voting rights

(Update) House Tea-Publicans vote to restrict your constitutional right to make laws

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Last week I posted about how Tea-Publican newbie legislator Rep. Todd Clodfelter (R-Tucson) was the decisive vote in committee to advance a package of bills from our corporate overlords in the Chamber of Commerce organizations to restrict your constitutional rights to the initiative and referendum process. House Tea-Publicans vote to restrict your constitutional right to make laws.

This week it is Rep. Vince Leach (R-Tucson) who is carrying water for our corporate overlords in the Chamber of Commerce organizations and doing the bidding of his “dark money” masters. Arizona lawmakers advance bill to limit voter initiatives:

Spurred by business interests in the wake of a voter-approved minimum-wage hike, Republican lawmakers approved legislation Thursday that could curtail the ability of citizens to create their own laws.

The most significant provision of HB 2404 would effectively eliminate the ability of groups to use paid circulators by prohibiting payment by the number of signatures gathered.

Paid circulators would still be allowed — but only if compensated on an hourly or other basis. But that removes any incentive for circulators to gather as many signatures as possible.

“It reforms the incentive for fraud and forgery,” said Rep. Vince Leach, R-Tucson, who is carrying the legislation that was largely crafted by the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

The measure approved by the House Government Committee on a party-line vote and sent to the full House also imposes a series of new procedural hurdles and gives those who oppose initiatives new rights to try to have them knocked off the ballot before voters get a chance to weigh in.

The legislation also requires strict compliance with all initiative requirements, something Sierra Club lobbyist Sandy Bahr said could result in disqualifying petitions simply because their margins are not the right size.

And it would require any initiative committee that uses paid circulators to purchase a bond of up to $50,000.

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House Tea-Publicans vote to restrict your constitutional right to make laws

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Our authoritarian Tea-Publican legislators in the Arizona House advanced four of five bills on Thursday taking aim at restricting Arizona citizens’ constitutional right to propose laws through an initiative, and to limit or repeal the Voter Protection Act.

Howard Fischer reports, GOP lawmakers advance measures to rein in citizens’ ballot-initiative rights:

The package of legislation comes on the heels of intensive lobbying by Chamber of Commerce organizations upset that 2016 voters approved hiking the state’s minimum wage to $10 an hour now, and eventually to $12 an hour by 2020.

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The effort does not seek repeal of the right of voters to enact their own laws, which dates to the first days of statehood. Instead, these proposals, all approved on a 5-3 party-line vote by the House Government Committee, seek to rein them in (i.e., make it more difficult and expensive, if not impossible).

The Arizona Daily Star’s Tim Steller explains that the votes came down to a new Tea-Publican legislator from Tucson, Rep. Todd Clodfelter (LD 10), who voted with his authoritarian colleagues from the state of Maricopa. A tie vote would have defeated the bills in committee. Political Notebook: Arizona legislators look to seize voters’ powers:

So now [Tea-Publican legislators] must rise up from their undignified trampling and take away our misused initiative rights.

That’s the upshot of five measures introduced in the House of Representatives, four of which passed out of committee Thursday with a decisive vote in favor from a Tucson legislator. Todd Clodfelter, a new Republican representive in Legislative District 10, approved the measures despite efforts to sway him against and to kill the bills in committee.

This guy was only elected in November because zombie Tea-Publicans who vote out of GOP tribalism for anyone with an “(R)” behind their name single-shotted him, helping him to defeat one of the most able and decent legislators we had in the Arizona legislature, Stefanie Mach. That was a travesty and an injustice. Let’s ensure that this guy is a one-termer.

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Hold Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III accountable as the new Attorney General

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Senator Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III (R-AL) — Geezus! You can almost hear the Confederate flags snapping in the breeze, can’t you? — was approved on a near party-line vote with only one Democratic defection, to become the next Attorney General of the United States after a contentious Senate vote. Jeff Sessions Confirmed as Attorney General, Capping Bitter Battle:

Senator Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III, an Alabama Republican, survived a near-party-line vote, 52 to 47, in the latest sign of the extreme partisanship at play as Mr. Trump strains to install his cabinet. No Republicans broke ranks in their support of a colleague who will become the nation’s top law enforcement official after two decades in the Senate. [Joe Manchin (D-WV) broke ranks with Democrats.]

But the confirmation process — ferocious even by the standards of moldering decorum that have defined the body’s recent years — laid bare the Senate’s deep divisions at the outset of the Trump presidency. At the same time, the treatment of Senator Elizabeth Warren, who was forced to stop speaking late Tuesday after criticizing Sen. Sessions from the Senate floor, rekindled the gender-infused politics that animated the presidential election and the women’s march protesting Mr. Trump the day after his inauguration last month.

Sen. Sessions cast his final vote as a senator to note that he was present for Wednesday’s tally. His confirmation was met by applause from his colleagues, including a few Democrats, on the Senate floor.

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Tea-Publican legislators, doing the bidding of our corporate overlords, are coming for your constitutional rights

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I warned you about this earlier this year. Arizona’s authoritarian Tea-Publicans are coming for your constitutional rights.

The Arizona Capitol Times (subscription required) has a lengthy report, A raft of bills would make Arizona’s initiative process more difficult:

More than a century after Arizona’s voters gave themselves a Constitution and the right to write laws, legislators still can’t quite accept the fact that they have competition.

And this year [Tea-Publican] legislators, backed by powerful business interests including the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry, are preparing to launch a sustained assault on the initiative process.

Legislators this year have proposed a rash of bills designed to make the initiative process more difficult. They’re proposing tougher signature-gathering requirements for groups seeking to change the law and restrictions on funding streams for initiative campaigns.

They’re also seeking an outright repeal of the Voter Protection Act, which prevents lawmakers from simply repealing voter-approved laws, or even changing them unless that change has bipartisan support and furthers the intent of the proposition.

Failing that, they’re hoping voters will at least go along with some reforms to the Voter Protection Act.

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More troubles in the Secretary of State’s office

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Earlier this week Arizona’s queen of voter suppression, Secretary of State Michele Reagan, was once again in trouble for  poor management of her office. More stumbles at Arizona Secretary of State’s Office:

Arizona Secretary of State Michele Reagan’s office has hit some rough spots as it tries to put into practice all of the changes wrought by the campaign-finance overhaul it steered through the Legislature last year.

The office started the new year by notifying political-action committees that their registration was canceled. A few days later, it sent committee officers a memo walking that back.

Then came the Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday weekend, where frustrated candidates said they couldn’t navigate the new website to report their contributions and expenditures by a Jan. 15 deadline. Some candidates reported the website wouldn’t accept their attempts to enter campaign expenses.

“It’s frustrating,” said former state Rep. Chris Ackerley, a Tucson Republican. “It seems like we’re in a twilight-zone thing.”

He was heading up to the Secretary of State’s Office for guidance on how to complete his report and not run afoul of the new law.

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