PHOENIX — A campaign group has suspended its effort to use paid circulators to gather signatures against new limits on the ability of citizens to enact laws via the ballot box.
Campaign manager Joe Yuhas said Thursday that all the financial resources of Voters of Arizona, a coalition of individuals and groups involved with ballot initiatives, are being funneled into convincing a judge that one of the new rules set by the Legislature violates the state constitution. That leaves no cash for anything else, he said.
The campaign to refer two of the new rules to voters has not ended, Yuhas said. He said volunteers continue to try to get the 75,321 valid signatures needed on each of two separate petitions.
But Yuhas, who has worked on multiple petition campaigns, conceded that the chances of putting both measures before voters are sharply diminished without paid circulators.
“We know from the outset that a referendum drive is very challenging,” he said, with backers having just 90 days from the end of the legislative session to gather the signatures, a deadline that is Aug. 8 this year.
“So we knew it was an uphill challenge to begin with,” he said.
The suspension is likely to mean that, effective Aug. 9, it will no longer be legal for organizers of any future petition drives to pay circulators based on the number of signatures they collect.
Such payment isn’t allowed under one of the new laws passed by the Legislature and set to take effect Aug. 9, HB 2404. Supporters of that change said paying per signature invites fraud as circulators seek to boost their earnings.
Foes said circulators are only paid based on the number of valid signatures they get. They argue that the change is intended to make it more difficult and more expensive for voters to propose and enact their own laws — laws disliked by the Republican-controlled Legislature.
Less clear is the fate of the other change, HB 2244, which would require judges to invalidate initiative petitions — those that propose new laws — if there is not “strict compliance” with all election requirements. That measure would overturn Arizona Supreme Court rulings that voters should get a chance to make a final decision on proposals if petition drives are in “substantial compliance” with the law.
Foes have been seeking to refer HB 2244, too, to the ballot. But they are asking Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Sherry Stephens to rule that lawmakers overstepped their bounds. It is that legal effort that Yuhas said is swallowing up the funds that otherwise would have gone to paid circulators for both measures.
On Friday, attorney David Cantelme, representing legislative leaders, argued to Stephens there’s no legal basis for the court challenge. Cantelme said the challenge to the law is premature until there’s an actual case of alleged harm to the challengers’ abilities to put future measures before voters.
“It’s not until the court makes it’s decision and either orders a measure off the ballot or back on the ballot can there be any actual result,” Cantelme said. “Until then, it’s fanciful.”
But attorney Andrew Gaona, for the other side, told Stephens she can and should decide now whether the stricter standard for initiatives is unconstitutional.
Individuals who are weighing putting measures on the ballot in 2018 testified that the new standard will mean not only higher costs to gather the signatures but is also depressing fundraising efforts as donors know it means less likelihood of success. Gaona said that means HB 2244, if it takes effect, will effectively kill future initiative drives before they get started.
“The U.S. Supreme Court has held that the circulation of petitions is ‘core political speech,’ ‘’ he told the judge. “The chilling of speech is, in and of itself, an injury.”
Stephens said she will rule by Aug. 4.
