Last week, the Arizona Free Enterprise Club filed a lawsuit in Maricopa County Superior Court against the Make Elections Fair Arizona Act alleging that “it contains multiple separate constitutional amendments in violation of the Arizona Constitution.”
Joining the Arizona Free Enterprise Club as plaintiffs are qualified electors Susan Garvey, Kathleen Liles, and John Shadegg.
In Arizona Free Enterprise Club v. State of Arizona, the organization requests the court to find this initiative in violation of the Arizona Constitution and to prohibit Secretary of State Adrian Fontes from including the initiative on the November General Election ballot.
The Arizona Free Enterprise Club believes that if the measure is placed on the ballot and approved by voters, the Make Elections Fair Arizona Act would “radically change how Arizonans select and approve candidates for public office, essentially copying the California voting system.”
As the Arizona Free Enterprise Club highlights, the Arizona Constitution’s “Separate Amendment Rule” prohibits multiple constitutional amendments from being combined into a single ballot measure. The Make Elections Fair Arizona Act contains twelve different amendments, covering not less than three separate and distinct topics of election law, amending four different sections of the Arizona Constitution, and creating an entirely new section of the Arizona Constitution.
“In their rush to undermine the will of Arizona voters for future elections, the special interests that drafted this measure ignored our laws and our Constitution,” said Scot Mussi, President of the Arizona Free Enterprise Club. “This egregious disregard for law and order exudes arrogance from these parties and should disqualify their measure from the November ballot.”
In the brief before the court, the Arizona Free Enterprise Club alleges that this initiative contains multiple express amendments of Arizona’s primary and general election systems, that it implicitly amends multiple additional sections of the state constitution, that the official title acknowledges the initiative contains multiple amendments, that its drafters previously acknowledged the inclusion of multiple constitutional amendments covering distinct topics, that its “purpose and intent” section illustrates the separate and distinct nature of its amendments, and that the drafter’s own website acknowledges the initiative includes multiple amendments.
