Published Wednesday January 10, 2007 in East Valley Opinions of the Arizona Republic as “Voter Protection Act must be revisited.”
Many important policy changes that the legislature refused to address have been approved by citizen initiatives including a public funding option for candidates (1998), independent redistricting (2000), medicaid eligibility for those up to the poverty line (2000), statewide smoking restrictions (2006), and increasing the minimum wage (2006).
The framers of our state Constitution in 1912 even put the citizen initiative power before creating the state Legislature. Two years later a citizen’s initiative prohibited the Legislature from tampering with citizen-initiatives if an absolute majority of eligible voters, including those not voting, supported the initiative. In 1998, we tightened the grip again with Prop. 105, the Voter Protection Act, which forbids the legislature from tampering with any voter approved legislation unless it “furthers the purpose” of the initiative, and then only by a three-fourths vote in both the House and Senate.
However, just like legislation, ballot measures are imperfect. Frequently they are crafted by special interests, and ballot qualified using paid signature gatherers. We don’t get to amend them before accepting or nixing them as is. Read the rest of this entry »