PHOENIX (AP) - Backers of voter initiatives must collect qualifying signatures in person even during a pandemic because the Arizona Constitution clearly requires it, the state Supreme Court said Friday.
The ruling explained why the seven-member court in May rejected an emergency appeal from backers of four initiatives seeking to allow them to use the electronic signature system that candidates for office can use.
The decision rested on a section of the constitution that lays out how Arizonans can bypass the Legislature and write their own laws. To do that, backers must collect a certain number of signatures from voters. But the constitution clearly says initiative petitions must be signed in person in front of the circulator, Justice Andrew Gould wrote.
Gould said the decision upholds the right of the initiative, and more importantly the court’s standing as an impartial arbiter of the law, even in times of crisis.
“The people of this state look to us to uphold the law, and we must act consistently with that imperative,” Gould wrote.
Setting aside what is completely clear in the constitution just once would open the door to other efforts the next time there is a crisis, he wrote, which would create long-term damage.
“Applying a rule of necessity here, we would justify setting aside other laws and constitutional protections whenever a crisis or emergency arises,” Gould wrote.
Vice Chief Justice Ann Scott Timmer was the sole dissenter. She would have allowed initiative backers to collect signatures online, saying executive orders imposed by Gov. Doug Ducey to slow the spread of the coronavirus impinged on the people’s voting and association rights under the U.S. Constitution.
“Although Arizona is not required to grant people the right to enact laws through the initiative process, having done so, it does not have free rein in regulating that right,” Timmer wrote.
Later in her dissent, she added: “The current pandemic has deeply impacted Arizonans’ health, employment, schooling, mobility, social connections, and finances. I’m saddened to add infringement of our “most precious” voting and associational rights to that list.”
Backers of four initiatives asked the high court in April to let them gather qualifying signatures online because the state was under a stay at home order and other restrictions during the coronavirus outbreak.
They argued that the requirement for just initiative backers to collect signatures in person violated the state and federal constitutions.
The four initiatives would legalize marijuana, provide new school revenue by raising taxes on high-earning Arizonans, limit school vouchers and implement criminal justice reform.
Backers of the school voucher initiative stopped their efforts after the high court rejected the move in May, but the other three continued to gather signatures and all eventually collected enough to file.
A secretary of state review of the criminal justice reform measure’s signatures turned up too few for it to qualify, and just two made the November ballot.
The Invest in Education Act will be called Proposition 208. while the recreational marijuana legalization initiative will be Proposition 207.
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