Arizona voters will not get a chance this year to strengthen public financing of elections and curb the influence of private dollars.
A 1998 initiative allows candidates for statewide and legislative office to get public dollars for campaigns if they do not take private funds. Since that time, however, legislative changes like allowing privately-financed candidates to take more money from donors has made running a campaign with public dollars less attractive.
A new initiative would have provided more dollars for publicly-financed contenders and forced greater disclosure of anonymous donations. Spokeswoman Julie Erfle said the initiative drive came up short after business interests hired the petition company her group was planning to use and prohibited that firm from circulating their petitions.
Garrick Taylor, spokesman for the state chamber of commerce, acknowledged his organization was involved in blocking the initiative. "The board of directors of the chamber has made it clear that they want to consider all possible means to ensuring that what is essentially taxpayer-funded elections on steroids does not become the law in Arizona," he said. "And so we're going to look at whatever options are available to us."
Erfle said business groups are entitled to oppose the initiative. But she said they should not be able to undermine a petition drive and thus deny voters a chance to make their own decision in November whether to change the law.
"Perhaps what they did was legally OK, was within the bounds of the law," she said. "But is it what voters would be happy with? Shouldn't voters realize these are the types of dirty tricks that are going on behind the scene?"
Taylor insisted that chamber officials believe the measure would have failed had it gotten the signatures and made the ballot. But he was unapologetic about killing what he said is "a bad idea" before it even got out of the gate.