Arizona Free Enterprise Club President Scot Mussi issued the following statement regarding today’s Supreme Court decision that correctly determined that Free and Fair lacked enough signatures to qualify for the ballot:
“The ruling today vindicates what we knew all along: the radical Free and Fair election initiative lacked enough lawful signatures to qualify for the ballot.
The other side knew it too, and that is why their lawyers tried to get the court to adopt a rigged methodology to calculate the final number of valid signatures that would sneak their disqualified measure onto the ballot. Their dubious formula cherry picked data that boosted their numbers, even including signatures that were disqualified by the counties in the random sample. None of their formula was rooted in statute or historical precedent and was a Hail-Mary attempt to resuscitate thousands of signatures that simply should not have counted.
Thankfully, after additional review by the courts, their rigged formula was discarded, and the correct statutory calculation was used to determine that they lacked the minimum number of signatures to qualify for the ballot. Arizona voters, the rule of law, and basic math were victorious today.”
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Phoenix, AZ – Today, the Arizona Free Enterprise Club announced another slate of General Election endorsements for 2022.
The endorsed individuals align with the organization’s principles and key policy goals. Club President Scot Mussi stated, “It is critical Arizona has leaders and policy makers who are able to articulate and stand up for individual liberties, free market principles, conservative values, and protect against federal overreach here in Arizona and in Washington, D.C. This slate of candidates has proven they can and will.”
Statewide
Treasurer
Kimberly Yee
Federal
CD 3
CD 7
Jeff Zink
Luis Pozzolo
Legislative
LD 1 House
LD 2 Senate
LD 3 Senate
Selina Bliss
Steve Kaiser
John Kavanagh
Quang Nguyen
LD 3 House
LD 4 House
LD 11 House
Alex Kolodin
Matt Gress
Tatiana Peña
LD 12 House
LD 13 House
LD 17 Senate
Terry Roe
Liz Harris
Justine Wadsack
Jim Chaston
LD 27 House
LD 30 House
Kevin Payne
John Gillette
County
Maricopa County Attorney
Rachel Mitchell
Maricopa County Community College Board – Member at Large
Randy Kaufman
School Board
Cave Creek
Chandler
Deer Valley
Fountain Hills
Jackie Ulmer
Kurt Rohrs
Paul Carver
Libby Settle
Charlotte Golla
Tony Bouie
Gilbert
Higley
Kyrene
Mesa
Chad Thompson
Anna Van Hoek
Kristi Ohman
Rachel Walden
Roy Morales
Ed Steele
Paradise Valley
Roosevelt
Scottsdale
Vail
Sandra Christensen
Joseph Dailey
Amy Carney
Anastasia Tsatsakis
Lisa Farr
Carine Werner
Leroy Smith
Eddy Jackson
Help Protect Freedom in Arizona by Joining Our Grassroots Network
Arizona needs to have a unified voice promoting economic freedom and prosperity, and the Free Enterprise Club is committed to making that happen. But we can’t do it alone. We need YOU!
Join our FREE Grassroots Action List to stay up to date on the latest battles against big government and how YOU can help influence crucial bills at the Arizona State Legislature.
Phoenix, AZ – The Arizona Supreme Court issued a ruling today against Arizonans for Free and Fair Elections, affirming a lower court ruling that the group failed to gather enough signatures to qualify for the ballot.
The radical initiative seeks to:
Upend Arizona’s election administration and voter registration laws.
Sharply reduce candidate contribution limits while channeling more taxpayer subsidies to so-called “Clean Elections” candidates.
Curtail safeguards governing the initiative and referendum process.
Impose new taxes.
In July, the Arizona Free Enterprise Club filed a lawsuit contending that well over half of the signatures on the election initiative were gathered illegally.
“We are very pleased that the Supreme Court affirmed the lower court ruling that Arizonans for Free and Fair Elections failed to gather enough lawful signatures to qualify for the ballot,” said Club President Scot Mussi. “This radical initiative imported 60 different provisions from Washington, D.C. that would have increased fraud, harmed small business, and empowered special interests. They spent over $7 million trying to buy their way onto the ballot, and they failed.”
The Supreme Court has remanded the case back to trial court for a final review of all stipulations and invalidated signatures, which should be completed Thursday.
Help Protect Freedom in Arizona by Joining Our Grassroots Network
Arizona needs to have a unified voice promoting economic freedom and prosperity, and the Free Enterprise Club is committed to making that happen. But we can’t do it alone. We need YOU!
Join our FREE Grassroots Action List to stay up to date on the latest battles against big government and how YOU can help influence crucial bills at the Arizona State Legislature.
Among the potential eleven ballot measures voters will see on their ballot this November, two make critically important reforms to the ballot measure process itself: Proposition 128 and Proposition 129.
Arizona is a target for out-of-state special interest groups that spend millions of dollars to put their radical ideas on the ballot. They take an issue that is unpopular with the electorate, like tax hikes, spend a few million dollars to park circulators in Phoenix and Tucson for a couple months, and throw bad policy on our ballots.
Take, for example, Prop 208, which narrowly passed in 2020. The out-of-state teachers unions in Oregon and DC spent more than $30 million over four years in their effort to buy the largest tax hike in state history. They lied to Arizona voters to get signatures, and they lied to get the slimmest of majorities to approve it.
There was one problem, though. It was unconstitutional, and they knew it! The nonpartisan Legislative Council told them so, but they went ahead with it anyway. After months in litigation, the Arizona Supreme Court ruled that it is, in fact, unconstitutional and was struck down in its entirety.
This is an example of a measure that, having part of it struck down by the court, invalidated the entire measure. However, there could come a time when a measure is not struck down in its entirety, leaving just fragments of the law that was approved by voters.
Currently, that means a broken measure stays in statute with no simple mechanism to fix it except to go back to the voters—which is confusing and costly.
Voters expect when they are presented with a proposition that the language before them is thoughtful and has been legally scrutinized. When that isn’t the case, Prop 128 provides a solution, with a narrow modification to our constitution to allow the legislature to amend the measure, only after the Arizona or U.S. Supreme Court have found it to contain unconstitutional or illegal language.
Proposition 129: Limiting Initiatives to a Single Subject
Another exploited aspect of the initiative process is that, unlike the legislature, there is a lack of a single subject rule. Lawmakers are bound by the Arizona constitution to craft bills that pertain to only one subject, and the provisions of the bill must be properly reflected in the title.
This requirement became very relevant just last summer, when the Arizona Supreme Court struck down many of the provisions in the state budget for violating it.
These two requirements serve a purpose, as the court noted in its decision. The single subject rule prevents “‘logrolling,’ or combining different measures into one bill so that a legislator must approve a disfavored proposition to secure passage of a favored proposition.” And the title requirement ensures that “a reasonable person should be expected to know what an act deals with based on its title.”
But these requirements do not exist for statutory initiatives. Initiatives can contain however many provisions that out-of-state special interests want to shove into them, on as many different subjects as they want. Take, for example, the so-called “Arizona Fair Elections Act.” It contains more than 60 different provisions ranging from radical Washington, D.C. style election changes to campaign finance law and even tax hikes all crammed into 26 pages in 9-point font.
Just as lawmakers shouldn’t be compelled to hold their nose on bad provisions in exchange for good ones, ballot initiatives should include only provisions logically and naturally connected to one another to limit confusion of the voters, obfuscation by proponents, and a “Sophie’s Choice” for the electorate.
Prop 129 would place the same requirement lawmakers have for the bills they craft on initiative measures, protecting our ballots from sprawling measures with various unrelated provisions.
Both Proposition 128 and 129 are measured, thoughtful, and necessary reforms to our constitution to ensure voters aren’t presented with confusing measures, and to provide a mechanism to fix broken language. VOTE YES on Prop 128 and 129.
Help Protect Freedom in Arizona by Joining Our Grassroots Network
Arizona needs to have a unified voice promoting economic freedom and prosperity, and the Free Enterprise Club is committed to making that happen. But we can’t do it alone. We need YOU!
Join our FREE Grassroots Action List to stay up to date on the latest battles against big government and how YOU can help influence crucial bills at the Arizona State Legislature.
It seems nowadays, the only ones who want to raise taxes are the government and far-left elites. That shouldn’t come as a big surprise. They’ll do whatever it takes to further their radical agenda—especially when their bank accounts go unaffected. But in a country that’s supposed to be governed by representation, too many tax increases in America—including right here in Arizona—are coming down to a simple majority.
Of course, we just saw this at the federal level when the so-called “Inflation Reduction Act” passed on a 51-50 vote in the Senate thanks, in large part, to Senators Mark Kelly and Kyrsten Sinema. Now, because of the slimmest majorities along party lines, taxpayers are left with a $700 billion repackaged version of President Biden’s Build Back Broke plan.
But this issue isn’t limited to the federal government, Congress, or even state legislatures. Just look at what happened with Prop 208 in 2020. This disastrous piece of legislation, which was pushed by out-of-state special interest groups, passed with only 51% of people voting for it. And it would’ve turned Arizona into a high tax state had it not been for the court system killing it once and for all.
Allowing 51% of the population (who probably don’t have to pay the tax increase) to vote to tax the other 49% to pay it, is wrong. And while today’s tax increase may not affect you, tomorrow’s most certainly will.
Introduced as HCR2015 by Rep. Tim Dunn (R-LD13), Prop 132 would require a 60% majority vote of the people on any ballot measure that wants to raise your taxes. Requiring broader support like this puts a check on out-of-state special interests who want to increase Arizona’s taxes to fund their schemes. This already happens in our state legislature where any tax increase requires a super majority. It’s only fair that voters have the same safeguard at the ballot box. We’re a representative government, and if we are asking Arizonans to part with more of their paycheck, it needs to be for something that has broad agreement from every part of the state.
After all, the reality is that at some point, you will be on the wrong end of a close vote. You will be in the minority. Crafting tax policy at the ballot box in this manner only creates class warfare and a tax code of winners and losers.
But it’s not even just about your wallet. These policies harm Arizona’s economy too. Thankfully, we avoided the Prop 208 tax that would have crushed small businesses in our state. But there will be more efforts like it to turn Arizona into a high-tax state like New York or California—the latter having driven away thousands of businesses from the state because of its taxes. In fact, California’s taxes and woke policies got so bad, the state actually ran out of one-way U-hauls!
This isn’t what the people of Arizona want. And it’s not what the people of Arizona deserve. Now, you have the opportunity to make your voice heard. Protect your wallet, and protect Arizona’s economy this November. VOTE YES on Proposition 132.
Help Protect Freedom in Arizona by Joining Our Grassroots Network
Arizona needs to have a unified voice promoting economic freedom and prosperity, and the Free Enterprise Club is committed to making that happen. But we can’t do it alone. We need YOU!
Join our FREE Grassroots Action List to stay up to date on the latest battles against big government and how YOU can help influence crucial bills at the Arizona State Legislature.
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