time to evaluate the merits (or lack thereof) and identify potential unintended consequences. Some curtail voter’s rights to propose initiatives or impose impossible conditions on those efforts. All of them represent an attitude of disrespect for Arizona voters. When you select the candidates that you support, be sure that they are people who are responsible and committed to legislating. That means spending time discussing, listening, and compromising to solve problems and improve life for Arizonans. If our elected officials do their job, we won’t see another publicity pamphlet the size of the 2024 version.
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