PHOENIX (AP) - The Republican-controlled Arizona House on Wednesday approved a measure that will require backers of citizen initiatives to collect qualifying signatures in all 30 legislative districts if voters approve the change in November.
Democrats opposed the measure that passed on a 31-29 party-line vote. The Senate still needs to act on the proposal before it could go to the ballot.
Republicans argued that requiring the initiatives proponents to collect signatures from each legislative district allows rural Arizona voters to have a voice in what reaches the ballot. Democrats say it would vastly change the way initiatives have reached the ballot since statehood by increasing costs of gathering signatures and allowing any one district to prevent a statewide measure from going to a vote.
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“The people of rural Arizona are sick and tired of having the great state of Maricopa dictate how they’re going to live their lives,” said Republican Rep. Mark Finchem, the proposal’s sponsor.
He argued that most initiatives qualify for the ballot mainly with signatures from large counties surrounding Phoenix and Tucson, while small rural communities are left out of the process.
But Democratic Rep. Diego Rodriguez said that will cut both ways because an idea that citizens in rural Arizona support will be more difficult for them to get on the ballot. And he noted that every voter gets to weigh in at the ballot box.
“The unfortunate side of this bill is that it is going to result in voter initiatives being much more difficult for folks in Maricopa County to run them, but also for the rural counties as well,” Rodriguez said.
Finchem’s proposal is one of a series of measures advancing in the Legislature that critics say would limit the right of Arizonans to write their own laws through the ballot box. Others include requiring initiatives to be limited to one subject, allowing the Legislature to change voter-approved laws and requiring initiatives to be sent back to the ballot every 10 years for re-approval. All would require voter approval.
The GOP-controlled Legislature and Republican Gov. Doug Ducey have passed laws in recent years making it more difficult to get measures on the ballot. Those moves came in response to voter-approved measures they opposed, such as a 2016 initiative that boosted the state minimum wage.
Getting an initiative on the ballot can be costly, because paid circulators or volunteers must collect about 238,000 valid signatures for it to qualify. The numbers increase greatly on constitutional amendments. Democrats said that can sometimes cost up to $3 million, and warned that higher costs from the measure approved Wednesday could increase that significantly,
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