• Home
  • Opinion
  • Quizzes
  • Redistricting
  • Sections
  • About Us
  • Voting
  • Events
  • Civic Ed
  • Campaign Finance
  • Directory
  • Election Dissection
  • Fact Check
  • Glossary
  • Independent Voter News
  • News
  • Analysis
  • Subscriptions
  • Log in
Leveraging Our Differences
  • news & opinion
    • Big Picture
      • Civic Ed
      • Ethics
      • Leadership
      • Leveraging big ideas
      • Media
    • Business & Democracy
      • Corporate Responsibility
      • Impact Investment
      • Innovation & Incubation
      • Small Businesses
      • Stakeholder Capitalism
    • Elections
      • Campaign Finance
      • Independent Voter News
      • Redistricting
      • Voting
    • Government
      • Balance of Power
      • Budgeting
      • Congress
      • Judicial
      • Local
      • State
      • White House
    • Justice
      • Accountability
      • Anti-corruption
      • Budget equity
    • Columns
      • Beyond Right and Left
      • Civic Soul
      • Congress at a Crossroads
      • Cross-Partisan Visions
      • Democracy Pie
      • Our Freedom
  • Pop Culture
      • American Heroes
      • Ask Joe
      • Celebrity News
      • Comedy
      • Dance, Theatre & Film
      • Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging
      • Faithful & Mindful Living
      • Music, Poetry & Arts
      • Sports
      • Technology
      • Your Take
      • American Heroes
      • Ask Joe
      • Celebrity News
      • Comedy
      • Dance, Theatre & Film
      • Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging
      • Faithful & Mindful Living
      • Music, Poetry & Arts
      • Sports
      • Technology
      • Your Take
  • events
  • About
      • Mission
      • Advisory Board
      • Staff
      • Contact Us
Sign Up
  1. Home>
  2. Big Picture>
  3. public financing>

Crusade begins for ballot initiative overhauling Arizona's democracy

Our Staff
November 01, 2019
Voters in Arizona

In addition to creating a statewide public financing system, a proposed ballot initiative in Arizona would make it easier for voters to cast ballots.

Ralph Freso/Getty Images

A prominent progressive group in Arizona has launched an effort to put a total overhaul of the state's election system before the voters next fall.

If the initiative is ultimately adopted, it would transform campaign financing and ease access to the ballot box in one of the nation's fastest growing and most politically competitive states. In many ways, the proposal would create in Arizona a system similar to what the congressional Democrats would nationalize under HR 1.

But the business community and Republican elected leaders in Phoenix are already signaling they're intense opposition to the package, suggesting that just getting it on to the ballot could require an expensive and polarizing campaign.


Proponents, led by Arizonans for Fair Elections, have until July to gather 238,000 signatures on petitions (15 percent of the most recent statewide turnout) in order to put their proposals on the ballot next November. Turnout for Election Days 2020 seems destined to be significant. Not only will Arizona's 11 electoral votes be hotly contested by both parties. but the state will feature what's shaping up to be one the closest and most expensive Senate races in the country, between GOP incumbent Martha McSally and Democratic gun control advocate and retired astronaut Mark Kelly.

Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter

A centerpiece of the sprawling, 21,000-word package, unveiled Wednesday and dubbed the Fair Elections Act, would be the 2022 launch of the nation's first statewide system of taxpayer-funded campaign donation vouchers — a pair worth $25 each for every voter to give to candidates willing to abide by spending limits and collect most other donations in small amounts.

The first such voucher system debuted in Seattle two years ago and another is on the ballot next week in Albuquerque, the goal being to boost civic engagement and reduce the impact of political giving from big businesses and advocacy groups.

The proposal would increase corporate income taxes to pay for the campaign donation vouchers and an expansion of the existing public financing system, where campaigns for statewide, legislative and local offices can get limited taxpayer subsidies.

At the same time, the package would set new donation limits of $1,000 for legislative and local races and $2,500 for statewide contests — a plunge from the current $6,250 for both individuals and political action committees.

The package also includes language making Arizona the 19th state where qualified residents are automatically registered by obtaining a driver's license, the 16th state where people can both register and cast a ballot on Election Day and the 15th state where in-person early voting extends until the day before the election. Mail-in ballots could be postmarked on Election Day instead of having to arrive by then.

Finally, the package includes an array of new ethics proposals. Lobbyists would be prohibited from paying for travel by elected officials or hosting them for meals worth more than $20. The cooling-off period before former state legislators could spin through the revolving door and become lobbyists would double, to two years. And conflict-of interest restrictions for all people in Arizona government would become much more explicit.

Both its authors and its detractors say the comprehensiveness of the referendum, and getting it before the voters in a presidential year, should work in their favor.

"You got to address a whole lot of problems at once," Joel Edman, whose liberal Arizona Advocacy Network is backing the measure, told the Arizona Republican. "It's not just about curtailing the influence of big money. It's about bringing people into the political system and making it easier to register and vote whether by mail, early or in person on Election Day."

At the same time, conservative groups across the country see many of the proposals as anathema and will likely be willing to spend money on their defeat in order to hold momentum for these idea at bay.

"But whenever we've tried to limit these things in the past, we see that there's some unintended consequence," Republican Gov. Doug Ducey said. "I'm on the side of freedom. I think that people should be able to invest in ideas and principles that they believe in."

A member of the GOP majority leadership in the state House, T.J. Shope, was more succinct. He took to Twitter to label the proposal "pretty much a 30 page heap of flaming poo."

From Your Site Articles
  • Poverty, isolation among voting barriers for Native Americans ›
  • Past turnout success complicates future ballot initiatives - The Fulcrum ›
Related Articles Around the Web
  • Elections | Arizona Secretary of State ›
  • The political battle for Arizona tells a story of America's changing ... ›
public financing

Want to write
for The Fulcrum?

If you have something to say about ways to protect or repair our American democracy, we want to hear from you.

Submit
Get some Leverage Sign up for The Fulcrum Newsletter
Follow
Contributors

Reform in 2023: Leadership worth celebrating

Layla Zaidane

Two technology balancing acts

Dave Anderson

Reform in 2023: It’s time for the civil rights community to embrace independent voters

Jeremy Gruber

Congress’ fix to presidential votes lights the way for broader election reform

Kevin Johnson

Democrats and Republicans want the status quo, but we need to move Forward

Christine Todd Whitman

Reform in 2023: Building a beacon of hope in Boston

Henry Santana
Jerren Chang
latest News

COVID created an expanded social safety net; activists are now quietly working to bring it back

Davis Giangiulio
21h

Banking, democracy & trust

Lawrence Goldstone
22h

SVB’s newfangled failure fits a century-old pattern of bank runs, with a social media twist

Rodney Ramcharan
23h

Podcast: How women are showing up for justice & democracy

Our Staff
23h

Improving voter engagement for all Americans

Barbara Smith Warner
29 March

Meet the Faces of Democracy: Carly Koppes (R-CO)

Michael Beckel
Mia Minkin
Ariana Rojas
29 March
Videos

Video: Can bipartisanship survive the rise of the independent voter?

Our Staff

Video: Ted Lasso cast at the White House press briefing

Our Staff

Video: The hidden stories in the U.S. Census

Our Staff

Video: We asked conservatives at CPAC what woke means

Our Staff

Video: DeSantis, 18 states to push back against Biden ESG agenda

Our Staff

Video: A conversation with Tiahna Pantovich

Our Staff
Podcasts

Podcast: How women are showing up for justice & democracy

Our Staff
23h

Podcast: Harnessing the power of juries

Our Staff
28 March

Podcast: Partial truths & corporate fables

Debilyn Molineaux
David Riordan
27 March

Podcast: Risky business: More bank collapses ahead?

Our Staff
27 March
Recommended
COVID created an expanded social safety net; activists are now quietly working to bring it back

COVID created an expanded social safety net; activists are now quietly working to bring it back

Government
Banking, democracy & trust

Banking, democracy & trust

Threats to democracy
SVB’s newfangled failure fits a century-old pattern of bank runs, with a social media twist

SVB’s newfangled failure fits a century-old pattern of bank runs, with a social media twist

Big Picture
Podcast: How women are showing up for justice & democracy

Podcast: How women are showing up for justice & democracy

Podcasts
Improving voter engagement for all Americans

Improving voter engagement for all Americans

Voting
Meet the Faces of Democracy: Carly Koppes (R-CO)

Meet the Faces of Democracy: Carly Koppes (R-CO)

Elections