Do Arizona lawmakers want to stop residents from passing laws?

Arizona's initiative process brought the state the Voter Protection Act, designed to stop lawmakers from gutting citizen-approved laws.

Now, lawmakers want voters to roll that back, and curb the initiative process itself.

On Thursday, they took the first steps toward what Republicans call reforms and Democrats label citizen suppression as three bills passed in committee votes. Next week, two more bills that would impose additional limits on the ability of citizens to put an issue on the ballot are up for debate.

"I think the direct citizen initiative scares them to death," political consultant Nathan Sproul said of lawmakers. His firm, Lincoln Strategies, runs ballot-measure campaigns.

Roberts: Legislators' assault on ballot propositions continues

Lawmakers such as Rep. Michelle Ugenti-Rita say there's reason to be afraid. The Scottsdale Republican is the sponsor of a trio of bills that target the Voter Protection Act. That act, approved by voters in 1998, bars the Legislature from doing anything to alter ballot measures, unless the Legislature can muster a three-fourths vote to change it. And even then, the changes must advance the purpose of the bill.

In the past decade, the act has protected laws such as the legalization of medical marijuana, a ban on cockfighting and, most recently, an increase in the minimum wage.

Ugenti-Rita says the act is inflexible, denying lawmakers the chance to change aspects of citizen-approved laws that prove problematic.

"It handcuffs future legislators," she said. "When you handcuff the Legislature, you handcuff the public."

Minimum wage provides spark

Supporters of the act say they want those handcuffs to remain.

Lawmakers, they say, would surely undo many of these laws if they had the chance. They said the recent success of an initiative that raised the minimum wage has fueled a flurry of bills designed to make proposing such initiatives more difficult and, if approved, easier to alter or even erase.

Tomas Robles, who chaired the minimum-wage campaign, said lawmakers would eliminate the new minimum wage if the Voter Protection Act is repealed. The law raised the minimum wage to $10 an hour in January; the minimum wage will top out at $12 an hour in 2020. Lawmakers, he said, are doing the bidding of political elites.

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"They're upset that they can't defeat the will of the voters," Robles said at a Capitol news conference Thursday.

All three of Ugenti-Rita's bills passed the House Government Committee on Thursday on 5-3 party-line votes, with Republicans in support and Democrats opposed. But the bigger fight is expected next week. That's when a bill that would add numerous requirements to the initiative process is expected to get its first hearing.

Rep. Vince Leach, R-Tucson, said House Bill 2404 is needed to restore integrity to the ballot process. He said he didn't have time to explain the bill's merits Thursday, nor to detail why he believes Arizonans have "lost confidence" in the initiative process, as he stated in a news release.

“Far from being a citizen-driven form of direct democracy, special interests have hijacked our initiative process and made it rife with fraud, forgery, and fabrications,” he said in the release. He offered no examples.

Critics were quick to pounce, with some saying HB 2404 would effectively end citizen initiatives. Others said it would make the process much more difficult and expensive. And all have  said it smacks of an attempt to undermine the initiative and referendum process that was enshrined in the Arizona Constitution at statehood.

A fix or a hurdle?

Among its many provisions, the bill would prevent campaign committees from paying petition gatherers by the signature, would require committees to post a bond to guard against any errors their circulators might commit, and institute a "strict compliance" requirement instead of the substantial compliance now in place. Substantial compliance allows some flexibility in how a court interprets a law.

Andrew Chavez, who runs a petition-circulation company that has worked in numerous states, said the bill would not end initiatives, but would drive up their cost. He said fraud and forgery can happen whether a worker is being paid by the signature or a flat hourly rate.

As a businessman, Chavez said he would adjust. It's the Arizona citizen who stands to lose out, he said.

"This is an attack on the direct-democracy process," he said.

Montini: Lawmakers want ballot initiatives dead, dead, dead

Sproul, the consultant, agreed. And, he said, the effort to make it harder for citizens to have a voice in public policy couldn't have come at a worse time, given the citizen disgust with political business-as-usual expressed in the presidential election.

"Anyone who's promoting this was tone deaf to what was happening in 2016," he said.

Rep. Ken Clark, D-Phoenix, predicted lawmakers who support this measure, as well as the bills approved Thursday, will face a reckoning the next time they're on the ballot. After all, the restrictions are all aimed at ballot measures, he said. No one is proposing tighter rules for signature gathering for candidates, nor a curb on out-of-state financing for those running for office.

A summary of the bills:

• House Bill 2320, sponsored by Ugenti-Rita: It would require election materials for any ballot measure to include a statement that, if passed, the measure could not be changed unless approved by a super majority of the Legislature and in a manner that advances the measure's intent. Critics say it amounts to a government-mandated warning intended to sway the vote.
• House Concurrent Resolution 2002, another Ugenti-Rita proposal: It asks voters to repeal Proposition 105. If approved, it would remove the Voter Protection Act from the Arizona Constitution and remove protections for ballot measures approved since 2000.
• House Concurrent Resolution 2007, also from Ugenti-Rita: It asks voters to exempt citizen referenda from voter protection. Citizens use the referendum process to stall laws the Legislature has passed by sending the law to the ballot for citizens to decide.
• HB 2255, from Rep. Bob Thorpe, R-Flagstaff: It would prohibit anyone from outside Arizona from contributing to a ballot-measure campaign. It  would not extend to candidate campaigns; many elected officials, from Gov. Doug Ducey on down, receive money from out-of-state interests. It passed on the same 5-3 party-line vote.
• Senate Concurrent Resolution 1013, from Sen. John Kavanagh, R-Fountain Hills: It likely will be heard Wednesday in the Senate Government Committee. It would change the requirements for gathering signatures for ballot measures. Instead of basing the signature requirement on a statewide standard, it would set a standard based on voting patterns in each of the 30 legislative districts. That could make it harder to get the needed signatures in low-turnout districts.
• House Concurrent Resolution 2004, from Leach: An annual attempt to ask voters to gut the funding for the state's public-campaign-finance system. As in recent years, proponents suggest the money for the Clean Elections Commission instead go to schools. The measure was scheduled for a hearing Wednesday but was delayed.

Reach the reporter at maryjo.pitzl@arizonarepublic.com and follow her on Twitter @maryjpitzl.