Virus threatens survival of ballot initiatives
Early alarms are sounding about the havoc the novel coronavirus could wreak on voter participation for the primary and general elections.
The prescribed remedy is for Arizona lawmakers to enable all-mail elections, ensuring the safety of voters. The call to act will likely intensify when the Legislature reconvenes in mid-April.
More endangered by the coronavirus pandemic are citizen initiatives that must secure sufficient voter signatures to qualify for the Nov. 3 ballot. Lawmakers have little ability to salvage them and perhaps even less incentive to do so.
The initiatives include ones to legalize marijuana, boost education spending by taxing the rich, and rein in the use of “dark money” in political campaigns.
Less than a month ago, the presumption was that they and one or two other initiatives would qualify for the ballot. Now all bets are off.
The cancellation of sports, festivals, concerts and community events to keep COVID-19 from spreading has also choked off petition circulators’ access to large crowds of voters and their John
Hancock. A lengthy continuation of the restrictions could well spell the end of some, if not most, ballot initiatives.
The various efforts were already facing a higher signature threshold given that the number of qualifying signatures is tied to the number of ballots cast for governor in the preceding (2018) election. That means a jump of more than 50% additional signatures for 2020 than two years ago.
The signature threshold, and the deadline of July 2 (four months before the election) to submit signatures, is established in the state Constitution and not subject to tinkering by lawmakers.
The Legislature could permit online signature-gathering – a luxury state lawmakers themselves have enjoyed with nominating petitions since 2012. A bill introduced in January, House Bill 2527, would do just that, but there’s been no action on it.
And I doubt there’d be any more excitement for it when lawmakers return to session.
Why? Many conservative legislators loathe the idea of making it easier for citizen initiatives to qualify. Most legislation aimed at reforming the initiative and referendum process have leaned in the other direction: More rigid compliance standards, a ban on paying hired circulators per signature and the addition of technicalities that would disqualify petitions.
It also wouldn’t be a stretch to say the same legislators flat out oppose the current slate of initiatives, notably Invest In Ed and the Save Our Schools Act, which seeks to cap the number of school vouchers and restrict their use.
Those spearheading the initiative campaigns put on a brave face and soldier on with smaller-scale tactics: mailing out petitions to supporters to get them and their family and friends to sign and launching brief pop-up campaigns via social media, such as setting up a table at a park or parking lot.
But considering the need for initiative backers to gather hundreds of thousands of signatures — 237,645 for a measure to create a new statute and 356,467 for one to amend the state Constitution — getting only a handful at a time can be dispiriting.
Volunteers leading the Outlaw Dirty Money campaign, a constitutional amendment requiring the higher count, can attest to that. They have in essence suspended their efforts in hopes of protecting public health.
After a tremendous start, gathering some 280,000 signatures by early March, the pause has been a momentum killer. “Fair to say they are fit to be tied,” Goddard said in an email following an hours-long discussion with coordinators Monday.
Dawn Penich-Thacker of Save Our Schools remains optimistic. Her group mounted a successful referendum in 2018 on vouchers, or Empowerment Scholarship Accounts, in only three months with 20 volunteers.
This go-round, the group has more time and a greater support base. Nonetheless, it is now delaying the major signature-gathering efforts until May and June — presuming life returns close to normal by then.
Outlaw Dirty Money is taking nothing for granted. Its chief supporters plan to call on legislators to allow online petition signing and, should the prohibition of large public gatherings continue much longer, permit the use of already collected signatures for this year’s measure toward qualifying it for the 2022 ballot.
On at least the petition signing via the web, the supporters have a bonafide case. If a political candidate can gather online signatures of registered voters for his nomination petition, there is no rightful argument that a citizens group shouldn’t be able to do the same for its ballot initiative.
It shouldn’t come to a virus pandemic for lawmakers to equal the playing field. But given that they will return in a month to deal with more effects of COVID-19, the time is ripe.