Citizen's Initiatives or Dark Money? Protect our right to be heard. Call your legislators now!

Democracy is on the line today: the House is trying to restrict citizens' initiatives while the Senate is (yet again) going after Clean Elections.

 It's time to call our state legislators!  If you've already called, thank you. Please, call again. We can't let them take away our right to be heard and enact laws that benefit the people of Arizona. 

SB 1451: Places even more technical restrictions on the citizen's initiative process and makes it easier for special interests to invalidate entire sheets of signatures automatically or toss them out in court. Make no mistake these types of restrictions make direct democracy for Arizonans even harder and further opens the door to out of state billionaires to take over the initiative process. CONTACT YOUR REPRESENTATIVE and ask them to VOTE NO on SB 1451. 

HB 2724: The bill would create new avenues for dark money groups and other bad actors to evade enforcement by the Clean Elections Commission. On top of inviting even more dark money into Arizona, HB 2724 could jeopardize the entire scope of the Commission’s work including their voter education and outreach programs. CONTACT YOUR SENATOR and ask them to VOTE NO on HB 2724. 

-Arizona Advocacy Network and Foundation
http://www.azadvocacy.org/

 CONTACT YOUR REPS!

To find out who your Representative is, find your district here.

Use that district number to look up your Rep here.

IMMEDIATE REQUEST TO SPEAK AND PHONE ACTIONS: Stop Voter Suppression in Arizona

In this time when we are doing everything we can to fight for our water and health, we have state legislators who aren't even allowing environmental bills to be heard on the floor of the Senate.  I would really prefer to be non-partisan on this page. But the fact is that the state GOP is fighting to weaken water regulations and even our ability to vote. That is despite having a majority of only one Republican senator. We can't let them silence our voices. We need make our voices heard loud and clear with phone calls AND become part of the public record on Request to Speak. Then we need to vote them out of the majority next election. 

But they aren't making this easy for us. They have already proposed laws that make it harder to enact citizens initiatives! And currently they are pushing through bills to lessen voter participation.

If you haven't signed up for Request to Speak, please, do that now. (It takes a day or two for someone to go to the capital and sign you up.)

On Tuesday and Thursday this week there are some bad bills in committee. You can weigh in on Request to Speak anytime now or while it is being heard in those meetings.

This week at the Capitol there are some dangerous threats to voters and Clean Elections and we need your help to stop them.

TUESDAY AFTERNOON – HOUSE ELECTIONS COMMITTEE

SB 1188: Would take the ‘Permanent’ out of the Permanent Early Voting List in Arizona. This bill is sponsored by Michelle Ugenti-Rita and would take Arizona voters off of the Permanent Early Voter List (PEVL) and stop automatically mailing them their early ballots IF they do not vote in two consecutive election cycles.

Receiving a ballot in the mail makes voting more convenient and accessible. This is why about 80 percent of Arizona voters (2.9 million) receive ballots in the mail. We estimate that SB 1188 would remove at least 250,000 voters from PEVL using most recent elections data.

We’d like to invite you for a press conference at 1:15 pm on the Capitol Lawn – after which we will pack the Elections Hearing Room in the House to show legislators we will not stand for this egregious attack on voters.

THURSDAY MORNING – SENATE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE

HB 2616: Would require groups and individuals who register voters (either as a part of their job or volunteers) to return completed forms within 10 business days of completion. The penalty for violation would be a civil fine of $25 per form per day (with no max.), or a class 2 misdemeanor (4-month max. sentence) even for an accidental violation.

Across the state, Arizona saw record-breaking voter registration in 2018, especially among young people and people of color. Rather than finding ways to encourage and sustain that level of participation, HB 2616 could discourage grassroots, organic civic engagement by everyday people and voter registration activities.

HB 2724: Is yet another attack on Arizona’s Clean Elections Program being shepherded by the Arizona Free Enterprise Club. The bill would create new avenues for dark money groups and other bad actors to evade enforcement by the Clean Elections Commission.

Use the Request to Speak System, call or email your legislator or show up for a committee hearing and have your voice heard!

- Arizona Advocacy Network and Foundation

http://www.azadvocacy.org/

More Information:

Arizona House votes to create new crimes for certain voter-registration activities - Tucson.com

Urgent Request to Speak Call to Action on Clean Elections. Don't miss the next one. Sign up for Request to Speak NOW

The Arizona legislation is currently in session. One way to have a voice on the bills in our state legislator is to sign up on for the Request to Speak system. It is an opportunity to weigh in on bad (and good) bills that are currently being heard in committee. You can give a thumb's up or down and leave a short comment that becomes a part of public record. While we were at Environmental Day at the Capitol, we were urged to submit comments because the committee members actually read them and they make a difference.

Sustainable Tucson's advocacy group will receive Request to Speak calls to action. You can also find them on Sierra Club's legislative reports. But you can't play if you don't sign up.

If you haven't signed up for Request to Speak, please take a minute do that now:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScdjBMoAJrjHD57GGegmdUCKAowcr93K4vQA6a7_AjyElBtrQ/viewform

Then you will be ready if the bill that we are promoting, HB2395 is heard in committee.

For those who are signed up for Request to Speak, here is a last minute call to action:

A very bad bill, HB2724, being heard in the Regulatory Affairs committee TODAY at 2 that is an attack of Clean Elections. This bill could spark costly investigations by the Governor’s regulatory agency. No other state agency suffers from this much oversight. This regulation is aimed at suppressing the voices of candidates who choose to say no to big money politics. Please, response asap on Request to Speak.

I know the app is a little wonky. But it's real easy once you've done it once. 

Easy directions:

After you sign in, click on Request to Speak in the left column. Then click on New Request. Then click on House or Senate (House in this case), then scroll down for the committee (in this case Regulatory Affairs), and put in the bill number (with no spaces between the letters and number - like this HB2724. Any period or extra spaces seems to muck it up.) Then pick thumbs up or down and indicate that you won't be speaking. (That’s for in person.)

So if you have a couple minutes, please, weigh in on HB2724. Arizonans love Clean Elections and the Citizens Initiative because these two statues allow the voters’ voices to be heard. HB2724 is a direct assault on the autonomy of the Citizens Clean Elections Commission and is the natural next step for right-wingers after the passage of the anti-Clean Elections Prop 306 in Nov.

More information on Blog for Arizona here.