Frustrated by their state legislatures’ inaction on popular policy issues, voters across the United States are increasingly turning to a powerful tool in their democratic toolbox: citizen-initiated ballot measures. In recent years, voters have directly legislated issues ranging from the $15 minimum wage increase in Florida to tipped wage reform in Washington, D.C., and Medicaid expansion in Missouri to marijuana legalization in South Dakota.
Irritated at being circumvented in the legislative process, state legislatures are fighting back by attempting to block the measures even after voters have approved them. In recent years, legislators have increasingly mounted post-passage attacks in at least five ways:
Bipartisan Arizona cannabis bill on hold over billboard advertising near schools
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Lawmakers resort to tricks, bullying to undo Prop 208
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âNo manâs life, liberty or property are safe while the legislatureâs in session,â said either Mark Twain or newspaper editor and lawyer Gideon Tucker.
Judging by the current legislative session, he could well have been talking about voter-approved propositions or school funding bills.
The Arizona Legislature has advanced two major bills that would do an end-run around voter-approved ballot measures concerning school funding.
SB1783 could well gut Proposition 208, a voter-approved income tax surcharge on people making more than $250,000 annually to raise nearly a billion dollars annually for K-12 schools in a state with one of the worst-funded public school systems in the country.
Faced with the threat of a lawsuit, during its March 25 meeting, the Payson Town Council decided to keep two town codes that seek to implement Propositions 401 and 402, passed by the voters in 2018.
The propositions require the council to put to a vote of the people any bond or contract debt that exceeds $1 million or when the town wants to sign a lease agreement of town property that lasts longer than three years. The question of whether the council can implement these laws, or if they lack the authority, has stirred a vigorous debate across two councils and several meetings.
The propositions first went to test last September when the council purchased two fire engines that totaled $1.4 million. At that time, the council decided the town code was null and void because the Arizona Constitution did not provide the legal permission to implement the laws.