PHOENIX — A House panel approved legislation Wednesday that could give foes of voter-proposed initiatives a new legal tool to keep them from getting to the ballot.
Senate Bill 1094 would spell out that petition circulators would be required to either:
Read, out loud, the 300-word description that accompanies all initiatives, when asking a voter to sign it.
Or allow voters the time to read it to themselves before signing. But there is nothing in the proposal to say how long that should be.
Sen. J.D. Mesnard, R-Chandler, who wrote the measure, said it’s designed to ensure that people are informed about what they are being asked to sign.
“This is to make sure that what is communicated to the folks who are asking to sign petitions is accurate,” he told the Government and Elections Committee. And by “accurate,” Mesnard said that means the official, legally required summary “as opposed to whatever version the circulator can otherwise state to convince somebody, and then they’d be totally wrong or lying or distorting or whatever.”
That’s important, he said, because whatever is approved at the ballot cannot be altered by the Legislature.
“Obviously, it is high stakes,” Mesnard said.
Rep. Sarah Liguori, D-Phoenix, said she sees this as just another bid by the Republican-controlled Legislature to erect new hurdles in the paths of citizens proposing their own laws. Among those are new registration requirements for paid circulators, restrictions on how they are paid, and disqualifying any signatures a circulator collected if that person does not respond to a subpoena by someone challenging the measure.
This year alone GOP lawmakers have proposed two other measures, one to require initiative circulators to get signatures in each of the state’s 30 legislative districts; and another to say an initiative cannot become law unless 60% of voters approving it.
Rep. Diego Sierra, D-Avondale, chided Republicans for trying to make the process more difficult. He pointed out that the Arizona Constitution specifically gives citizens the right to craft their own laws “independently of the Legislature.”
“This is our citizens’ ability to be the counteracting force to the bad laws that we are passing here,” Sierra said.
“This should be the golden age of citizen activism,” he said. “But here we are, wallowing in pettiness and spite.”
Rep. Jake Hoffman, R-Queen Creek, said initiative circulators don’t always tell the truth.
He said he was approached last week by someone asking him to sign a proposal that would outlaw “dark money” in campaigns and require that the true source of all funds be disclosed. Hoffman said when he asked the circulator who was behind the petition drive, the person responded “the Citizens Clean Elections Commission.”
That is not true. The actual name of the group is Voters’ Right to Know. And the commission is, in fact, a government agency that cannot get involved in politics.
Rep. John Kavanagh, R-Fountain Hills, said he has personally heard petition circulators “outright lying about what the petition is about.”
Sen. Kelli Butler, D-Paradise Valley, said the legislation Mesnard proposes essentially presumes that people who are approached to sign petitions, or those who seek out petition circulators, are unaware of the issue. She said it forces those who are aware to go through this process of having someone take the time to read the summary to them or have to read it themselves.
Judith Simons, who told lawmakers she has circulated petitions, said people sometimes do say they are ready to sign immediately. For some, she said, it’s a belief that, regardless of the issue, they just like the idea of putting issues on the ballot for voters to get the last word.
“And that’s the point: Signing a petition is just to get the proposition on the ballot,” Simons said. Once it qualifies, she noted, there are several months before the election “when voters get a chance to learn more about it and decide how they want to vote.”
Butler worried the measure could open the door to legal challenges. She envisioned a situation where “people can tell on someone,” say they saw someone sign a petition who did not take the time to read it, and have that used by initiative foes to try to have those signatures disqualified.
Hoffman had a different take. “We want an informed citizenry,” he said. “We want people who are signing petitions to be informed about what they’re signing.”
He also said there is an “incentive” for paid circulators to get people to sign.
That incentive, however, is not what it once was.
Lawmakers several years ago voted to ban the practice of paying circulators based on the number of signatures they gather. Circulators can still be paid on an hourly basis.
The 7-6 party-line vote by the Republican-controlled committee sends the measure to the full House. It already cleared the Senate with only Republicans in support.
