by admin | Aug 22, 2024 | Elections, News and Updates
PHOENIX, ARIZONA – Today, the Supreme Court of the United States overruled the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit’s outrageous and unprecedented order that had overturned Arizona’s constitutional requirement for proof of citizenship for state registration forms and voting. The Supreme Court’s decision will require immediate enforcement of this provision, stopping those trying to register using the state form if they do not provide proof of citizenship.
“This is a great day for election integrity and transparency across Arizona,” said Scot Mussi, President of the Arizona Free Enterprise Club. “The U.S. Supreme Court rightly realized that the Ninth Circuit had created mass chaos of the law and precedent just a few months before the November General Election, and that this mess could not have been cleaned up after the fall contests. Today, Arizona will be able to protect our elections from illegals voting thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court. We will continue to fight against efforts from liberal special interests to dismantle these commonsense and constitutional laws requiring proof of citizenship to vote in our elections in the Ninth Circuit and look forward to all of the provisions being eventually upheld!”
The case before the U.S. Supreme Court involved a challenge to HB 2492, which was authored by the Arizona Free Enterprise Club (AZFEC) and passed by the Arizona Legislature in 2022 to stop non-U.S. citizens from registering to vote and casting ballots in our state. Previously, a panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit allowed Arizona officials to reject state voter registration forms without proof of citizenship, which was part of the intent and purpose of the law in question. Yet, another panel on the same appeals court inexplicably overturned this order, vacating enforcement of the law concerning state voter registration forms, leading to the emergency appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
According to the order from the U.S. Supreme Court, Justices Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch would have granted the application in full, allowing Arizona to not only reject state forms without proof of citizenship, but also prevent Federal Only Voters from voting for President and by mail; while Justices Sotomayor, Kagan, Barrett, and Jackson would have denied the application in full. Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Kavanaugh agreed with Justices Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch that Arizona may reject state voter registration forms without proof of citizenship.
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by admin | Aug 19, 2024 | Elections, News and Updates
PHOENIX, ARIZONA – Last week, the Arizona Free Enterprise Club filed an amicus brief at the Supreme Court of the United States in RNC v. Mi Familia Vota. The filing to support an emergency application for stay before Supreme Court Justice Elana Kagan, seeks to bolster arguments for Arizona laws that were instituted to ensure that only U.S. citizens can vote in state elections.
The case before the U.S. Supreme Court involves a challenge to HB 2492, which was authored by the Arizona Free Enterprise Club (AZFEC) and passed by the Arizona Legislature in 2022 to stop non-U.S. citizens from registering to vote and casting ballots in our state. Previously, a panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit allowed Arizona officials to reject state voter registration forms without proof of citizenship, which was part of the intent and purpose of the law in question. Yet, another panel on the same appeals court inexplicably overturned this order, vacating enforcement of the law concerning state voter registration forms.
“With the November General Election right around the corner, Arizona election officials and voters need immediate and consistent clarity regarding the law for state voter registration forms,” said Scot Mussi, President of the Arizona Free Enterprise Club. “Because of this largely unprecedented and political move by the Ninth Circuit to create a conflict within its body of judges, the U.S. Supreme Court is needed to set the record straight and help Arizona enforce a commonsense law that will provide transparency and security to our elections.”
In the brief, AZFEC argues that Arizona adopted the voting laws to serve legitimate purposes, free from discriminatory animus; and that Constitutional text and the cannon of Constitutional avoidance demand enforcement of the voting laws.
As AZFEC highlights in its brief, there were disturbingly obvious legal errors made by the Ninth Circuit that could impact the upcoming November election. The errors from the appeals court would mean that indefensible judicial decisions would nevertheless carry the day due to the lack of a stay. These potential consequences illustrate the long-standing wisdom of staying injunctions against voting regulations when elections are imminent.
Read the brief here.
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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!
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by admin | Aug 16, 2024 | Elections, News and Updates
Every election cycle, out-of-state special interest groups spend millions of dollars in Arizona to buy their initiatives onto our ballot. It often takes just a couple million dollars—pocket change to California billionaires—to pay a few hundred circulators to collect signatures. And they usually flood the streets with paid circulators in just Phoenix and Tucson, stripping all other Arizonans from having a voice in the process.
Not every state has a citizen initiative process. In fact, less than half (20) allow for citizen initiative amendments to state law. Arizona is even more unique because in 1998, the Arizona voters amended the constitution with the “Voter Protection Act,” preventing the legislature from amending any measure passed on the ballot unless they obtain a ¾ majority and the amendment “furthers the purpose” of the initiative. In effect, this means that anything passed on the ballot must go back to the ballot for future changes, much like a constitutional amendment.
Of those 20 states with a citizen initiative process, 11 have a signature distribution requirement. This means that in those states, the signatures cannot all be collected in just one city or major county, like they currently can here in Arizona. Instead, initiative proponents need to gain support from diverse regions of the state.
It’s time for Arizona to join them, and we can by adopting a Geographic Distribution requirement for signatures. Passed by the legislature in 2023 and appearing on the ballot this November as Prop 134, this requirement would ensure that any group proposing a statewide initiative (that will affect Arizonans in every corner of the state) must gather signatures in all 15 diverse counties in the state.
Right now, rural Arizonans are completely ignored in the process. It is easier to sit on college campuses and densely populated areas like downtown Phoenix to collect all the requisite signatures than to get the buy-in from the diverse interests of Arizonans in other parts of the state. These diverse interests have a right to a voice in determining whether an issue will appear on the ballot.
These statewide initiatives impact everyone. Allowing just the voters of Phoenix to decide what goes on the ballot, and then allowing the voters of just one big county to pass it with a bare majority, is unfair to the rest of Arizona’s voters. Not only that, once passed, it would take going to the ballot all over again if that measure has unintended consequences for rural Arizonans.
Prop 134 is a fair and balanced approach to increasing representation. Arizona is in the minority as a state with a citizen initiative process, an even smaller minority as a state without a geographic distribution requirement, and finally in a minority of one with the “Voter Protection Act” that essentially makes ballot measures permanent.
Requiring signatures to be collected from every district in Arizona will ensure proponents of initiatives speak to Arizonans across the state, increasing voter participation, and ensuring that any measure qualifying for the ballot in November has broad support from every part of the state, not just one demographic, in one area, with a limited scope of interests.
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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!
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by admin | Aug 15, 2024 | Elections, News and Updates
The people of Arizona deserve elections that are free, fair, transparent, and lawful. As the top election official in our state, Secretary of State Adrian Fontes should be working every day to ensure this happens. And he should be providing an Elections Procedures Manual (EPM) that gives impartial direction to county recorders to ensure uniform and correct implementation of election law.
This shouldn’t be that hard…or controversial.
But Adrian Fontes took it upon himself to produce one of the most radical EPMs in Arizona’s history. In fact, several of the “rules” in his EPM even go as far as to criminalize activity that is protected under the First Amendment—creating an unconstitutional chilling effect on protected political speech. Apparently, Adrian Fontes hasn’t read the United States Constitution or the Arizona Constitution.
Because of this illegal EPM, we sued him. And last week, a Maricopa County Superior Court ruled in our favor, finding that Fontes’ EPM contains speech restrictions that violate the Arizona Constitution, misstatements and modifications of statutes, and failures to identify distinctions between guidance and legal mandates.
So, how did Fontes respond? Did he realize the error of his ways? Will he now properly understand his role and amend the EPM to align with the law? No. Instead Adrian Fontes has responded how you would expect someone to respond when he knows he can’t win. He’s resorted to maligning our organization in the media.
The day after the court ruled in our favor, Fontes hopped on a KTAR morning show, but he didn’t defend his EPM. Instead, he immediately began attacking our organization and denigrating our 15,000 activists and donors. His smears were so over the top that KTAR immediately contacted us to give our organization an opportunity to respond to his outright lies. A few days later he doubled down on these baseless attacks during an interview with MSNBC.
That’s not how the top election official in the state of Arizona is supposed to behave. As Secretary of State, Adrian Fontes is supposed to remain unbiased. But now, he’s trying to use the power of his office to attack and intimidate organizations like ours that participate in the election process. Are we really supposed to believe that he’s not going to use the vague language he included in his EPM to impinge on people’s First Amendment rights to engage in the political process?
It’s outrageous. But it won’t stop us from fighting for the integrity of our elections.
The reality is that Adrian Fontes included language in the EPM that attempts to rewrite state law or create new laws, which he does not have the authority to do. And we sued not over statutes that are already in place, but we sued over the vague and undefined language that Fontes used in his EPM that could be used against people who are simply trying to engage in their First Amendment rights at poll locations.
The Maricopa County Superior Court judge agreed with us, highlighting 13 instances of “problematic language” in her ruling. This wouldn’t have happened if Fontes’ EPM was all fine and good. But the judge correctly realized that certain portions of Secretary Fontes’ illegal and radical manual were nothing more than a brazen attempt to destroy the integrity and transparency of state elections.
Instead of firing off baseless attacks against us and our supporters, perhaps Secretary Fontes and his team of leftwing ideologues should get to work on conforming his elections manual to state law as is their statutory duty. But if he would rather continue to hurl insults, malign our work, and appeal this decision, he should know that we will not back down. We will meet him every step of the way to continue the fight for the integrity of Arizona’s elections because that’s what the people want. And unfortunately, it’s not what they’re getting from their current Secretary of State.
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!
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by admin | Aug 7, 2024 | Elections, News and Updates
PHOENIX, ARIZONA – In a win for the First Amendment rights of all Arizonans, a Maricopa County Superior Court Judge ruled that a number of provisions within the 2023 Elections Procedures Manual “contains … speech restrictions in violations of our Arizona Constitution, misstates or modifies our statutes, and fails to identify any distinction between guidance and legal mandates.” The order came from Arizona Free Enterprise Club v. Fontes, which was filed to challenge the constitutionality of many sections from the manual.
“We applaud the court’s protection of Arizonans’ First Amendment rights during the exercise of their sacred privilege to vote in free and fair elections,” said Scot Mussi, President of the Arizona Free Enterprise Club. “The judge correctly realized that certain portions of Secretary Fontes’ illegal and radical manual were nothing more than a brazen attempt to destroy the integrity and transparency of state elections. Secretary Fontes and his team of leftwing ideologues must conform the entire manual to state law as is their statutory duty.”
According to the complaint from the Arizona Free Enterprise Club, the 2023 EPM improperly placed protected political speech at risk of criminal prosecution and had an unconstitutional chilling effect on protected political speech.
The court order states, “…Many of the prohibitions listed in the EPM are free speech and protected by both the Arizona Constitution and the U.S. Constitution. What, for example, constitutes a person communicating about voter fraud in a harassing manner? Or, for that matter, ‘posting’ a sign in an intimidating manner? How does a person either do this behavior – whatever it means – or avoid it? And what content printed on a t-shirt might be offensive or harassing to one and not another? What if the t-shirt says, ‘I have a bomb and I intend to vote!’? Where does the Secretary draw the line?”
Read the court order here.
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.
by admin | Aug 2, 2024 | Elections, News and Updates
PHOENIX, ARIZONA – Last night, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit overturned the order of a previous panel from its circuit in Mi Familia Vota v. Arizona, which had allowed a lawful requirement to go into effect that would reject State Voter Registration forms without proof of citizenship in Arizona. Attorney General Kris Mayes did not oppose the motion for reconsideration, leading the ruling from this latest panel that vacated enforcement of the law concerning State Voter Registration Forms.
The continuing judicial opinions are part of a challenge to HB 2492, which was authored and passed by the Arizona Free Enterprise Club in 2022 to stop non-U.S. citizens from registering and voting in our state.
“This opinion from two radical judges on the Ninth Circuit is a travesty of law and to the legal process, overturning a ruling issued just last week by the same court,” said Scot Mussi, President of the Arizona Free Enterprise Club. “We are hopeful that the U.S. Supreme Court will quickly intervene and reverse this poorly reasoned decision on appeal.”
In Judge Patrick J. Bumatay’s dissent, he writes, “Motions for reconsideration of a motions panel’s order are not meant to be a second bite at the apple. On the contrary, they are highly irregular and strongly disfavored, primarily appropriate if there have been ‘[c]hanges in legal or factual circumstances’ since the motions panel addressed the issue.”
Judge Bumatay adds, “Yet facing identical legal and factual circumstances on an even more expedited basis, the majority now grants the motion and lifts the partial stay… All the public can take away from this episode is that four judges of the Ninth Circuit have voted to partially stay the injunction here, while two other judges voted against it. The two judges prevail – not because of any special insight, but because of the luck of an internal Ninth Circuit draw.”
Arizona Free Enterprise Club will be filing an emergency petition at the Supreme Court of the United States to appeal this most-recent decision from the Ninth Circuit panel.
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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