Also just before yesterday's quick deadline*, the Arizona Restaurant Association challenged the initiative petitions for the minimum wage increase/paid sick time measure. That means that all three of the filed initiatives will be considered by the courts before they can be considered by voters in November.
The initial court hearings are scheduled for the mornings of next Tuesday (marijuana), next Thursday (hospital execs) and the following Thursday (minimum wage). (See below for schedule details.)
As previously reported in the media, the marijuana initiative is being challenged for the sufficiency of its summary description as well as for the validity of the 2598,000+ signatures turned in. (The required number of valid signatures needed for all three initiatives is 150,642.)
The hospital salary and minimum wage initiative challenges both seem more likely to be focused on the qualifications of petition circulators. Arizona law now requires a legal challenge of the paid circulators to be filed within one week of the petitions being submitted to the Secretary of State. (A longer deadline applies for challenging the validity of signatures.) Yesterday's challenges came at the end of the week.
CALENDAR FOR COURT CHALLENGES (initial court hearings):
1) Tue. July 19, 8:45am, Judge Gentry: marijuana legalization
2) Thur. July 21, 9:30am, Judge Gerlach: hospital executive compensation
3) Thur. July 28, 8:45am, Judge Rogers, minimum wage
(Disclosure: Arizona's Politics co-founder Paul Weich represents a petition gathering firm involved in the minimum wage initiative.)
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