What are they actually throwing against the wall?

Conventionally, it’s spaghetti (to see what sticks). Often, though, it’s something smellier.

Oh, so many tosses

The Arizona Legislature is preparing to consider final approvals for close to 40 ballot referrals. If passed, these measures can go directly before voters, bypassing the Governor’s ever-present veto stamp. But even to the casual observer, 40 is too many.

Even having 4 or 5 measures on the ballot is a lot for voters to handle. People have busy lives, and many don’t even exercise their franchise, especially in the midterms. Those who do vote still often end up skipping races and measures that are not near the top of the ballot.

At of this writing, these referrals have largely gone through their originating chamber and need to be approved at the other one – House Concurrent Resolutions (HCRs) need to be approved in the Senate, and Senate Concurrent Resolutions (SCRs) need to be approved in the House. 

Here’s just one

HCR2016 would get rid of voting centers. While it might sound good to have very local precinct polling places, ballots are often tossed when people go to the wrong one, which can be easy to do. This was a common problem before the use of voting centers. Going backwards is a weird solution to a nonexistent problem.

How many of these will be on the ballot? 

I certainly don’t know. But if many are, a common public reaction will either be to ignore them or to “just say no” to all. 

If we’re tending to do that, I hope that we will still look carefully at whatever citizen initiatives make it to the ballot, such as one to add accountability to the ESA voucher program – . Since such measures require huge numbers of valid signatures to even get there, they should be taken seriously – they represent serious interest from many members of the public.

And they’re much more representative of public sentiment than those wall-splatter bills that just require simple Republican majorities in the two chambers to pass.