Next up, last week I referred to my Rules for Right-wingers, with #18 being "If you lose by the rules, change them." I listed a number of recent attempts by right-wingers to change the rules to shut down public opposition to their regimes.Turns out I missed one.
Arizona has seen some progressive victories lately through the use of citizen initiatives, including an increase in the minimum wage and a paid leave measure in November. So the reactionaries in control of the legislature want to make it harder for such initiatives to get on the ballot.
One measure would ban campaigns from paying petition gatherers by the signature, which would sharply increase the cost of mounting a petition campaign by removing any incentive for the gatherers to maximize the number of signatures they get. GOPpers claim this is to prevent fraud but since signatures are validated before a measure is approved for the ballot, that is obvious nonsense.
Another proposal, which could be an even bigger hurdle, is to require that for a measure to quality for the ballot, in each and every one of the state's 30 legislative districts the petitions must have signatures totalling at least 10% of the vote for governor in that district.
Finally, there is a provision in the state constitution that the legislature can't alter a voter-approved law in a way that would undermine the law's intent. The GOPpers are trying to get rid of that provision.
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