Pot effort’s defeat is proof we don’t need initiative-reform law

Ihave nothing but respect for Yavapai County Attorney Sheila Polk. This Republican prosecutor has shown herself to be a straight shooter. (Exhibit A: her finding that then Attorney General/fellow Republican Tom Horne violated campaignfinance laws.) Last week, Polk wrote an op-ed applauding the Legislature’s efforts to make it more difficult for voters to make laws via initiative. She speaks from experience, having run the opposition to last year’s initiative to legalize marijuana — an initiative that I, too, opposed.

So nothing but respect, Ms. Polk. But this time, you’re just wrong. And worse, you’re selling voters short.

Cue Tuesday’s column, written by Polk and Merilee Fowler, chair and vice chair of Arizonans for Responsible Drug Policy:

“The bills’ critics charge that the changes would make it impossible for grassroots groups to bring good ideas to the public. They are yearning for a past that no longer exists. No recent initiatives came from the grassroots. They were all conceived and promoted by well-heeled special interests.

“Others say these reforms would disenfranchise the undereducated. Really? What do they think the marijuana lobby did last year? It pitched a pot-legalization initiative as spreading freedom while packing 19 pages of legal jargon with self-serving, anti-competitive provisions. They were counting on voters not educating themselves.” First, on where Polk is right. I don’t think it’s any big secret that it takes big money to get 150,000 valid voter signatures to put an initiative on the ballot — 225,000 if it proposes a constitutional change.

Long gone are the days when a group of citizens can stand outside the library and collect enough signatures. But if Polk and Arizona’s power set truly want a return to citizen-driven initiatives, then advocate for lowering the signature requirements to something achievable at a grass-roots level.

Polk is also right that it often is outof-state money that fuels initiatives. Certainly, much of the money to put marijuana legalization on the ballot came from outside the state. By the way, so did the money to oppose both a top-two primary and the education sales tax in 2012. But those successful

opposition campaigns employed dark money, so we weren’t even permitted to know which out-of-state interests were influencing our elections.

If we want to get out-of-state special interests out of our biz, then let’s also tell them to put away their wallets when it comes time to elect our governor and legislators. And while we’re at it, let’s bar dark money, so that we know who is to trying to sway our vote.

Polk is also right about the pot initiative. It was written in such a way that it lined the pockets of the pot industry. And it failed. Let me repeat that. Prop. 205 was defeated.

With all due respect, Ms. Polk, voters don’t need saving from themselves. Just over 1.3 million of them, a little over 51 percent, heard the pro-pot pitch and rejected it. In other words, the system worked. Voters got the benefit of the pro-pot campaign and they heard your anti-pot campaign and they made the call. The correct call, I believe.

Had the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry — the group behind all these so-called initiative “reforms” — launched a vigorous campaign against the minimum-wage law, voters might have made a similar call on Prop 206.

You want a return to grass-roots initiatives? You want out-of-state money out of our elections? Fine. Then lower the signature requirements and bar out-ofstate contributions to all campaigns.

The fact that the chamber didn’t bother with a serious campaign against the minimum wage is no reason to make it harder now for voters to exercise their constitutional right to make laws — or not — at the ballot box.

I trust the voters, when armed with information, to do what’s right for our state.

You really should, too.