GQP Jim Crow 2.0 Assault On Your Constitutional Right To Citizens Initiatives

This is on par with the old Jim Crow trick of counting bubbles in a bar of soap or the number of jelly beans in a jar. “We didn’t eliminate your constitutional right to vote” – no, but you imposed ridiculous regulations on exercising that constitutional right which effectively nullified that right.

Authoritarian Republicans in the Arizona legislature have been assaulting your constitutional right to citizens initiatives for years now.  They don’t belIeve that citizens should have any right to pass their own laws, or to overturn the insane laws passed by authoritarian Republican legislators through referendum. “We decide, and you shall obey!

Howard Fischer reports, Senate eyes change to petition processes:

State senators took the first steps Monday that would erect new hurdles in the path of Arizonans to propose their own laws and constitutional amendments.

On a 4-3 party-line vote, Republicans on the Government Committee approved a measure that says that petitions circulators have to actually read out loud the 200-word description on every ballot measure to anyone who wants to sign.

In the alternative, SB1094 would require that signers being “sufficient time to read the description” before being able to put pen to paper. But nowhere in the proposal is that defined.

More to the point, if the language is not read out loud or it is determined that there was not enough time, a judge is required to declare that signature invalid.

Separately, the same panel approved SCR1025 which changes the requirements to qualify for the ballot.

The Arizona Constitution now says that anyone seeking to propose a new law must get the signatures equal to at least 10% of those who voted in the last gubernatorial race. That is currently 237,645.

This proposal by Sen. Vince Leach, R-Tucson, would set that percentage requirement in each of the state’s 30 legislative districts.

Ditto the 15% requirement for constitutional amendments.

Leach said the current system results in circulators concentrating on getting all the signatures they need in Maricopa County.

For an obvious reason, this is where voters live: “The population of Arizona is concentrated around Phoenix, the state capital, and Tucson, the second largest city in the state. The largest county in Arizona by population count is Maricopa County, which is home to 4.1 million of the state’s 6.9 million people, containing over 60% of the state’s population.” Arizona Population 2021.

“You will see all kinds of people gathering signatures at Fry’s in the metropolitan Phoenix and the Valley area,” he said. “But I never see one at my Fry’s in Oro Valley.”

This measure, he said, will ensure that rural interests get a voice on what goes on the ballot.

WRONG. This measure is designed to give a small number of residents living in rural areas veto power over them “liberul” big city people living in Maricopa and Pima counties.

On the flip side, however, is that SCR 1024 effectively could give residents of one legislative district — which could be as small as some neighborhoods — veto power over everyone else getting a chance to vote on certain measures.

Leach, for his part, [disingenuously] questioned the likelihood of that ever happening. [This is exactly what would happen.]

Sen. J.D. Mesnard, R-Chandler, who is the author of SB1094, said his goal is not to make it harder to put issues on the ballot [lying sack of shit]. Instead, Mesnard said he is trying to end “spin-filled signature gathering” where circulators seeking to attract signers may be providing people with inaccurate information about exactly what the initiative proposes.

Nothing in his bill would block circulators from saying whatever they want. But what it would do, Mesnard said, is ensure that people have the opportunity to hear the official summary and decide for themselves if this is something they care to support.

Dude, you just inaccurately described (spinned) what your bill is intended to do – nullify the constitutional right to citizen intiatives – and your motives for doing it. Your name has been associated with every one of these authoritarian GQP bills to restrict citizens initiatives in recent years. You are among the worst offenders in the legislature.

Enforcement, however, is another matter.

He said that could take the form of someone filing a complaint with a court saying that certain circulators were not complying with the law and that any signatures they gathered should not be counted. But Mesnard said he does not see judges in this state making such wholesale decisions.

Judges have already done this under prior laws enacted by our authoritarian GQP legislature designed to nullify your constitutional right to citizen intiatives.

In 2022, it takes 356,467 valid signatures for a constitutional amendment, 237,645 valid signatures for a proposed statute, and 118,823 valid signatures for a referendum to veto a legislative act. This bill literally empowers hundreds of thousands of potential litigants to challenge pettition circulators. But we know that it will come from the usual suspects with financial resources, the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the Arizona Republican Party, or one of its funding groups, like the Club For Growth, who have disqualified citizen initiatives through litigation in recent years. These bills just give them new tools with which to disqualify citizen initiatives.

For example, he said, a would-be signer could tell a circulator he or she already is familiar with the measure, whether having actually read it or through news coverage. Mesnard said the key is that the circulator has made the offer to read it aloud or give the person the time to peruse the summary.

“If the petition gatherer has done that, then I think they have complied with the law,” he said. [What he thinks doesn’t matter. It is what a judge assigned to har election challenges thinks.]

“It’ll be exceedingly difficult for someone to say, ‘Well, I watched them and the person just glanced at it and then they signed it, no way they could read it that fast,’ ” Mesnard said. “I don’t think a judge is going to go for that.”

Both measures now need approval of the full Senate and, eventually, the House.

But Leach faces an extra hurdle.

The signature requirements for initiatives are part of the Arizona Constitution. And the kind of changes he wants would need voter approval at the next election before taking effect.

Why would you vote to nullify your constitutional right to citizens initiatives and referendum by approving these GQP Jim Crow 2.0 voter suppression gimicks?

Call your state representatives and tell them “hell no!” to these two bills, and that you will vote them out of office if they vote for these bills. And then vote Sens. J.D. Mesnard and Vince Leach out of office for having sponsored these Jim Crow 2.0 bills.






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