Ballot-initiative bill is about making the process better
Arizona is one of 15 states that afford its citizens the right to make laws and amend our state Constitution through the initiative process.
Arizonans used this legislative tool for the first time in 1912 to grant women the right to vote, and we’ve used it a number of times since to enact meaningful improvements to our state, such as making Arizona a right-to-work state and establishing a state holiday in observance of Martin Luther King Jr.
Unfortunately, in recent years the initiative process has been used less by Arizonans and more by out-of-state special interests that put up money to get initiatives on the ballot but don’t have to live with the fallout created by many of their efforts.
Some petition circulators cash in on initiative campaigns by charging clients per signature. With a financial motive to record as many signatures as possible, petition circulators resort to forgery.
How bad is it? The petition circulation firm that gathered signatures for an initiative last year sued the initiative committee for non-payment. The committee responded to the lawsuit by reminding the firm that it had collected tens of thousands of invalid signatures. Yet because of an ambiguity in current law, that initiative qualified for the ballot despite a shortage of valid signatures.
Former Gov. Janet Napolitano used her State of the State address in 2009 to suggest banning the practice of per-signature payment in Arizona, asking legislators “to crack down on signature fraud” by enacting the reform.
To restore integrity to our initiative process, we’ve introduced House Bill 2404. Similar to laws in other states, the bill removes the incentive for fraud and forgery by prohibiting the payment of petition circulators on a persignature basis, and gives opponents of a proposed initiative 10 business days to challenge questionable signatures. The bill has already passed the Arizona House of Representatives and is awaiting action in the Senate.
While critics have launched hyperbolic smears on the bill as an attack on Arizonans’ constitutional rights, Arizonans would be able to continue utilizing the initiative as our state’s founders envisioned — as a citizen-driven form of direct democracy.
Initiative campaigns would even still be able to pay petition circulators to collect their signatures. They just wouldn’t be able to pay them per signature, thereby removing the incentive for circulators to turn in large numbers of fraudulent signatures.
This effort isn’t about giving one party a leg up on the other or diluting the ability of Arizonans to make their own laws. This is about restoring integrity to the initiative process by rooting out fraud.
Implementing this simple reform, advocated by a Democratic governor and Republican legislators, will improve our citizen initiative process, and Arizonans can get back to using the process as it was intended.
J.D. Mesnard, R-Chandler, is the speaker of the House in the Arizona Legislature. Rep. Vince Leach, a Republican, represents Legislative District 11 in central-southern Arizona, including Marana. Email them at jmesnard@azleg .gov and vleach@azleg.gov.