Supreme Court Rules Against Dark Money-Fueled Ballot Initiative Gutting Election Integrity Measures

Supreme Court Rules Against Dark Money-Fueled Ballot Initiative Gutting Election Integrity Measures

By Corinne Murdock |

On Wednesday, the Arizona Supreme Court invalidated signatures of a ballot initiative seeking to overhaul the state’s election processes, making it unlikely to appear on the November ballot.

Chief Justice Robert Brutinel ruled that Arizonans For Free and Fair Elections, or the Arizona Democracy Resource Center (ADRC) Action, failed to provide a valid mailing address to receive certified mail. Brutinel remanded the case back to the Maricopa County Superior Court to determine how many signatures his order impacts.

Based on the ruling — likely to invalidate tens of thousands of signatures — and sampling rejection rates, it appears unlikely that the initiative will have enough signatures to qualify for the ballot. ADRC Action submitted over 475,000 signatures, and needs just over 237,600 to qualify. 

The Arizona Free Enterprise Club (AFEC) challenged the ballot initiative. In a statement to AZ Free News, AFEC President and Executive Director Scot Mussi asserted that the legal victory protected Arizonans from the harms of outside special interests.

“We are very pleased that the Supreme Court affirmed the lower court ruling that Arizonans for Free and Fair Elections failed to gather enough lawful signatures to qualify for the ballot,” said Mussi. “This radical initiative imported 60 different provisions from Washington, D.C. that would have increased fraud, harmed small business, and empowered special interests. They spent over $7 million trying to buy their way onto the ballot, and they failed.”

The Maricopa County Superior Court’s original ruling reduced valid signatures to about 10,000 short of qualifying for the ballot, which AFEC likened to being “on life support.”

Below are some of Arizonans for Free and Fair Elections’ proposed changes: 

  • eliminate voter ID and proof of citizenship for voter registration
  • allow same-day voter registration
  • bar election audits like the most recent one for the 2020 election
  • raise small business taxes to increase political campaign funding
  • restore private funding in election administration
  • require universal vote centers
  • extend in-person early voting through the day before Election Day
  • require a court order to rule someone too incapacitated to vote
  • implement automatic voter registration for driver’s license and state ID recipients, as well as of-age high schoolers
  • allow curbside voting
  • allow “nontraditional residential addresses” such as mile markers or “geographic or other identifying features” when registering to vote
  • restore the permanent early voting list (PEVL) 
  • restore “inactive” voters to “active” status
  • permit “signature-only” voter registration
  • allow third parties to register voters
  • reduce contribution limits

As reported previously, ADRC Action accrued over $7.6 million from a national network of Democratic dark money for this ballot initiative. Their group traces back to a national donor network called “Way to Win,” launched for the purpose of defeating Republicans in response to former President Donald Trump’s 2016 victory.

Way to Win asserted that its $110 million in funding to key states, including Arizona and Georgia, were the reason for the Democrats’ blue wave in 2020. Way to Win’s major sources of funding include George Soros’ Open Society Foundations and family, Stryker Corporation heiress Patricia Stryker, the prominent D.C. consulting firm Arabella Advisors’ Sixteen Thirty (1630) Fund, and the Tides Foundation-backed One Arizona. 

Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.

Dem Election Initiative Likely Off Ballot For Not Complying With Election Laws

Dem Election Initiative Likely Off Ballot For Not Complying With Election Laws

By Terri Jo Neff |

There is a very good chance Arizona voters will not see the proposed Arizona Fair Elections Act on their ballots in November now that a judge has kicked out tens of thousands of petition signatures. 

On Thursday, Judge Joseph Mikitish of the Maricopa County Superior Court sided with arguments from the Arizona Free Enterprise Club (AFEC) that many of the petition sheets filed by a Democratic-backed committee trying to change Arizona elections laws had, in fact, failed to comply with current election laws.

In July, the committee submitted 47,690 petition sheets containing roughly 475,000 signatures in hopes of qualifying the Arizona Fair Elections Act for the 2022 General Election ballot. At least 237,645 signatures must be deemed valid once random-sampling verification is completed by the state’s 15 county recorders.  

But AFEC filed a legal challenge which alleged more than 1,000 of the circulators who collected the signatures—representing one-half of the petitions—did so in violation of one or more of Arizona’s laws.   

Mikitish released an order late Thursday agreeing with several of the 32 specific objections put forth by AFEC. The effect of the judge’s ruling is that nearly 97,000 signatures will be knocked off, which puts the Act in jeopardy as the verification process continues. With a typically high sampling rejection rate, there will likely be too few verified signatures to move the Act to the ballot.

“Based on the random sample that is currently being conducted, we believe they will fall short of the minimum to qualify for the ballot by more than 10,000,” according to AFEC President Scot Mussi.

In his ruling, Mikitish noted that Arizona law calls for the constitutional and statutory requirements imposed on initiative efforts to “be strictly construed.” He added that strict compliance is defined in case law as “nearly perfect compliance” even if there will be “harsh consequences” due to a seemingly small “unfortunate mistake.”

The judge held a two-day evidentiary hearing on Aug. 15-16 and received dozens of written arguments from the parties on whether the numerous challenged circulators complied with state law.

AFEC contends the provision of the proposed AFFE Act will “upend” Arizona’s election administration and voter registration laws, curtail current safeguards with the initiative and referendum process, and reduce candidate contribution limits while promoting more taxpayer subsidies to certain candidates.

READ MORE ABOUT THE CHALLENGE HERE

GOP Legislator Tells All: $18 Billion Budget Will ‘Bankrupt’ State, Leadership ‘Bought’ Dems with $6 Billion

GOP Legislator Tells All: $18 Billion Budget Will ‘Bankrupt’ State, Leadership ‘Bought’ Dems with $6 Billion

By Corinne Murdock |

With one week to go before the end of the fiscal year, the Arizona legislature managed to reconcile enough differences to pass a finalized version of the budget. However, Republican legislators opposed to the historic $18 billion budget have reported that the controlling party made the budget more palatable for members across the aisle rather than those of their own party. 

Although Democratic legislators initially expressed great frustration about the budget, it appears that they may have feigned their opposition — the overwhelming majority of Democrats voted for the budget. 

State Representative Jacqueline Parker (R-Mesa) was one of the legislators that voted against the budget. In a Thursday interview with “Conservative Circus,” Parker talked openly about the backdoor proceedings that went on over the last week, claiming that GOP leadership and Governor Doug Ducey gave Democrats what they wanted at the cost of Arizonans’ best interests.

All throughout Thursday’s voting, Parker offered updates on floor proceedings. She noted the shared levity between the Republicans and Democrats as the total expenditures added up with each bill passed.

Parker also noted that the budget received near-unanimous support from Democrats — unique, since Democrats normally have opposed past Republican-majority budgets. 

Contrary to assurances from House Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Regina Cobb (R-Kingman) that the budget would enable the state to “weather the storm” of a future recession, Parker said that the budget provisions would bankrupt the state in a recession.

“Spending is colossal, there are no massive tax cuts, and it’s exceeding our actual fiscal revenues. We’re looking at, probably, future bankruptcy as a recession comes forward,” said Parker. 

Parker said that several others brought these concerns to Republican leadership prior to floor votes, but that they were ignored. The representative reported that the leaders were more interested in pleasing Democrats than with working out a conservative budget.

“Leadership essentially just said, ‘It’s easier to just go buy Democrats,’” recounted Parker. “They bought them to the tune of six billion more dollars.”

Although school choice advocates touted the universal expansion of the state’s Empowerment Account Scholarship (ESA) Program, Parker reported that Governor Doug Ducey subverted those efforts. Parker said that she and other unnamed legislators received a 2 am call warning that the ESA expansion came with a “poison pill” from the Ninth Floor. 

“Ducey has made an agreement with the Democrats that if they don’t refer the ESA bill to the ballot or challenge it in court within the 90 day period, they’re going to extend the aggregate expenditure limit forever, indefinitely,” said Parker.

Parker warned that this secret deal would lead to education expenditures that would break past the 50 percent limit and possibly take over the entire budget.

One of the contentious aspects of the budget was the expansion of homeless shelters throughout Arizona suburbs. State Representative Joseph Chaplik (R-Scottsdale), another one of the lone Republicans who opposed the budget alongside Parker, lamented that the budget policies would turn the state into another California. 

Another was the tax credits to entice the film industry to come to the state. The last similar tax credit program bled the state of millions of dollars leading up to the 2008 recession. 

Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.

Arizona Taxpayers Score A Win As New Law Reforming Income Tax Rate Is Upheld

Arizona Taxpayers Score A Win As New Law Reforming Income Tax Rate Is Upheld

By Terri Jo Neff |

In a major victory for millions of Arizonans, the Arizona Free Enterprise Club has prevailed at the Arizona Supreme Court in its attempt to protect a forecasted $1.9 billion tax cut through changes signed into law last year to change Arizona from a four rate income tax structure to a single rate.  

On Thursday, the justices ruled in favor of a lawsuit filed the AFEC and several of its members who sought to ensure two provisions of Senate Bill 1828 related to the new 2.5 percent flat rate income structure goes into effect in January 2025. SB1828 was the omnibus appropriations bill signed into law by Gov. Doug Ducey in June 2021. 

The AFEC lawsuit was in response to an effort by the Arizona Education Association sponsored Invest In Arizona to have voters overturn those two provisions in November.

But key to the AFEC’s legal arguments is the Arizona Constitution, which prohibits voter referendums of legislative actions undertaken for “the support and maintenance of the departments of state government and state institutions.” Oral arguments were held at the Arizona Supreme Court on Tuesday, during which attorneys Kory Langhofer and Thomas Basile presented AFEC’s position.

On Thursday morning, Mussi took part in an interview with KFYI’s James T. Harris about the efforts to protect the forthcoming tax cuts due to changing to a 2.5 percent flat rate. Mussi told Harris that Tuesday’s arguments at the Arizona Supreme Court  “went well” and that he was optimistic “the justices generally understood what our argument was.”

Mussi did not realize how prescient his observation was, as just a few hours later the justices released their decision siding with AFEC and rejecting the referendum attempt.

The decision under the signature of Chief Justice Robert Brutinel enjoined the Invest In Arizona referendum effort from appearing on the 2022 General Election Ballot. In addition, the decision denied Invest In Arizona’s request for attorneys’ fees.

After the Court’s decision was announced, Mussi called it “a big win for taxpayers” across the state.

“The legislature passed historic tax cuts last year that benefit all Arizona taxpayers,” he added. “It’s time for Invest in Arizona and out-of-state special interest groups to accept this reality and stop making a farce of the referendum process.”

A detailed opinion explaining the legal conclusions made by the justices to form Thursday’s decision will be released in the next few weeks.

Hear Scot Mussi, President of the Arizona Free Enterprise Club, discuss the flat tax argument at the Arizona Supreme Court

Movie Tax Credit Bill Passes House Committee

Movie Tax Credit Bill Passes House Committee

By Corinne Murdock |

A controversial bill to offer up to $150 million in tax credits to filmmakers, SB1708, passed the House Appropriations Committee on a divided vote: 8-5.

The bill reads like a promotional deal for a store: if a company spends up to $10 million, then they get 15 percent in tax credits. If they spend between $10 and $35 million, then they get $17.5 percent. And if they spend over $35 million, then they get 20 percent. Companies could get more: an additional 2.5 percent for total production labor costs associated with Arizonan employees, an additional 2.5 percent of total qualified production costs associated with filming at a qualified production facility in Arizona or primarily on location, and an additional 2.5 percent of total qualified production costs if they filmed in association with a long-term tenant of a qualified production facility.

Arizona Free Enterprise Club Vice President Aimee Yentes told the committee that the $150 million refundable tax credit was not only unwise but likely unconstitutional, directing the committee members to review the Goldwater Institute’s analysis of the bill’s potential gift clause violations. She added that this type of legislation only causes a bidding war between states that ultimately cause its residents to lose out, citing similar legislation adopted in other states and their current struggles. As for the argument that the tax credit would result in more jobs for locals, Yentes asserted that theory fails to prove itself in practice. 

“It’s a loser that produces few, shallow, low-payment, temporary jobs,” said Yentes.

Michael Scott, CEO of self-described “faith-based” film company Pure Flix responsible for movies like “Case for Christ” and the “God’s Not Dead” series, said that they spend tens of millions outside of Arizona. Scott promised they would employ many locals if they could bring filmmaking to Arizona.

Rob Gerstner, a longtime cameraman, said that this bill wouldn’t stop film companies from “sub-renting” equipment: local companies lack all the equipment necessary to film a movie, meaning that they would then need to rely on renting equipment from other states to fulfill the film company’s contract. Gerstner said that money would bleed out of Arizona because of logistical problems like that.

State Representative Jake Hoffman (R-Queen Creek) noted that pornography movies don’t qualify for the credit, but asked why works like the controversial Netflix film “Cuties” wouldn’t be scrutinized — something that would oppose certain Arizonan’s values. The bill sponsor, State Senator David Gowan (R-Sierra Vista), said that the bill would inspire the “mass good” and that the bad and good works could compete.

“I don’t know how you control all that aspect, but it certainly allows them to be here and allow them to counter that with our religious movies,” said Gowan. “You can’t control everything that’s out there, but you can certainly control the most evil.”

Hoffman said that political candidates and their campaigns could reap the tax credit reward. Gowan said that those kinds of works would fall under campaign laws, which would. Hoffman said that attorneys informed him of the opposite legal take and advised Gowan to look into that.

State Representative Gail Griffin (R-Hereford) explained that she’s never voted for a refundable tax credit. Hoffman said that he wasn’t confident political campaigns wouldn’t benefit from the bill, and cited concerns that the bill would cause a slippery slope “race to the bottom” for tax credits. State Representative Joanne Osborne (R-Goodyear) cited similar concerns. 

“At the end of the day I’m just a small mom and pop business owner; I don’t get a $150 million tax credit,” said Osborne. “This bill does set a precedent, and it’s not one I’m going to support.”

State Representative Lorenzo Sierra (D-Avondale) expressed excitement at the thought of all the film-related programs that may arise from this bill. 

Butler argued that this bill was “really scary” from the sheer amount of money being committed from the state legislature, at the potential expense of other investments. She said she wasn’t convinced that the returns would outweigh the funds given, citing that there needed to be more checks and balances like a sunset clause to keep the legislation in check. Yet, Butler voted for the bill. 

Chairman Regina Cobb (R-Kingman) said that she felt there were significant advantages and disadvantages presented by the bill, agreeing with Butler that there should be a sunset clause, and voted for the bill.

Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.