Arizona's GOP legislators show us again that they are terrified of voters

The Republican-run Arizona Legislature returned to the Capitol on Monday to once again demonstrate how just how horribly afraid they are of … you.

Yep, our leaders are at it again, trying to make it more difficult for Arizona citizens to exercise our constitutional right to make laws at the ballot box.

On Monday, Republican legislators sent Senate Concurrent Resolution 1015 to the 2024 ballot, wherein they will ask us to allow a few thousand people in one small corner of the state to essentially veto any voter initiative they don’t like.

Surely, we aren’t that dumb.

Republicans spent years restricting your rights

Republicans and the business community have been fuming for years about our constitutional right to make laws at the ballot box. But they got seriously irate in 2016, when Arizona voters took it upon themselves to raise the minimum wage despite all the best efforts of the business community to block it.

Since then every year, our leaders have devised new and improved ways to weaken our constitutional right to make laws via citizen initiative.

They’ve made it more expensive to mount initiative campaigns by changing the way that petition circulators must be paid and easier to challenge signatures by creating new hoops through which both volunteer and paid circulators must jump.

They’ve passed laws restricting everything from the size of the type that must be used on petitions to the width of the margins.

Then they required that initiative campaigns adhere to “strict compliance” with the law as opposed to the previous “substantial compliance” standard used by judges since the 1930s.

Now, such minor offenses as being a quarter-inch off in the margins could result in an initiative petition signed by hundreds of thousands of Arizona voters being tossed into the trash.

Signature mandate only applies to initiatives

Now comes SCR 1015.

In order to put a voter initiative the ballot, the Arizona Constitution requires a petition campaign to get signatures equal to at least 10% of those who voted in the last gubernatorial election — 15% if it’s a constitutional change.

SCR 1015 would amend the constitution to mandate that the percentage requirement be met not just statewide but in each of the state’s 30 legislative districts.

This bad idea comes to you from Sen. J.D. Mesnard, R-Chandler, and his fellow Republicans who contend that initiatives should be required to demonstrate support from every county in the state in order to qualify for the ballot.

“We need to recognize that the counties outside Maricopa matter and this makes sure the other 14 counties matter,” Rep. David Livingston, R-Peoria, said during Monday’s final vote on the bill.

Also at the Capitol: Transportation plan in doubt, housing plan dies

One would think then — if the goal is really to ensure that there is broad geographical support before something can go before the voters — that there would be a companion bill requiring legislators to get their nominating signatures from every precinct within their district.

Yet strangely, there is no such bill.

A few could veto the majority's will

Instead, we have this bill that would confer veto authority on a few people in one corner of the state.

Based on 2022 election, it will take the signatures of 255,949 voters to put a citizen initiative on the 2024 ballot — or half again more if it’s a proposal to change the constitution.

It’ll take a majority of the state’s voters — a million or more, depending on turnout — to change state law.

Under SCR 1015, a few thousand people in, say, ruby red Mohave County or staunchly blue west Phoenix could prevent a proposal supported by hundreds of thousands of voters from ever reaching the ballot.

I’ll give you a guess which scenario Republicans envisioned when they passed SCR 1015 on a partyline vote, sending it directly to the ballot.

This isn’t about making sure that Maricopa County — where, by the way, 62% of Arizona's voters live — is held in check. And it sure isn’t about strengthening democracy.

It’s about limiting our right to go around our leaders and make laws on our own, a right given to us 111 years ago by the founders of our beloved state.

Surely, we aren’t that dumb.

Reach Roberts at laurie.roberts@arizonarepublic.com. Follow her on Twitter at @LaurieRoberts.

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Arizona Legislature proves (again) that it's terrified of voters