Monday, March 6, 2023

Request to Speak about bills making a mockery of democracy #2

GOP is making a mockery of our democracy 

This week, the Arizona House and Senate considered a whole bunch of bills on the floor, most of which advanced from one house to the other. Among them were numerous bills that are significant attacks on both voting rights and direct democracy via the citizen initiative and referendum process. Please, weigh in on these bills before they go to a vote at their respective committees.

Republican lawmakers are refusing to hear Democrat-introduced bills unless 16+ Republicans sign on, essentially requiring a supermajority to pass legislation. This means that just a few Republicans can control whether legislation moves forward or not, even if it has bipartisan support from a majority of lawmakers. The rule is just another anti-democratic tactic the GOP is using in their power grab, because they know they aren’t truly representing the people of Arizona.

Since most Democratic bills aren’t even getting heard in committee in our current state legislature, it is important to protect our ability to propose bills through citizens’ initiative. The GOP is attempting to make that as difficult as possible. Please, use the Request to Speak system to speak out about this bill...

  • SCR1015 initiative; referendum; signatures; legislative districts (Mesnard: Bennett, Kaiser, et al.) refers to the ballot a proposed constitutional amendment that would require a proportionate percentage of petition signatures from each legislative district to put a measure on the ballot. This would be extremely difficult and expensive.* OPPOSE

Sign in on RTS here::  https://apps.azleg.gov/account/signon


Directions for navigating the RTS system here:

http://desktopactivisttucson.blogspot.com/2018/03/request-to-speak-time.html


Wednesday, March 8th

Senate Committee on Government at 9:30 AM

  • HB2373 permits; automated permitting platform (Biasiucci: Contreras, L. Hernandez, et al.) allows for online solar permit compliance and removes requirement for a diagram. SUPPORT
    NOTE    : I also sent this out in the previous call to action, so if you may have already weighed in on it. But it was the one good bill, so I thought it was worth sharing again. 

House Committee on Municipal Oversight and Elections at 2:00 PM

  • SB1066 election mailings; third-party disclosures (Kavanagh) requires any nongovernmental entity that mails an official election-related document to include the disclosure not from a government agency on the outside of the envelope. OPPOSE
  • SB1095 early ballot envelope; notice (Carroll: Gowan: Livingston) requires an early ballot envelope to include a statement that says the election will be delayed if you return your ballot after the Friday before the election, which could discourage people returning early ballots. OPPOSE 
  • SB1141 early ballot drop off; identification (Hoffman: Borrelli, Farnsworth, et al.) requires additional voter ID to drop off an early ballot. This is unnecessary as they already have the signature verification. OPPOSE
  • SB1144 electronic ballot adjudication; prohibition (Hoffman: Borrelli, Farnsworth, et al.) prohibits the county board of supervisors from using an electronic vote adjudication system and requires, for a ballot that is damaged or defective and cannot be properly counted by the automatic tabulating equipment, a true duplicate copy of the damaged or defective ballot to be made by hand. This looks like another “solution” in search of a problem and will just make life more difficult for election workers – and introduce more opportunities for human error.  OPPOSE
  • SB1213 legislative council; procedures manual (NOW: legislative audit committee; procedures manual) (Kern: Kolodin) requires the Secretary of State's official instructions and procedures manual to be submitted to the Joint Legislative Audit Committee, in addition to the Governor and Attorney General, for review and approval prior to issuance. OPPOSE
  • SB1565 ballot processing; electronic adjudication; limitation (Carroll: Bennett, Gowan, et al.) prohibits the use of machines, devices, firmware or software that contain artificial intelligence or learning hardware, firmware or software for an election. Why? OPPOSE
  • SCR1015 initiative; referendum; signatures; legislative districts (Mesnard: Bennett, Kaiser, et al.) refers to the ballot a proposed constitutional amendment that would require a proportionate percentage of petition signatures from each legislative district to put a measure on the ballot. This would be extremely difficult and expensive.* OPPOSE

House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure at 2:00 PM
Members of the public may access a livestream of the meeting here.

  • SB1312 vehicle mileage; tracking; tax; prohibitions (Hoffman) prohibits the state or any political subdivisions from developing land use or transportation plans that include vehicle miles traveled reductions, prohibits VMT tracking, and prohibits any per mile fees. This last item is being looked at as an alternative to the gas tax. This bill also runs counter to state implementation plans for reducing pollution. OPPOSE
  • SB1313 general plan; transportation; independent study (Hoffman) prohibits general plans from including policies or projects that reduce vehicle traffic and removes element from the general plan regarding multimodal transportation. OPPOSE

Thursday, March 9th

Senate Committee on Natural Resources, Energy, and Water at 9:00 AM

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