Out of State Special Interests Continue to Dominate Arizona’s Initiative Process

by admin | Jul 2, 2020 | Elections, News and Updates

When Arizona’s founding fathers sought to include a voter initiative process in Arizona’s constitution, the intended purpose was to provide regular citizens with a check against wealthy special interests and political insiders that often dominate the legislative process.

Yet it appears that the very system designed to curtail the influence of wealthy billionaires and the political establishment has been taken over by them. Even worse, the hijacking of the initiative process has been carried out primarily by out of state special interests parachuting into Arizona to buy their way onto the ballot box.  

In 2018, all of the high-profile ballot measures that qualified for the ballot were primarily funded by California billionaires and special interest groups. This campaign cycle is no different. Four initiatives appear to be on track to qualify for the November ballot. All four are being bankrolled by deep pocketed unions and liberal special interest groups from outside the state:

• Healthcare Rising is an initiative seeking to make several radical changes to Arizona’s hospital system, has received 99.5 percent of their funding from the California chapter of the Services Employee International Union. Of the $3.2 million they have raised to date, only $14,000 (in the form of an in-kind contribution) has come from Arizona.
• Criminal Justice Reform measure looking to overhaul Arizona’s sentencing guidelines has been 100 percent funded by Oakland based Tides Advocacy; a well-financed 501(C)(4) organization with close ties to George Soros and other major progressive donors.
• Invest in Ed is an education measure looking to double the state income tax on small businesses and high earners in the state. Of their funding, 90 percent has come from Stand for Children, Inc., a liberal education group located in Portland, Oregon.
• Smart and Safe is a proposal seeking to legalize marijuana in Arizona. Nearly half of their funding is from large dispensary corporations throughout the country who stand to profit immensely from the exclusive licenses that they will be granted if the ballot measure passes.

Arizona’s initiative process was never intended to be a petri dish for experimental policy cooked up by wealthy special interests from around the country. Yet that is what the process has devolved into because of the low standards that exist to purchase your way onto the ballot.

Based on the current signature requirements and constitutional protections for paying circulators to collect signatures, it is possible to gather enough signatures to qualify a measure for the ballot for around $2 Million dollars.

Though to most Arizonans that sounds like a lot of money, for wealthy donors and political players in California or Washington DC looking to promote radical reforms, $2 million is a small sum of money. Add in the fact that the initiative process is often seen as a way to increase voter turnout and force your political opponents to spend precious resources battling you at the ballot box, these types of financial investments are a no-brainer.

Can Arizona’s initiative process be fixed to protect it from outside influence? It’s possible, but it will require reforms geared toward increasing transparency and requiring more local support and involvement when collecting signatures for the ballot.

One reform worth considering is a geographic distribution requirement for signature collection. Under current Arizona law, initiative measures are not required to gather signatures from around the state in order to qualify for the ballot. Any group can make the ballot simply by gathering signatures from one large city or county.

Stipulating that initiatives must gather signatures from every legislative district would make it much more difficult for out of state special interests to parachute into Arizona and flood the Phoenix Metro area with paid circulators. Additionally, rural communities would gain a voice in the process since initiative groups would have to build support for their ideas in all corners of the state. Of the 27 states with a voter initiative or referendum process, 15 require a geographic distribution of signatures.

Another solution would be to limit the number of topics that may be included in an initiative. One factor that has made Arizona’s ballot measure process so attractive to groups around the country is the ability to include multiple issues in the same measure. Often referred to as log rolling, campaigns will include a few unrelated popular provisions in the initiative in order to provide political cover for other sweeping reforms of which voters are unaware. A single subject requirement, which already exists for all bills proposed at the legislature, would eliminate log rolling and reduce voter confusion at the ballot.

Arizona’s initiative process should not be for sale. It especially should not be controlled by special interests with deep pockets and no ties to our state. Fixing this problem won’t be easy, but should be an issue all Arizonans can rally around.

AZ Democrats Complain They Can No Longer Blow Taxpayer Money on Margarita Machines

by admin | Jun 29, 2020 | Elections, News and Updates

When voters passed the Citizens Clean Elections Act with  50.1 percent support  in 1998, the razor thin margin for passage showed that Arizonans were never that supportive of setting up a bureaucratic system to funnel taxpayer money to politicians to run for office.

Since that time public support for the program has plummeted as the flaws and abuse of the system have been exposed.  It is bad enough their money is being used to buy junk mail and political signs rather than education.  But these tax dollars used to fund political campaigns have been repeatedly misused and misappropriated.

Green, Libertarian, Republican and Democrat candidates have blown public funds on outlandish purchases such as lavish dinners, personal gadgetry, and yes, even a margarita machine. One candidate used roughly half his money with a marketing firm he owned. 

Eventually candidates and political operatives learned a new trick to manipulate the system.  In 2016 they started using their allotment of Clean Election funds to launder money through the Democrat party to be used in swing legislative races.  In response, voters overwhelming approved Proposition 306 which banned taxpayer money from Clean Elections going to political parties.

Not surprisingly, some candidates are upset that they can no longer take advantage of these taxpayer funded loopholes and are considering legal action.  In a recent article in the Capitol Times, Democrats are claiming that their Constitutional right to assembly is being violated because the money they are legally obligated to spend running for office cannot be funneled into other races.

Their claim that a prohibition Clean Election funds going to the Democrat party violates their right to assemble with the Democratic Party is absurd. By that legal reasoning Clean Elections should continue to allow candidates to throw expensive dinners at the Sanctuary for all their friends lest they violate their right to associate or assemble with those friends. 

This reasoning is also hypocritical.  Many of the same politicians claiming that taxpayer money to political parties is a form of association protected by the 1^st amendment have also railed against the right to anonymously give and assemble for causes or issues that they support. Apparently, when it comes to using your own money you have limited rights but using taxpayers money to fund causes they support should come without guardrails.

But perhaps the most ironic criticism is the public admission by one lawmaker that they can no longer use public funds to throw parties at Democrat party headquarters. In the same article, Senator Andrea Dalessandro decried the passage of Prop 306 as prohibiting her from “giving any extra money left over at the end of her campaign to the county party for its election night gathering.” So it appears we have now went from candidates manipulating the system to buy margarita machines to now funneling the money to the Democrat party so that they can buy the margarita machines.

Thank goodness voters passed Proposition 306.  Given the disrespect some politicians have with their money, perhaps next go round they will vote to eliminate Clean Elections altogether.

Voter Fraud Complaint Upends Push for Universal Vote by Mail in Arizona

by admin | Jun 11, 2020 | Elections, News and Updates

An interesting revelation came to light earlier this month that has added fuel to the fire over the debate to implement universal vote by mail in Arizona.

Several weeks ago news broke that a complaint had been filed with Attorney General Mark Brnovich outlining possible felony voter fraud by the son of Democrat State Representative Mitzi Epstein. According to the complaint, 29-year-old Daniel Epstein has lived in New York since at least 2017.  An extensive online paper trail of Facebook posts and employment information indicate that he moved to the Empire State to attend New York University and, after graduating from NYU two years ago, continued to live and work there as an actor.

Yet living 3,000 miles away has not stopped him from voting in multiple Arizona elections by mail from his parent’s home, including the most recent Tempe city council race in March. How these mail-in ballots were cast is uncertain, which is why a deeper probe into the matter is warranted.

Usually very outspoken and active on social media, Rep. Epstein has yet to comment on these allegations. She likely understands the gravity of the situation and had to be aware of Daniel’s voting patterns since the ballots were sent to her home.  Ultimately, she will have to explain why her 29-year old son who has been working as an actor in New York for years is still casting ballots in Arizona elections.

Also affected by this complaint is the narrative being pushed by media outlets, liberal pundits and Democrat leaders wanting to use Covid-19 as an excuse to implement universal vote by mail. For over two months Republicans have been relentlessly attacked for opposing this plan for the 2020 election. Opposition was tantamount to wanting people to die from Coronavirus, and concerns of voter fraud were scoffed at as unfounded “conspiracy theories.”

Yet ample research and evidence prior to this complaint already showed that mail in voting was susceptible to fraud. According the bi-partisan commission on Federal Election Reform chaired by Jimmy Carter, the findings concluded that absentee ballots remain “the largest source of potential voter fraud” in the electoral process.  The New York Times reported in 2012 that there was a bi-partisan consensus that all votes cast by mail are “less likely to be counted, more likely to be compromised and more likely to be contested than votes cast in a voting booth.”

Here in Arizona it is easy to see how our Permanent Early Voter List (PEVL) system can be abused. Since the list is Permanent, voters stay on the rolls long after they are ineligible to vote. There are numerous examples of people finding ballots in interesting locations or receiving ballots from voters that have moved away or have even died.

The only safeguard in the election process prior to an early ballot being counted is an examination of the signature on the front of the envelope. Poll workers do their best to verify the authenticity of the signature but this process becomes an impossible task when hundreds of thousands of early ballots are dumped in their laps on election day.

Arizona needs election reform, but not the type for which our political class has yearned. Though we should maintain our vote by mail system (which is one of the most accessible in the nation for voters), policymakers need to take a closer look at cleaning up our voter rolls and addressing the problem of stacks of early ballots being dropped off on election day. The latter issue has turned into a nightmare for election officials, has led to mistakes by overworked poll workers and delayed results for weeks after polls had closed.

These fixes are long overdue and should take precedent over attempts to make it easier to game our election system.