The Supreme Court came to the same conclusion that a separate case reached in federal court - that the Arizona Constitution requires initiative petition signatures to be collected in person.
Proponents of several ballot initiatives had brought the cases in light of the extraordinary stay-at-home Executive Orders. The state Supreme Court Justices, a U.S. District Court Judge and the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals all found that that was not enough to overcome the in person language in the Constitution.
Save Our Schools expressed its disappointment late this afternoon, saying "Arizona voters have been denied their fundamental rights."
"Regretfully, we have decided to suspend our campaign. We know that the COVID-19 pandemic is far from under control in Arizona, and we do not want to put our amazing volunteers at risk."Save Our Schools successfully collected referendum signatures a couple of years ago to halt a law passed by the Legislature and signed by the Governor that would have significantly expanded the voucher programs. The law was tossed by voters.
Earlier today, Invest In Ed said "we never said it would be easy.... Despite the ruling, we are forging ahead. We remain 100% committed to this effort."
Other initiative campaigns suspended their efforts earlier, while Arizona's Politics reported last week that three campaign stepped up their efforts to hire paid petition circulators. In addition to Invest In Ed, those are the efforts to legalize marijuana and to revise prison sentences for non-dangerous offenses.
If you would like to show your appreciation for Arizona's Politics reporting, please consider donating to our pool to support OTHER journalism-related nonprofits.
We welcome your comments about this post. Or, if you have something unrelated on your mind, please e-mail to info-at-arizonaspolitics-dot-com or call 602-799-7025. Thanks.
No comments:
Post a Comment