[Archive] Only 2 Of 12 Initiatives Likely To Make Deadline

Original Link: 

http://www.azcapitoltimes.com/main.asp?SectionID=2&SubSectionID=2&ArticleID=1036


By Daniel Burnette
Arizona Capitol Times
July 2, 2004

At most, only two of the 12 proposed ballot measure petitions might actually be filed by the July 1 deadline.

Heading into that deadline, the measure drawing the most speculation is I-3-04, which would deny state services and voting rights to illegal immigrants.

The fate of the petition effort is being questioned because of the fallout between Chairwoman Kathy McKee and the recently removed treasurer, Rusty Childress.

The two went separate ways when Mr. Childress, believing that Ms. McKee’s intention of using only volunteer petitioners would fail, went to the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) to hire a
California firm to use paid circulators in gathering signatures.

Ms. McKee, for her part, has said Mr. Childress’s action to bring in FAIR amounted to an attempted “hostile takeover” of Protect Arizona Now (PAN), the group that launched the proposed initiative.

Earlier this month, a Maricopa County Superior Court ruled that Ms. McKee did have the authority to fire Mr. Childress as treasurer of Protect Arizona Now. The court also ordered Mr. Childress to turn over any petition signatures to Ms. McKee by June 23.

Dan Stein, executive director of Washington, D.C.-based FAIR, said on June 22 that all the petitions the group has collected will be turned over to Protect Arizona Now on June 29. He declined to say how many
signatures have been gathered. Any signatures gathered after June 29 will be submitted to PAN on July 1, Mr. Stein said. Ms. McKee said on June 23 that she nor her attorney had yet heard from FAIR.

“There’s going to be so many legal problems if they don’t turn them in,” Ms. McKee said. “The court ordered Rusty [Mr. Childress] to turn over all the petition signatures he had, and he gave us 37. He said the rest were in California. Now, why signatures collected in Arizona that have to be
submitted to the Arizona secretary of state are in California, I don’t know.”

Later, on June 24, Ms. McKee said that even though she’s not certain how many signatures have been collected, she intends to turn them into the Secretary of State’s Office.

Rep. Russell Pearce, R-18 and an adviser to Protect Arizona Now, said June 24 that he’s not sure how many signatures have been collected, but he’s confident that “we should have enough signatures, including a cushion” to account for some that may prove to be invalid.

I-3-04 and several other of the proposed initiatives that would effect statutory changes require a minimum of 122,612 signatures of registered voters to place the measure on the Nov. 2 general election ballot.

Public Funding Of Candidates Targeted
Another proposal getting a lot of attention with voters is C-4-04, which would
amend the state Constitution to prohibit use of public money to fund any
political candidate or campaign for non-federal statewide office or for the
Legislature.

The committee promoting the “No Taxpayer Money for Politicians” petition filed petitions bearing the signatures of 275,100 purported  voters with the Secretary of State on June 24. The minimum requirement is signatures of 183,917 registered voters. The Secretary of State has 15 days (Saturday and Sunday
excluded) to perform a preliminary examination of each petition (for serial numbers, circulator’s affidavit and notarization) and to select a 5 per cent random sample. County recorders check the sample against voter registration files. If the sample indicates a validity percentage which when applied to the total number of signatures filed indicates a sufficient filing, the petition will be certified for the November ballot. The initiative
proposes to deny all funding from any public source for Arizona’s Clean Elections
system, which is funded by a combination of public sources, including and income-tax credited donations. But the biggest portion, about two-thirds, of the funding comes from a 10 per cent
surcharge on all civil and criminal fines.

Nathan Sproul, a consultant to the backers of the measure, said: “We’re very pleased with the response we’ve received from Republicans, Democrats and independents. No matter what the political
affiliation, they see the damage that’s being done to the state spending $13 million on political campaigns when the state has more urgent financial needs.”

“This is to repeal Clean Elections,” said Doug Ramsey, spokesman for Keep It Clean. “This is an issue the voters of Arizona already have decided” in approving public funding of state political campaigns through a 1998 ballot measure.

“The people who are attacking it are being deceptive,” Mr. Ramsey said. “The description of the initiative implies that more money will go to education and senior citizens but there’s absolutely nothing in the language of the measure itself that requires that. The money would go into the general fund to be used
as the Legislature wants.”

C-4-04 and other proposed constitutional changes require a minimum 183,917 signatures of registered voters in order to appear on the November ballot.

Representatives of only two other petition drives responded to phone calls from the Arizona Capitol Times seeking information on whether they have enough signatures to file by July 1.

Chavez Holiday

Gabriel Ramiro Sandoval Cruz, [Glendale] spokesman for the Cesar Chavez Holiday measure (I-9-04), declined to say how many signatures the circulators gathered but said, “We’re not going to be able to file for this time around.”

“Truthfully, it’s been difficult to get that number of signatures since we didn’t file [the initiative application] until late March,” Mr. Cruz said. “We are going to re-file for an upcoming election. And we did get some money, about $10,000. We’ll look at the measure and submit it again.

“I believe Georgia, Florida are considering bills to have a Cesar Chavez holiday. It will be really sad if those states have a Chavez holiday before Arizona, which is where he was born.”

‘Last Call’

Jim R. Lugo, chairman of Arizona United for I-02-2004, said his group’s petition signatures won’t be submitted seeking to extend the “last call” for liquor sales because the Legislature did it for him.

“We dropped our petition drive when the Legislature extended the last call hours 2 a.m. from 1 a.m.,” Mr. Lugo said. “We’re happy with that even though it wasn’t as long as we wanted [until 3 a.m.]

Mr. Lugo said he likely willget involved in the drive to have a paid Cesar Chavez Holiday put on the ballot in
2006.

Other Organizers

None of the other petition organizers responded. All were called at least twice during the week of June 21, except for Mark Osterloh (C-3-04, education spending, and I-6-04, voter reward act), whose telephone number is out of service and for whom another number couldn’t be found, and George Shropshear (C-5-04, residential property value cap) whose phone rang without being answered by human or machine.

Mr. Osterloh told Howard Fischer of Capitol Media Services that he was dropping the drive on the Voter Reward Act, because he got too late a start to get financial backing and it was tough to get voters
focused on the issue in a presidential election year. He said he’ll try again for the 2006 ballot. He didn’t
say what he was doing with his other initiative, to increase public education spending