PHOENIX (AP) - An Arizona ballot initiative to raise taxes on the wealthy to fund schools survived a court challenge to knock it off the ballot.
Maricopa County Superior Court Judge James Smith on Thursday rejected a challenge claiming that Invest in Education Act petitions contained errors that should disqualify it from the ballot. The lawsuit claimed the petitions included a misleading description of the tax hike, among other concerns.
Opponents of the measure with Arizonans for Great Schools and a Strong Economy say they plan to appeal the ruling to the state Supreme Court. The group is backed by the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry and claims the tax hike will harm the state’s economy.
“The description that accompanied the petition for the income tax increase was so misleading, so sloppy, that the initiative should not appear on the November ballot,” Chairman Jaime Molera said.
Invest in Education Act organizers filed 270,000 signatures to put their question to voters. Supporters say it will raise an estimated $690 million for schools.
Josh Buckley, a teacher in Mesa and co-chair of the group campaigning for the initiative, said in a statement Thursday that those who signed the petitions want to “take back power” and invest in schools.
“This fall, voters will now have a chance to vote for critical funding for education so that Arizona schools can keep and attract the best teachers and provide our children with the quality education they deserve,” Buckley said.
The tax proposal comes after a historic six-day teacher strike where tens of thousands of educators walked out of classrooms and protested at the state Capitol to demand increases in education funding. They sought $1 billion in new funding for schools, while Republican Gov. Doug Ducey pushed for a plan to raise teacher salaries by 20 percent by 2020.
Ducey’s proposal passed as part of the state budget, along with a partial restoration of nearly $400 million in recession-era cuts and a pledge to fill in the rest within five years. But many striking teachers said that wasn’t enough to address classroom needs, and channeled their efforts toward signature gathering for the Invest in Education Act.
The proposal seeks to raise the income tax rate to 8 percent for individuals earning more than $250,000 and households earning more than $500,000 for the portion of their income above those cutoffs. Individuals who earn more than $500,000 and households who earn more than $1 million would pay 9 percent above those cutoffs.
The Chamber-supported lawsuit took issue with the way the petitions described the tax hike. It said the description misstated the actual percentage of the proposed tax increase as 3.46 percent and 4.46 percent - when those would be increases of more than 76 percent and more than 98 percent, compared to the current rate.
But in Thursday’s decision, Smith said the description is accurate and not misleading.
“The description undoubtedly is intended to appeal to potential voters as well,” he said. “But the petitions directed signers that the supporters prepared the summary and to read the entire measure attached to the petition.”
Smith’s decision also examined the constitutionality of a law that requires citizen-backed initiatives to be in “strict compliance” with election laws. He wrote that the 2017 legislation creating the standard “unconstitutionally violates Arizona’s separation of powers doctrine and infringes on the people’s reserved power to legislate via initiative.”
The judge said prior to the 2017 “strict compliance” law, Arizona courts applied a “substantial compliance” standard to ballot initiatives that comes from the Arizona Constitution.
“Our Supreme Court for decades has pointed to our Constitution as the basis for substantial, not strict, compliance regarding initiatives,” he said. “Legislation cannot fundamentally change that right reserved to the people.”
Molera, who called the decision a disappointment, said in his statement the strict compliance standard ensures that initiatives are treated the same way as other referenda.
“Adopting an initiative via the ballot box is lawmaking; it should be treated as such,” he said.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.