Don't declare initiatives dead yet; these 3 may qualify for the Nov. 3 ballot

A funny thing happened in this presumed disastrous year for citizens-driven ballot initiatives:

Direct democracy in Arizona didn't wither and die. It's actually showing astonishing vigor.

As many as three initiatives may qualify for the November ballot should signature-gathering continue at the current pace leading up to the July 2 deadline for submission.

Not surprising is the marijuana legalization measure known as Smart and Safe Arizona Act. Its early start last fall and huge largesse from the medical pot industry gave it a big leg up on other initiatives.

Rather stunning are the tax-the-rich Invest in Education Act and the lesser known Second Chances, Rehabilitation and Public Safety Act that seeks to reform criminal justice, including permitting early release of prisoners convicted of non-dangerous offenses. Both measures were filed just weeks before the COVID-19 pandemic shut down life as we knew it.

We all thought pandemic would doom initiatives

Backers of a fourth initiative, Outlaw Dirty Money, which requires disclosure of the source of larger amounts in campaign spending, halted their efforts amid concern for public health and now are banking on relief from the courts. And the irony is, their chance for success would suffer if the other measures succeed.

Just a month ago, the conventional wisdom was that only the recreational marijuana measure would make it on the Nov. 3 ballot.

The stay-at-home order, the ban on congregant gatherings and closures of nonessential businesses had shut off petition circulators' access to voters. The restrictions came during a peak period for Arizonans (and tourist) venturing out and foot traffic was most favorable for collecting signatures.

Alarmed organizers took to the state Legislature and the courts to press for access to Arizona's electronic qualification system used by political candidates to collect online signatures for their nominating petitions. Those bids failed.

Many — I was among them — thought it sounded the death knell for initiatives this year.

Invest in Ed put together a winning strategy

So what happened? A bit of creativity, persistence and a lot of organizing. Invest in Ed benefited from having a structure in place from the Red for Ed movement two years ago and a failed attempt to place a similar proposal on the 2018 ballot (the state Supreme Court booted it off over faulty language describing the impact of the tax).

Three organizations, including the powerful teachers union Arizona Education Association and Valley Interfaith Project, worked to sustain the effort during the lockdown, delivering some 13,000 petitions to individuals to collect small batches of signatures from family and close friends.

They held pop-up signature drives through social media, setting up shop at parking lots, parks, driveways and homes for brief periods.

Much of the efforts are in coordination with the big paid-circulator operation Petitions Partners, whose workers did the tough slog of door-to-door solicitation. Even with masks and gloves, single-use pens and sanitized plastic clipboards, circulators averaged about a signature per hour.

Campaign plugged away until state reopened

People living amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Petitions Partners' Andrew Chavez noted, remain skittish about answering doors and picking up the clipboard to sign petitions.

But the protocol also has meant that once the stay-at-home order was lifted mid-May and the state reopened, the campaign was able to hit the ground running at city libraries, businesses and traditional public spaces with heavy foot traffic.

Signature-gathering has been sufficiently robust the past several weeks that organizers express confidence the campaign will hit its goal of about 300,000 signatures. It needs 237,645 to qualify.

That is also good news for the Second Chance justice reform measure, which is piggybacking on Invest In Ed petitions circulated by Petitions Partners. It stands a reasonable chance to garner enough signatures to qualify, according to Chavez.

Did Outlaw Dirty Money err by halting efforts?

To be sure, the measures are outliers. Numerous others abandoned the fight. Citizen-led initiatives in 10 other states suspended their campaigns and are redirecting their efforts for 2022.

Nonetheless, the resilience of Invest of Ed and Second Chance is a happy circumstance for the citizens initiative movement, save perhaps the Outlaw Dirty Money campaign. It decided not to restart efforts even though it had collected 275,000 signatures when the pandemic halted its work in March. (The two aforementioned measures didn't begin collecting signatures until mid-February.)

Instead, the campaign is exploring asking the courts to "add time back on the clock" — the four months lost, from March to the July petition submission deadline — to collect additional signatures and apply them toward qualifying the measure for the 2022 election. Proposed constitutional amendments require 356,467 signatures.

A case can be made if none of the other initiatives this year could muster sufficient signatures to qualify. It may not be so easily made when three of them do.

For snakebitten Outlaw Dirty Money supporters — they were knocked off the ballot by opposing special interest groups in 2018 — the 2020 redux may prove just as deflating an exercise.

Reach Abe Kwok at akwok@azcentral.com. On Twitter: @abekwok. 

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