Home > Legislative Tracker > initiative and referendum; disclosure

Ballot Measures:
initiative and referendum; disclosure

Our Position: oppose
Bill Number: HB2338
Sponsor: Adams: Anderson, Crandall
Legislative Session: 2007 Legislative Session

It requires a political committee to disclose its major funding sources at the bottom of the initiative or referendum petition sheet.  This sets up another double standard for citizen initiatives or referenda.  Legislative referrals are not required to include the major funding from various lobbying interests that pushed them through the legislature nor do candidate petitions require that they include their major funders on the petitions.  The law already requires ballot measures to disclose major funding sources on campaign materials.  Some clarification and enforcement in that area might be warranted and is worth discussing.  Ultimately, the big guys will just wait to spend their dollars until after the measure is filed and the petitions printed, so this requirement will be meaningless other than giving someone another technical reason for dismissing a measure if there is an error.

HB2338 goes on to require that signature gatherers only be paid at a flat hourly rate and furthermore requires that they be employees.  Why can’t these businesses, like any other business, hire independent contractors, provided they meet those contractor requirements?  This aspect will ensure that it is more difficult to gather signatures quickly, will likely cost more, and will put the initiative process more in the hands of wealthy interests.  If this is going to be considered, then requiring fewer signatures should accompany it. 

HB2338 states that the initiative measure must indicate whether the signatures were primarily gathered by volunteers or paid signatures on the ballot.  Considering the number of signatures that is now required and all the barriers for gathering signatures (many places do not allow it), there are few, if any initiative campaigns that can get the majority of signatures with volunteers.  This, along with the other measures in this bill, creates a lot more hoops to jump through and will likely result in citizen measures being thrown out on technicalities.  (That already is an issue with zoning referenda.)  It is also a clear double standard. 

Perhaps referenda from the Legislature should state who paid the most to lobbyists to get it through the Legislature?  We cannot support measures that erect impediments to citizens participating in direct democracy via the initiative process without solving any real problems and serving a larger public need.  We ask that legislators reject this measure. 

Status

Action Needed

More information

Contact

Background

The initiative and referendum process in some form is older than our country itself — it dates back to the 1600s when via town meetings, communities voted on ordinances and other issues.  The authors of the Arizona Constitution thought that the initiative and referendum process provided citizens with both a check on the legislative branch and on the then widespread corruption of big business and monopolies.  They thought it was critical that the citizens have an equal opportunity to create laws directly via the initiative process.  We agree with that.

The trend over the last several years has been for the Arizona Legislature to try and restrict citizens' rights to initiatives and referenda.  In 2000, the Legislature referred a measure that would have required a two-thirds vote on any wildlife measure.  The voters rejected that proposal overwhelmingly (62-38).  In 2004, the voters also rejected a measure to move the filing date back for initiative petition signatures.  They did approve a measure to require that a funding source be identified for initiatives with costs associated with them.  Over the years, there also have been bills to require people who circulate petitions to wear badges to indicate if they are paid or volunteer, bills to require a certain percentage of signatures from each county, and bills to require payment for invalid signatures.  All of those have been rejected.

While no one wants to see wealthy interests like New York developer Howie Rich’s group, Americans for Limited Government, come in and buy elections in Arizona via ballot measure, the limitations the Legislature is considering will not address that.  They will only make it more difficult for grassroots organizations, small organizations, and the larger public to participate in legislation via this important process.  If the intent of the Legislature is to just make it more difficult for citizens to initiate law via a ballot measure, then we are opposed to that.  If the Legislature has a specific problem or issue that it would like to address, then we are happy to discuss that.  We encourage legislators to reject all of these initiative/referendum measures and to instead sit down with those who have worked on measures – from all over the political spectrum – and discuss some legitimate areas to improve.

We do not think there are more problems with citizen initiatives than there are with legislative measures or that people make bigger mistakes in drafting law than legislators do. While you might argue that it is easier to fix legislative mistakes, this is not always the case.  Many issues, especially those where the courts have determined there is a problem, have languished while the Legislature fails to act.  This can result in higher and higher costs to the Arizona taxpayers.