(UPDATE, 5:15pm: The Secretary of State's Office informs us that the Court denied the request for a TRO to slow down the process. "We are permitted to process petitions as quickly as we see fit and aren't required to slow down," says Communications Director Matt Roberts.)
The recently-maligned Arizona Secretary of State's Office is working TOO quickly on the petition signatures for the minimum wage initiative. That's the claim by the Arizona Restaurant Association today, and the court has set an emergency hearing for 4pm this afternoon.
The Secretary of State's office informed Arizona's Politics today that it hopes to send out samples of the marijuana legalization initiative today, the minimum wage on Friday, and the hospital executive salary cap initiative the following Friday. By law, the Secretary of State does some initial checks on the petitions before sending samples to the county recorders to test the validity of the signatures on the petitions. Their office wants to get the petition samples to the counties as quickly as possible, and staggering them also makes the job simpler for the counties.
The initial court hearing on the Restaurant Association's challenge is scheduled for next Thursday, and one of the allegations in their challenge is that the Secretary of State's database of paid and out of state circulators is incomplete and that some of the petitions will need to be pulled. That would impact the sample sent to the Recorders.
The minimum wage hearing was set further down the road (than the other two) because the assigned judge is on vacation this week, according to the motion. Therefore, today's hearing will be in front of Judge Gerlach (who is also handling the hospital initiative case).
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