Statewide Issues Require Statewide Participation from the Git-Go
Vote "Yes" on Prop 134
I’ll admit, right up front, that I am not a big fan of the initiative process. There are reasons why we, and most other governments in the Western World, are run by representatives of the people, not the people directly.
I have a friend who once suggested that we no longer needed representatives in the legislature because the people can just vote online directly from home on all the, like, you know, bills and stuff. That sounds reasonable enough, until you get anyway near the process. Here, for example, is the the official subject - not the entire bill, just the subject - of HB 2906 submitted last June:
AMENDING SECTION 15-185, ARIZONA REVISED STATUTES; REPEALING SECTIONS 15-217, 15-217.01 AND 15-217.02, ARIZONA REVISED STATUTES; AMENDING SECTION 15-217.03, ARIZONA REVISED STATUTES; REPEALING SECTION 15-217.03, ARIZONA REVISED STATUTES; AMENDING SECTIONS 15-393, 15-536, 15-538.01, 15-701, 15-704, 15-901. 15-945, 15-1107, 15-2402, 15-2403, 28-472 AND 41-1276, ARIZONA REVISED STATUTES; AMENDING LAWS 2023, CHAPTER 142, SECTIONS 12, 13 AND 14; REPEALING LAWS 2023. CHAPTER 142, SECTIONS 16 AND 17; APPROPRIATING MONIES; RELATING TO KINDERGARTEN THROUGH GRADE TWELVE.
Not all are this long, but you get the idea. That’s quite a reading assignment, much of which involves jargon… sorry, “legal terms of art”, that would make the reading tedious for most of us, but read it we must if we are to vote responsibly in a direct system.
If “direct democracy” is your bag, Arizona does have an initiative process. According to the Arizona Secretary of State’s website, “An initiative is the method by which voters may propose new laws or amend existing laws by gathering signatures from registered voters to place the issue on the ballot.” In Arizona, ballot props may be used to create new state statutes, modify existing state statutes, repeal existing state statutes, and modify the state constitution.
Roughly half the states have some form of ballot initiative. Getting your proposal on the ballot is relatively easy in Arizona. In fact, people come from across the country to Arizona to “field test” their proposals. There are also those who, failing to get legislation passed at the federal level, will try to get their law through at the state level via ballot initiative, moving from one state to the next until it is effectively the law nationwide.
The Initiative is a much more constrained process than that of the Legislative. By law, the props must be of a single subject, and the title must actually describe the prop (yes, they really had to pass a law against misleading titles).
Again referring to the Secretary of State’s website, “The Arizona Constitution requires valid signatures from 15% of qualified electors to place an initiative proposing a constitutional amendment on the ballot and valid signatures from 10% of qualified electors to place an initiative proposing a statutory amendment on the ballot.”
So, how are those signatures collected? For the most part, they are collected by professionals, circulators who are paid per signature, and they may be from out of state - these are the smiling people with clipboards wandering around supermarket parking lots. There are also volunteer circulators.
These professionals and volunteers will seek the quickest most efficient way to run up the numbers. That means that you will probably never see them standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona. They will head to the most densely populated places, meaning Phoenix and Tucson.
That’s good for them, but what of the rest of the state? Arizona is defined by its laws, its people, and its territory. While it is true that all Arizonans will be able to participate in the the election by voting, it is not true that all Arizonans will be able to participate in determining which initiatives get on the ballot in the first place.
The good news is that there is a remedy. Prop 134 will appear on the 2024 ballot. This is how it is described by the Arizona Legislature:
Proposition 134 retains the current total signature requirements for initiative and referendum measures, but would amend the Arizona Constitution to:
1. Require proponents of initiatives for constitutional amendments to gather signatures from at least 15 percent of the qualified electors in each of the 30 legislative districts in this state.
2. Require proponents of initiatives for statutory amendments to gather signatures from at least 10 percent of the qualified electors in each of the 30 legislative districts in this state.
3. Require proponents of referendums to gather signatures from at least five percent of the 17 qualified electors in each of the 30 legislative districts in this state.
In this way, Arizonans from across the State will participate in choosing the initiatives that will be on the Statewide ballot, and thereby become Statewide law.
Of course, the out of state professional circulators will find it frustrating to have to engage with all the Arizonans instead of just dropping in to Phoenix or Tucson to get it done and get out, but their convenience is not our concern - including all of Arizona is.