Arizona voters will be deciding a number of issues at the ballot box this fall — but exactly how many, and which ones, are still up in the air. That’s because of legal challenges to some of them.
There have been — and will continue to be in the near future — hearings on those challenges.
Howard Fischer of Capitol Media Services spoke with The Show more about it.
Full conversation
MARK BRODIE: Good morning, Howie.
HOWIE FISCHER: Good morning. Remember, when you put three attorneys in a room, I'll get you 17 different opinions.
MARK BRODIE: That's right. Well, so we are waiting for opinions on most, if not all of these.
But let's start with a hearing that was held on Friday, waiting for a ruling. This has to do with the single-subject rule. Basically, can an initiative is supposed to stick to one subject? Challengers to the proposal, which is known as Proposition 145 — we're going to have to get used to these numbers now — this is the protecting vouchers for families of folks in the military, but also includes what a lot of folks call the poison pill that would basically do away with another voucher initiative. We're still waiting for a ruling on this.
What were the arguments here?
HOWIE FISCHER: Well, it comes down to the question of there are clearly a lot of Republican lawmakers who do not want Proposition 212, which is the Arizona Education Initiative, on the ballot. There were efforts to negotiate to say, "You drop this and we'll drop that," and see what happens. That didn't occur.
So what they did at the last minute is put together, as you say, Prop. 145. And it's very simple. It says if, in fact, there's any measure that's passed that goes ahead and takes away voucher money that is banked by students from military families — which is allowed currently now, you can save it for college — then any other measure that gets rid of that would be void.
Now, again, the issue isn't that it would overrule the part of any other measure about banking. It would overrule the entire other measure. It would overrule the part about the $150,000 limit on salaries on what parents could make. It would overrule the limits on you can't be purchasing your birth control devices with voucher funds, things like that.
And so the argument is you're being asked to take this as a "take it or leave it," that you're going to have to go ahead, if you want to protect military families, you're going to go have to head and vote for all of this, versus be able to vote on these as separate issues.
MARK BRODIE: OK. So, Howie, sticking with the vouchers issue and Prop. 212, the Goldwater Institute and others are trying to knock enough signatures out of contention so that the measure would not appear before voters this fall.
Where are we on that challenge?
HOWIE FISCHER: Well, we're kind of waiting to see what happens. The Goldwater Institute, as you point out, filed a measure saying they got more than ... they submitted, they say, more than 450,000 signatures. Thing is, you need about 259,000 and change to be valid in order to get on the ballot.
The argument is that many of the circulators did not comply with state law. Now, some of it is very simple. You have to have, if you're a paid circulator, you have to register with the Secretary of State's Office. They say some of them didn't. They also claim that some of them have been found guilty of certain crimes, which make them ineligible to circulate.
Now, the reason you go after circulators versus individual signatures is if some circulator has turned in 100,000, 150,000 signatures, you disqualify the circulator, you disqualify all the signatures. Now, we're still set to see how many of these can be done. These tend to be very fact-intensive hearings where they'll sometimes subpoena the circulator. If the circulator doesn't show up, sometimes they'll just simply disqualify the signatures. So it's part of the little gamesmanship that's played on these things.
MARK BRODIE: Is there a hearing date set for that yet?
HOWIE FISCHER: There is not a hearing date set for that at this point. They're still filing amended complaints. I think that's going to end up being heard in August, given everything else that's going on now.
But meanwhile, you've got various other issues, as you point out, same thing with the vouchers. There is a separate lawsuit pending over the fact that the attorney general is supposed to put a small statement of fact on the ballot in terms of, here's the ballot number, here's what it does, here's what a yes vote means, here's what a no vote means.
Kris Mayes wants to be able to tell voters on the ballot that if you vote for Prop. 145, which is the protection of military families, you entirely nullify Prop. 212 and the voucher law.
House Speaker Ben Toma, Senate President Warren Petersen say, "No, no, because of the fact that 212 doesn't exist, you can't tell people what it might do." That also is set for a hearing.
MARK BRODIE: Okay. So I think — I think — that takes care of the voucher issues.
But clearly there are other lawsuits about other initiatives, including one that the teachers' union and other unions are concerned about, Prop. 143. This is the measure that is basically going after teachers' unions. They're concerned about wording that suggests that other public service unions, not just teachers, could be affected as well?
HOWIE FISCHER: Well, this is one of those things that sometimes you need to be very careful on how you word something. The intent clearly of Prop. 143 is to tell schools you cannot use any public funds for anything that helps with a teachers' union. Now that could be dues check-off, that could be allowing some materials to be distributed through the school system.
But one section of that talks about the ability of public sector unions to negotiate for contracts. Argument here is the Arizona Constitution generally says you can only put a single subject and semi-related things on the same ballot. If you're asking to go ahead and get rid of not just the teachers' union ability but the other unions — A, have you violated the single-subject rule? And B, this goes to a whole another part of the law, which everybody's going to get one of those huge pamphlets in the mail from the Secretary of State's Office, and the argument is that the Legislative Council, which is controlled by Republican lawmakers, said this only deals with teachers' unions.
So again, yet another lawsuit to say, "No, you're misleading voters."
MARK BRODIE: OK, so Howie, about a minute or so left. Lest we think that these lawsuits are just about current initiatives, there was a hearing and a ruling last week in a ballot measure from a couple of years ago dealing with immigration where the judge basically said, I can't or I won't stop it quite yet?
HOWIE FISCHER: Exactly. This is Prop. 314. It's modeled after what they call Texas's SB 4. And it says that state and local police, if they see someone crossing into the country at other than the port of entry, or they have video or other evidence, they can arrest them on state charges, can bring them before a state judge, and the state judge can either try them or say, "If you don't want to be tried, I will order you deported."
Question is, is that in fact the role of the federal government only, or can the state have some question there? This group called the Florence Project that provides legal help to migrants, they sued. They said it's going to affect the ability that they have to defend folks.
Judge said, look, I'm not going to get into this because this law theoretically took effect only on July 14th — because it was delayed for several legal reasons. You don't have anybody who is damaged here. So how can you go ahead and ask me to delay a law when you haven't been damaged, there's no evidence that the Florence Project has been damaged, and you don't actually have a victim who is in fact trying to be arrested or deported?
So he has bounced it, at least as far as a temporary restraining order. However, the case is far from over.
MARK BRODIE: All right, lots to keep our eyes on as always. Howie Fischer of Capital Media Services. Thanks, Howie.
HOWIE FISCHER: Have a great morning.
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