PHOENIX — Republicans who control the Arizona House and Senate are advancing a slew of measures asking the state’s voters to directly enact laws on subjects ranging from elections to …
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Election 2024
Arizona legislative leaders to determine what makes ballot from slew of proposals
Not everything passed will end up in November election
Wikimedia Commons
Arizona legislative leaders on the Republican side will determine which of a number of ballot proposals will actually make the ballot in November.
Posted
Proposed legislative ballot measures
he House has passed 10 measures that will ask voters to enact laws or change the state constitution since the Legislature began their 2024 session in January while the Senate has passed six. All were passed with only support from majority Republicans and all still require votes in the other chamber to make the 2024 ballot.
The Legislature referred four measures to the ballot last year that are already set to be voted upon in November. The following is list of approved ballot referrals from last year and those that have passed one chamber so far this year.
Passed the Legislature in 2023 and already on the November ballot.
HCR2039 -- Governor’s emergency powers: Constitutionally terminates any emergency powers granted to the Governor during a state of emergency 30 days after the proclamation unless extended by the Legislature, with some exceptions. Requires the governor to call a special legislative session on the emergency if 1/3 of lawmakers sign a petition.
HCR2033 -- Ranked Choice Voting: Prohibits any election law in Arizona that is contrary to the direct primary election law as outlined in the Arizona Constitution, a move that would outlaw ranked-choice voting.
SCR1006 -- Line of duty deaths: Requires Arizona to pay $250,000 to the surviving spouse or dependent of a first responder killed in the line of duty through 2033 and establishes a $20 penalty fee on every criminal conviction to pay for the new benefit.
SCR1015 -- Citizen initiatives: Changes the state constitution to require proponents of citizen initiatives to collect signatures from all 30 legislative districts. Currently the law requires signatures from 10% of voters to propose new laws and 15% for all constitutional amendments, with no geographical requirements.
These measures have passed either the House or Senate this year and still need a vote from the other chamber to appear on the ballot.
SENATE
SCR1007 — Government contracts: Bans local governments or the state from signing a contract worth more than $100,000 unless the contractor certifies it does not and will not discriminate against gunmakers or a firearm trade association like the National Rifle Association.
SCR 1010 — Crypto currency: Amends the state constitution to exempt virtual currency from property tax. No such tax is currently in place or proposed.
SCR 1020 — State budget: Amends the constitution to allow the current state budget to be continued for the coming budget year with inflation adjustments for schools and other items like health care if the Legislature fails to pass a new budget on time, unless there is a deficit. Passing a budget is the Legislature’s one constitutional duty.
SCR 1012 — Regulation costs: Requires the Legislature to approve or reject any regulation adopted by a state agency and approved by the governor’s rulemaking review agency that may lead to costs to businesses of more than $500,000 over five years.
SCR 1011 — Voter qualifications: Puts into the Arizona Constitution statutory qualification for who can vote. Also a different form of banning ranked choice voting by barring a person from voting for more candidates for an office.
SCR 1023 — Local elections: Amends the constitution to require cities, towns and school districts hold their elections on the same day in November of even-numbered years that federal and state general elections are held. Overrides local control.
HOUSE
HCR 2018 — Mileage taxes: Bans the state or any local government from imposing vehicle taxes or fees based on the number of miles driven or imposing any limit on the number of miles driven.
HCR 2060 — E-Verify: Requires the state and all local governments to check a person’s immigration status using the federal E-Verify system before awarding them any state for federal benefit such as food stamps or Medicaid. Requires government and private employers to use the system before hiring a new employee and mandates the attorney general investigate failures to follow the law.
HCR 2023 — Homeless: Defines homelessness as a type of public nuisance. Requires local governments to refund property taxes if a property owner can show they’ve had expenses or their property values decreased because the government did not enforce laws or had a practice or policy of not mitigating problems associated with the homeless population.
HCR 2032 — Vote centers: Bans counties from using election vote centers where any resident can cast a ballot and instead mandates that they revert to using only precinct-based voting locations that have 1,000 or fewer voters registered per location. Also bans counties from setting up any emergency voting locations.
HCR 2038 — Drug cartels: Declares that drug cartels are terrorist organizations and calls for state and local governments to do everything they can to eradicate them.
HCR 2040 — Climate change, racial preferences: Bans state and local governments from promoting or enforcing policies designed to limit human contributions to climate change. Includes ban on policies like encouraging riding a bike or walking rather than driving, reducing airline travel, reducing meat consumption or doing anything to reduce or track greenhouse gas emissions. Bars adoption of a climate action plan. Also includes a ban on using race or factors other than merit as a part of hiring preferences.
HCR 2049 — Citizen initiatives: Allows opponents of a proposed initiative to sue to block it from even getting on the ballot on the grounds that it violates the state or federal constitution
HCR 2052 — State agency rules: Allows the Legislature to reject any regulation adopted by a state agency and approved by the governor’s rulemaking review agency. (Different version has passed the Senate).
HCR 2056 — Hiring and affirmative action: Adds to the state’s existing ban on affirmative action by barring the government from requiring any job applicant to endorse any race-based employment requirement and prohibits the state from treating any applicant or employee differently based on race or ethnicity.
HCR 2058 — Legislative districts by citizen population: Amends the state constitution to require the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission to conduct its own census every 10 years and to determine how many people are U.S. citizens. The commission must then draw new legislative district lines using only the number of citizens, making districts of equal citizen population. Congressional district lines will continuing use existing constitutional rules that say districts must hold an equal number of people regardless of immigration status.
Still pending final votes in originating chamber:
HCR 2042 — Sex traffickers: Provides for automatic sentence of natural life in prison for an adult who is convicted of sex trafficking a minor child.
HCR 2050 — Energy sources: Prohibits a local government from restricting the sale or use of a device based on the energy source that powers it or is consumed. Aimed at efforts to ban the sale of gas stoves.
PHOENIX — Republicans who control the Arizona House and Senate are advancing a slew of measures asking the state’s voters to directly enact laws on subjects ranging from elections to immigration to making it easier to sue over citizen initiatives.
Democrats see the measures in large part as ways to get around Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs’ veto pen and advance culture war proposals such as laws aimed at transgender people or measures to stifle efforts to tackle climate change.
Historically, lawmakers have used their power to directly place laws on the ballot sparingly. But that changed for the 2022 election cycle and it looks likely to grow again a year after Hobbs set a state record on vetoes issued on Republican-backed legislation.
She also has made it clear she’ll keep hitting legislation she does not like with her veto stamp this year.
The 16 measures that have passed either the Senate or House so far this year stand out because referring a lot of proposed laws directly to the ballot risks voter rejection of all of them. Voters can become confused or frustrated when there are more than a handful of ballot measures up for a vote.
Promoting a ballot measure can also be expensive, and trying to do that multiple times in one election where many office-seekers are competing for financial backing is difficult.
In 2022 there were eight ballot referrals before voters, and it looks likely that this year there will be more than a dozen, since four were placed on the November ballot last year.
Four of the six Senate measures that have passed so far this year are constitutional amendments, while four of the 10 House measures propose changes to the state constitution.
House Speaker Ben Toma, R-Peoria, cautions that despite the number of proposals that have passed one of the chambers, most will ultimately not appear on the ballot.
Toma said he and Senate President Warren Petersen, R-Gilbert, plan to meet in the next couple of weeks determine which ballot referrals are top priorities for both chambers. He said Friday they had already traded lists of the ballot referrals passed by their respective chambers.
Letting those proposals move through their originating chamber to see if they have enough support to pass is the initial step in weeding out proposals without enough backing by majority Republicans, Toma said.
“That’s really where the important piece is,” Toma said, “because there was no reason to have the conversation before each chamber determine(s) what could pass.”
And those that make the cut will need more than just support from majority Republican lawmakers, Toma said.
“I can tell you that it will matter quite a bit for any of these initiatives that there is a organized effort to get them passed,” the House speaker explained, saying it needs to be “Not just a good idea, arguably by a legislator, but there actually are resources behind something like that” Toma said. “Because otherwise, if you send something to the ballot that doesn’t have any resources behind it … you’re inviting failure.”
Some already have faltered.
Three of the eight referrals that came up for a vote in the Senate failed in the past two weeks. One would have asked the people to amend the constitution to take attorney regulation away from the state bar and Supreme Court and give it to the Legislature. Another would have changed law to allow police officers to run for political office, while a third would ban teachers or other school employees from calling a student by a pronoun different from the one that aligns with their biological sex.
One House referral also failed. That measure, by Rep. Cory McGarr, R-Marana, would have separated the two seats in each House district into seat A and B.
Republicans argued most voters don’t understand they have two representatives. Democrats said the measure was designed to sideline a tactic called a”single-shot’’ where one Democrat or Republican runs in a district that tends to vote for the other party’s candidate, increasing the chances that they will get more votes than at least one of the opposing party candidates.
Measures that fail to pass their originating chamber soon are generally considered dead for the year, barring a maneuver to revive them. So by the end of next week, Toma and Petersen will be able to talk.
“Then we’ll have that conversation and decide what actually gets to the ballot,” Toma said. “And my expectation is that there are maybe a handful that get through and the vast majority will not.”
Sen. Priya Sundareshan, D-Tucson, said it is clear Republicans are trying to work around divided government rather than trying to enact laws that can win Hobbs’ signature.
“The large number of ballot referrals that are actually moving is a sign that they recognize that they have a Democratic governor now,” she said.
“But it’s also a sign that on some of these issues they’re not willing to negotiate and have a bipartisan solution,” Sundareshan said. “These are attempts to ram through a partisan kind of approach and take it straight to the ballot and hoping for a better outcome with voters.”
And Democrats have repeatedly pushed back on the efforts during debate, questioning why majority Republicans seem hell-bent on putting so many measures before voters.
“I don’t think it’s a great look to send to the ballot something that is only going to have votes from one political party,” Sen. Mitzi Epstein, a Tempe lawmaker who leads Senate Democrats, said during debate on one of the measures. “I am just calling for my fellow legislators to please let’s do the work together” rather than going around Democrats and the governor to put things on the ballot.
The proposals that have passed at least one chamber so far include a ban on any climate change policies by local governments that is being promoted as a ban on Marxism and one that changes the constitution to ban auto taxes based on the number of miles driven.
There are no such taxes in Arizona. But with electric vehicles poised to become a greater share of vehicles on the road, existing gas tax revenue that pays for roads is falling and a mileage tax could be one way to replace that revenue.
Sen. J.D. Mesnard, R-Chandler, said it would be wrong to think that all the measures lawmakers are considering for November’s ballot are being proposed just because of Hobbs.
“In 2022, there were 10 measures on the ballot total, eight of them from the Legislature. And that was pre-Hobbs,” Mesnard told Capitol Media Services on Friday.
Several were constitutional amendments that required voter approval and three changed voter-approved laws and thus also needed the OK from voters.
“So there was eight then, and this time around I would expect there to be more because there’s going to be constitutional changes which have to go to the voters,” Mesnard said.
But he did not discount the politics of all this.
“And then there’s always the potential of now that Hobbs is governor, if there’s some really good idea the Legislature thinks that people will like that the governor would veto, they would send it to the ballot,” Mesnard said.