The Daily Agenda: Politicians hate this one weird trick
The Daily Agenda: Politicians hate this one weird trick
Initiatives initiate change ... Fake electors fake elections ... And repeat after me.
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Last night, the Arizona Supreme Court cleared three ballot measures from legal challenges on a technical issue, setting them up to qualify for the ballot, pending some moves at the lower court level and in verifying voter signatures.
Two of the three measures will definitely make the ballot. The third, the Arizonans for Free and Fair Elections initiative is going to be remarkably close. (That count doesn’t include the measures referred for a public vote by the Legislature — there are several of those this year, too.) Here’s what the three initiatives would do:
Free and Fair Elections: The measure from left-leaning groups would make massive changes to the voting and elections process. It would prevent election overturning, curb lobbyist gifts and campaign donations, expand access to voting, restore the Permanent Early Voting List, prohibit private audits like the Cyber Ninjas circus, install same-day voter registration and more. To fund itself, it would increase the minimum corporate income tax to $150, from $50. The measure’s future is uncertain, as claims over its signatures continue in lower court. Proponents say they’ll squeak in; opponents say they’ll be shy of the number needed.
Voters’ Right to Know: Former Attorney General Terry Goddard’s fourth attempt at requiring disclosure of dark money spending will make the ballot. It would require any group spending more than $50,000 on statewide campaigns or $25,000 on other campaigns to disclose the original source of any donations of $5,000 or more.
Predatory Debt Collection Protection: This measure from a group called Healthcare Rising AZ, supported by the SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West union, has received much less fanfare in the political world. It would limit the interest rates allowed on medical debt and protect a variety of assets from being fully taken during the debt collection process.
The court challenges could have easily gone the other way — and they often do for ballot measures.
The state has made it harder over the past decade for citizens to gather signatures to put an initiative on the ballot, a type of direct democracy that’s available in about half of states. Just getting an initiative on the ballot requires a ton of money, a well-organized ground game and a team of lawyers ready to fend off challenges from opponents. We’re even seeing better organized efforts to tell voters not to sign petitions these days — like with the recent voucher referendum.
It used to be that having a healthy cushion of 30% more signatures than the required minimum would be enough to stave off legal challenges. Now, when initiative backers gather nearly double the minimum, as the Free and Fair Elections initiative did, they’re still guaranteed to face lawsuits that seek to pick off signatures or attack the way they were gathered on technicalities. Ballot measures must strictly comply with state laws, meaning even minor issues can get a measure tossed.
In front of the Supreme Court this week, challengers, including some of the most powerful conservative groups in the state, contended that each signature gatherer needed to submit separate affidavits for each petition they got signatures for. Gov. Doug Ducey, Senate President Karen Fann and House Speaker Rusty Bowers filed an amicus brief, agreeing that the measures each required a separate affidavit.
The court actually agreed the law says that, but noted the portal for petition circulators to do so on the secretary of state’s website didn’t allow them to submit multiple affidavits. Effectively, they had no way to comply.
Ballot measures have brought Arizona big legal and political changes, like medical and recreational marijuana and a higher minimum wage, that voters support but Republican politicians do not.
Opponents of initiatives know that when asked directly, voters want more money for schools, better conditions for workers, political ethics rules and limited influence of money in politics. That’s why they’ve crafted laws making initiatives so difficult, and it’s why they work so hard to keep these issues off the ballot.
Fake electors were fake, not for electing: In a court filing attempting to block the subpoena of her phone records from Congress’ January 6 Committee, AZGOP Chair Kelli Ward claimed she and the other fake electors weren’t actually claiming they were Arizona’s real electors — as the document they signed and sent to the U.S. Senate explicitly claimed — but rather that they would be the real electors, if Congress decided to overturn the election. Ward is predictably outraged that the committee wants her phone records, claiming it would implicate anyone who ever talked to her in “the largest criminal investigation in U.S. history” and that the subpoena “poses a greater threat to our democracy than the Capitol Riot,” the Republic’s Richard Ruelas writes.
The (alleged) crimes of the father…: The Republic’s Tara Kavaler has more details about Abe Hamadeh’s dad’s order of deportation in 1996, noting that the hardline immigration policies Hamadeh is pushing could have affected his father, a Syrian immigrant. The reporting comes after Phoenix New Times on Tuesday wrote that Hamadeh’s dad was implicated, but never charged in the fire-bombing of a Chicago synagogue in 1996. His father, who was ultimately not deported after he argued that it would separate him from his American son Abe, has contributed $72,000 to his son’s campaign.
It’s every community for itself: After the hoped-for deal between states to cut their water use fell apart, Tucson is backing out of its plan to request less than its share of water from Lake Mead, the Daily Star’s Nicole Ludden reports.
Always film the police: Arizona Mirror editor Jim Small explains why his newsroom joined the lawsuit from media organizations and the ACLU against a new law criminalizing filming video within 8 feet of a cop, writing that Republicans only want to protect the in-groups and police the out-groups, so the Mirror had a responsibility to put its money where it’s values are.
Policing the polls: Bolts, a digital magazine covering local elections and obscure institutions, detailed Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb’s new partnership with the election conspiracy profiteers at True the Vote and his ensuing plans to police elections. The alliance is part of a disturbing trend among sheriffs, Jessica Pishko writes.
“Politicians with badges and guns, sheriffs have extensive powers to launch criminal investigations, seize evidence and even threaten violence or jail to force compliance, making them uniquely potent as compared to judges or prosecutors or legislators,” Pishko writes.
Finchem and Fontes couldn’t be more different: Democratic Secretary of State candidate and former Maricopa County Recorder Adrian Fontes doesn’t get as much press as Republican nominee Mark Finchem, the New Republic writes in a glowing profile of Fontes. But basically, the two are the exact opposite: Where Finchem is already pledging to never admit defeat, Fontes accepted his defeat in the 2020 election, when he ran for re-election as recorder in Maricopa County.
You’re making the First Amendment look bad: A YouTuber and self-described “First Amendment auditor” who harassed an employee of the Arizona Attorney General’s Office was convicted of cyberstalking and will serve five years probation after spending nearly two years in jail before his trial, 12News reports. Among other very obnoxious acts, Chauncey Hollingberry asked his followers to send weed to the victim’s office and suggested he had nude photos of her. He promised to “fuck up” her life.
Only slightly less anti-China: Despite Republican U.S. Senate candidate Blake Masters’ claims that he’s never raised money for Chinese companies because he’s anti-China, Masters “participated in multiple funding rounds for a Chinese biomedical startup—including alongside Chinese Communist Party investors” while at Thiel Capital, the investment firm of his primary benefactor and former employer, Peter Thiel, the Daily Beast reports.
A case to watch: A woman charged with ballot collection in San Luis could get a harsher sentence, including jail time, because the political climate stemming from “2000 Mules” and Attorney General Mark Brnovich’s posturing on election integrity while running for higher office, her lawyer says, according to Capitol Media Services’ Howie Fischer. Guillermina Fuentes pleaded guilty to having four ballots in her possession for the August 2020 primary. San Luis doesn’t have home mail delivery, and its residents instead rely on the post office for mail.
We’d like to see the client list: Former lawmaker Tony Navarrete, who resigned after he was charged last year for multiple sex crimes with children, started his own consulting firm earlier this year while awaiting trial, the Yellow Sheet Report notes.
Congressional District 4 is anchored in Tempe and West Mesa, with pieces of Phoenix, Chandler and Ahwatukee sprinkled in.
It’s a Dem-leaning district where Democratic U.S. Rep. Greg Stanton is attempting to win his third term. But this district includes more Republicans than Stanton’s old district covering much of the same area, and national Republican groups are aiming to unseat him. Still, CD4 favors Democrats by a margin of 7 percentage points. Voters in the area backed both Republican Gov. Doug Ducey in 2018 and Democratic President Joe Biden in 2020.
Stanton will take on MAGA candidate Kelly Cooper, who won his primary over several Republican opponents, including Tanya Contreras Wheeless, a former staffer for Martha McSally and Phoenix Suns employee.
Stanton was Mayor of Phoenix for six years and served on the Phoenix City Council for nine years before that. Cooper is backed by GOP gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake. He’s a retired Marine and restaurant owner and the founder and chairman of the Maricopa County Republican Veterans Committee.
The Republican Accountability Project spliced together the many, many times GOP gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake parroted former President Donald Trump in a video that shows Lake is perhaps a bit too inspired by Trump. She’s probably got that future vice president spot on lock, though.
