Republican Arizona Governor Jan Brewer signs law to preempt voter referendum.
On February 27, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer signed a bill, HB 2196, to repeal a highly restrictive ballot access law passed in 2013. Republicans championed the 2013 bill to target both their Libertarian and Democratic opponents.
The 2013 bill included a provision making it almost impossible for a member of a ballot-qualified third party to get on his or her party’s primary ballot or to nominate anyone by write-in vote. It also included provisions aimed at depressing Democratic voter turnout.
The 2014 action by the legislature and governor to repeal the 2013 bill was motivated by the success of a referendum petition last fall, which called for repeal of the bill. It had qualified for the ballot this November.
It appears the Republican-dominated legislature and governor believed that voters would have passed the referendum, thus repealing the law anyway. So they chose to cancel the popular vote.
The Democratic Party strongly opposed the 2013 bill and provided the bulk of the signatures for the referendum. The Libertarian Party played a leading role, providing spokespersons for the referendum.
This was the second major attempt by Arizona Republicans in the last two years to keep Libertarians off the ballot. In 2012 they put an initiative, Prop 121, on the ballot which would have allowed only the candidates with the two highest vote totals in the primaries to qualify for the general election ballot, known as “top two.” Voters rejected the measure.
Reality does not have to make sense. Johnson and Downing have both left the Democratic Party for reasons known only to them. Both now claim to be “independent”. Both pimped Top Two the best they could. I even spoke to Johnson on the phone. Called the number on his filing record and he answered. He tried to convince me that I, as a Libertarian, should embrace Top Two as it would be the best shot for a Libertarian (or Green or independent) to get elected. I thanked him for his time but stated I would not support it and that I thought he was either wrong. Word on the street was that even during his days as Mayor of Phoenix he had always wanted to change the electoral scheme in Arizona. It was a personal pet project of his. After California, I’m sure he found people to help him get the ball rolling.
Arizonans killed Top Two on election night. It was fucking glorious.
“Nicholas Sarwark March 6, 2014 at 1:29 pm
Excellent job by the Libertarian Party of Arizona.”
Most of the work to repeal this bill was done by Democrats. Democrats led the referendum petition effort and provided most of the funding to the referendum campaign. Libertarians spoke out against it, but this would not have happened if not for the Democrats.
This does not mean that the Democrats a champions of fair elections or anything like that. Democrats opposed it because it was going to make it more difficult for them to have candidates on the ballot. This bill was pushed through by Republicans to benefit Republicans and screw everyone else over.
But the top two is supposed to get more moderates elected, so I guess it makes sense that a former mayor would be pushing for top two. Moderates tend to spend more money. now if we can just get top two defeated in states like Montana.
This makes NO sense. IF Johnson and Downing are now independents, they would be the LAST people to support ‘top two” ballot access.
There’s an error in this article. The Arizona GOP was not behind Prop 121 (Top Two). It was pushed by former Phoenix mayor Paul Johnson and former AZ rep Ted Downing. Both are Democrats allegedly turned independent. The GOP was actually, firmly, against Prop 121.
Excellent job by the Libertarian Party of Arizona.