In the welcoming rain, leading members of Arizona Deserves Better, Stop Dark Money, and Invest in Arizona held a public event at former State Attorney General Terry Goddard’s law office to launch petition drives to overrule the anti-Democratic acts of Grand Canyon state Republicans because, as Deserves Better leader Alison Porter said, “a lot of Arizonans do not like the laws (voter suppression, tax cuts for the ultra-wealthy) passed at the capitol (by Republicans) this year.”
All four organizations are sponsoring seven ballot referendum initiatives to:
- Protect the Permanent Early Voting List (PEVL.)
- Allow counties to properly fund elections.
- Let the Arizona Secretary of State keep her power to defend election laws.
- Publicly reveal where campaign donations are coming from.
- Repeal the Republican tax cut measures that would make the rich richer and circumvent Invest in Ed-Proposition 208.
While Stop Dark Money proponents have until July of 2022 to get their ballot signatures into the Secretary of State’s office, the Arizona Deserves Better and Invest in Arizona have until September 2021 to submit theirs.
Time is of the essence to get the necessary signatures for these six ballot initiatives
Commenting on what is at stake, Arizona Deserves Leader Alison Porter said of the move to counter the voter suppression measures passed by the former party of Lincoln:
“We are working hard to protect our Democracy here in Arizona. We believe as many Arizonans do that any law that keeps a voter from voting is a problem for our Democracy and we all can’t be free if we all can’t vote.”
On the need to protect the funding for public schools promised by the passage of Proposition 208, Porter relayed:
“When we get to the point where a child can get as good education as their parents can afford, we don’t have a healthy Democracy.”
The other leader of Arizona Deserves Better, Eric Kramer, largely echoed the sentiments of Ms. Porter, asserting that the Republicans in the State Legislature and Governor’s office “does not want people to vote” and seeks to “stop elections by defunding them.”
Krammer closed by stating “we will protect Democracy here in Arizona.”
Former Arizona State Attorney General and Phoenix Mayor Terry Goddard spoke next. The spearhead of the Stop Dark Money Initiative (he was also the leading voice behind Outlaw Dirty Money in 2018,) he noted that Arizona leads the country in dark money contributions, stating that:
“The majority of our legislature gets dark money, is afraid of it, or is afraid it will sponsor someone in a primary against them very soon so they are afraid of Dirty Money, they lie afraid of their shadows and won’t do anything to rein it in.”
Saying “we are trying to open up and make transparent the contributions that go into political campaigns and trying to arrest what the legislature has done to stop people from voting,” Goddard closed by relaying “working together, we can make a strong statement in favor of Democracy in Arizona.”
The fourth speaker, who represented the vast Invest in Arizona coalition (including organizations that drove the Invest in Ed efforts in 2020,) Reverend Jeff Procter Murphy, focused his remarks primarily on the tax cuts for the rich that were partially designed to circumvent the voter-approved Invest in Education-Proposition 208, a measure designed to, as the Reverend said, reduce class sizes, modernize educational tools, and better compensate instructors.
Declaring that “we are standing up for those our legislators (and Governor)have refused to defend: the vulnerable, the poor, and our children,” Murphy pointed out that Republicans “pandered to the very wealthy to the detriment of everyone else…with 75 percent of the benefit” going to the ultra-wealthy to the tune of an average tax cut of $35,000.
These tax cuts, Murphy reminded listeners would “not only reverse the revenue generated by Proposition 208 but give the top income earners the biggest tax break in 30 years” and would make it nearly impossible to reverse, if voters do not repeal the tax-cutting measures at the ballot box, because tax increases currently require a two-thirds majority in both state legislative houses to overturn.
Democratic Arizona Legislative District (LD) 29 House Member Richard Andrade closed out the presentation, saying:
“It is time to expose where this Dark Money is coming from. It is time to put elections back into the people’s hands…Our Democracy is under attack by a majority that does not represent working families. It is time for us to speak loud and stand up for our Democracy and what the United States really represents…to make sure that all Arizonans are successful, not only for today but in the future…”
Ms. Porter, Mr. Krammer, Former Attorney General Goddard, Reverend Murphy, and Representative Andrade are all right.
This is the time to save Democracy, put transparency in our elections, and save the voter-approved money for public schools.
Act now and sign these petitions so they can make 2022 ballots.
There is not a moment to lose.
Please click here to watch the full presentation by the representatives of Arizona Deserves Better, Stop Dark Money, and Invest in Arizona.
Please click on the website links below for more information on these organizations and what they are working and fighting towards.
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