June 1, 2016
Defective Clean Elections initiative ineligible for ballot
PHOENIX – The Arizona Free Enterprise Club has released a legal analysis on the proposed ‘Clean Elections’ initiative, a ballot measure that would dramatically increase the amount of taxpayer fun ding politicians would receive to run their campaigns.
The analysis shows that this poorly drafted initiative contains multiple defects, most significant of which is the fact that the initiative attempts to change and amend state statutes that no longer exist. Since the proposed changes are not based on existing law, the initiative is defective and will be kept off the ballot.
“After careful review, it is clear that the proponents of taxpayer money for politicians were sloppy and failed to draft their initiative based on current law.” Club President Scot Mussi said. “The campaign finance reform amendments that rewrote state statute were passed back in March. Clean Election supporters have known this for months, yet they didn’t modify their language to take this into account.”
Even if the proponents collect enough signatures to qualify for the November ballot, there is extensive case law that initiatives cannot amend non-existent statutes and that this is grounds for kicking it off the ballot.
Mussi continued, “Even if they are successful in their signature gathering efforts, the petitions will likely be rejected, either by the state or by a challenge in court.”
The deadline to submit a new initiative application and submit signatures is July 7.
