Arizona

2010

Signature Deadline in 2010: July 1, 2010
Number of Signatures Needed to Qualify: 153, 365 (statutory initiative); 230,047 (constitutional amendment)
Gubernatorial Election in 2010: Brewer (R)
US Senate Election in 2010: McCain (R)

 

The Arizona state legislature has already referred three measures to the 2010 ballot.

Anti equal opportunity activist Ward Connerly lobbied the legislature to do for him in 2010 what he couldn’t do for himself in 2008--put an initiative on the ballot to end equal opportunity programs in Arizona.

In 2008, Ward Connerly, a multi-millionaire lobbyist from California lost in four of the five states in which he attempted to re-write state constitutions and pass his divisive initiatives to ban equal opportunity programs. His campaign was plagued by charges of fraud and deception in every state and as a result, he failed to qualify for the ballot in Arizona, Missouri, and Oklahoma. Connerly's initiative was defeated in Colorado and passed in one state--Nebraska. In Arizona, Connerly faced charges of fraud and deception by local groups of citizens organized to oppose his ban on equal opportunity programs.

Now Connerly is having the state legislature do for him in 2010 what he couldn’t do for himself in 2008--put an initiative on the ballot to end equal opportunity programs in Arizona.

While Connerly says “We can look at people's needs, their income, their social condition,” his initiative would do no such thing; it would not reform equal opportunity programs to account for economic factors. Rather, Connerly’s initiative would outlaw them completely.

Some of the equal opportunity programs in Arizona that Connerly’s initiative would outlaw include:

• Governor’s Commission to Prevent Violence against Women would be eliminated because this program focuses on protecting women.
• City of Phoenix Teen Parents Program that helps teen mothers learn skills so they can get off welfare and provide for their children.
• Arizona State University Women in Science and Engineering (WISE) program that supports university women as they pursue careers in science and engineering.

In addition, the initiative would also ban an Arizona State University's Hispanic Mother-Daughter Program, in which nearly every East Valley Arizona school district participates. The program recruits seventh-grade Hispanic girls who don't have college graduates in their families. The girls and their mothers participate once a month in a class at ASU where they learn study skills, test preparation and how to write personal statements and apply for financial aid. In the 2006-07 school year, nearly 200 girls from East Valley schools participated.

Another harmful and misleading measure that will be sent to voters is the so-called Save Our Secret Ballot measure (SOS).In an attempt to strengthen corporate influence and enable corporate intimidation, the so-called Save Our Secret Ballot campaign (SOS Ballot) is a deceptive, misleading and frivolous multi-state ballot initiative and referenda campaign based in Las Vegas.

State legislators have also referred to the ballot a measure to prevent citizens across the country from choosing to be a part of a reform plan that would guarantee choice of doctors and health plans, provide more security and stability to those who have health insurance, and affordable coverage for those who don’t.

Working under the illusion that a national, single payer, federal plan is being proposed and considered by Congress, which it is not, Republican state legislators have joined the “Tenther” movement to prevent citizens from choosing to be a part of health insurance reforms.

The goal of the effort is to obstruct health insurance reform with frivolous lawsuits that constitutional scholars believe have little to no chance of winning.

“States can no more nullify a federal law like this than they could nullify the civil rights laws by adopting constitutional amendments,” said Timothy Stoltzfus Jost, a health law expert at Washington & Lee University School of Law.

Mark A. Hall, a law professor at Wake Forest University who has studied the constitutionality of mandates that people buy health insurance, said, “There is no way this challenge will succeed in court,” adding that the state measures seemed more “sort of an act of defiance, a form of civil disobedience if you will.”

The so-called Arizona Health Care Freedom Act, is virtually identical to one narrowly rejected by voters in 2008.  Despite spending over $500,000, supporters of the initiative lost at the ballot box 50.2%-49.8%.

Additionally, seven initiatives have been approved to circulate for the 2010 ballot, including efforts to:

• Cap property taxes (a constitutional initiative modeled after California’s Proposition 13);
• Legalize same-sex civil unions (constitutional);
• Legalize medical marijuana (statutory);
• Decriminalize marijuana (statutory); and
• Ban photo-enforcement of traffic laws (constitutional and statutory versions).

Constitutional amendments must be approved by a majority of voters in two subsequent general elections to take effect.

2008

For more 2008 election information, click here.

 

For additional information please check with the Arizona Secretary of State: http://www.azsos.gov/