Post by the Scribe on Feb 1, 2023 8:50:31 GMT
AZCentral | The Arizona Republic
Arizona's MAGA legislators are terrified of Arizona's voters and it shows
www.yahoo.com/news/arizonas-maga-legislators-terrified-arizonas-210427394.html
Laurie Roberts, Arizona Republic
Mon, January 30, 2023 at 2:28 PM MST
Arizona House Speaker Rep. Ben Toma, R-Glendale, (left) and Arizona Senate President Warren Petersen (right) call for attention after Gov. Katie Hobbs gave her State of the State during the opening session of the 56th Legislature on Jan. 9, 2023, in Phoenix.
It has become increasingly clear that far-right Republican legislators … are absolutely terrified of Arizona voters.
Last week, it was a bill aimed at making it more difficult for voters to amend the state Constitution. Senate Bill 1002 asks voters to require 60% passage, rather than a simple majority, to pass a constitutional amendment.
“Too many times we’ve all seen our constitution changed, sometimes good, mainly for the bad and I would like to see that changed,” the bill’s sponsor, Sen. Anthony Kern, R-Peoria, told the Senate Elections Committee last week.
It’s not surprising that he would feel that way, given that the Republican Party's grip on state government is slipping.
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And so, we are told, after 111 years of majority rule, that a minority of voters should be able to impose their will on the rest of us.
Naturally, Kern’s bill – the latest in a years-long effort to erode our constitutional right to make laws at the ballot box – passed the Senate Elections Committee on a party-line vote.
Next up: new rules aimed at giving House and Senate leaders the power to cut off Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs at the knees. Henceforth, any Republican legislator who dares to work with the administration installed by Arizona voters in November will be wasting his or her time.
Under the new rules approved last week, Senate President Warren Petersen, R-Gilbert, and House Speaker Ben Toma, R-Peoria, must agree to any motion to change or suspend the rules, a maneuver that’s used to force a vote on a bill. So, as first pointed out by Arizona Mirror's Jim Small, if a few Republican rebels try to join with Democrats on a budget or a bill, giving them the votes needed for passage, it won’t matter.
Petersen and Toma now have the final word on everything, and democracy be damned.
That brings us to this week and House Bill 2552, barring the state from using ranked choice voting to elect our leaders. The bill was introduced on Monday by Rep. Austin Smith, R-Wittmann, and has 38 Republican co-sponsors.
The very idea of opening up our primary election system and giving every Arizona voter a voice in who will be on the November ballot apparently terrifies Republicans.
“RCB is a disaster,” Smith tweeted on Monday. “This (bill) has support from a majority of the Republican caucus in both the @azhousegop & @azsenategop. We stand united in not bringing Rank Choice Voting to Arizona. Let’s get it done!”
In the few states that use ranked choice voting, voters rank the candidates in their order of preference. If no candidate wins a majority vote in the first round of counting, the candidate with the fewest votes is dropped and the second-place votes of those who voted that candidate are then reassigned to the rest of the field. The process continues until someone wins.
In essence, it’s an automatic runoff system – one that doesn’t require another election when no one wins a majority.
Maine adopted a ranked-choice voting system in 2016. Alaska voters adopted it in 2020 and used it for the first time in 2022, electing Democrat Mary Peltola over Republicans Sarah Palin and Nick Begich for the state’s lone U.S. House seat.
Naturally, there’s a move on by Alaska conservatives to repeal ranked choice voting. Peltola is the first Alaska Democrat elected to the House since 1973.Nevada voters in November took a first step toward establishing ranked choice voting and in Arizona, there’s talk about launching an initiative drive to put the proposal on the 2024 ballot.
A group called Save Democracy Arizona is exploring the idea of how to best open up our primary elections, ditching the taxpayer-financed partisan contests that too often result in voters pining for a none-of-the-above option come November.
One of the ideas under consideration: ranked choice voting."It’s a better system that allows people to put country over party or state over party and it disempowers party influence and empowers voters," longtime political strategist Chuck Coughlin told me late last year.
The very idea has sent a chill through the ranks of Republican operatives. Last week, the Republican National Committee unanimously passed a resolution opposing ranked choice voting.
“The RNC has officially taken the position of opposing RCV and calling on the GOP at every level in every state to oppose schemes to manipulate voters,” tweeted Tyler Bowyer, Arizona’s Republican national committeeman and longtime leader of Turning Point USA.The Arizona Free Enterprise Club, the dark-money group that in 2014 ran Arizona Public Service's secret campaign to stack the Arizona Corporation Commission with friendly faces, also is horrified at the prospect of ranked choice voting.
“The supporters of this absurd process claim they want free and fair elections, but that couldn’t be further from the truth,” the group warned last week. “They want to find any way they can to manipulate our election system in their favor. Now, as national groups arrive in Arizona to push ranked-choice voting in our state, it’s up to you to decline to sign their petitions. It’s on our Republican legislature to take action to stop this system or any other similar system from being enacted in the state.”
Or, you could just put up candidates who can actually appeal to those outside the hard-right or hard-left base.That is, if the goal is to elect Arizona leaders who are actually representative of Arizona voters.
Supporters of ranked choice voting says it’s a way to dilute the strength of the Republican and Democratic base in a state where a third of the voters are now independent.
Opponents say it’s just too complicated and is designed to hamstring conservatives.
In Arizona, it would eliminate the MAGA’s chokehold on the Republican Party. Simply put, if you want to win a primary, you’d have to win over people who aren't hardcore partisans.
Thus comes Smith’s bill to try to shore up a broken system that Arizona voters, increasingly, are abandoning.
God forbid, we allow every voter a voice in who is on the November ballot.
Reach Roberts at laurie.roberts@arizonarepublic.com. Follow her on Twitter at @laurieroberts.
Support local journalism: Subscribe to azcentral.com today.
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Arizona's MAGA legislators are terrified of Arizona voters and it shows
Arizona's MAGA legislators are terrified of Arizona's voters and it shows
www.yahoo.com/news/arizonas-maga-legislators-terrified-arizonas-210427394.html
Laurie Roberts, Arizona Republic
Mon, January 30, 2023 at 2:28 PM MST
Arizona House Speaker Rep. Ben Toma, R-Glendale, (left) and Arizona Senate President Warren Petersen (right) call for attention after Gov. Katie Hobbs gave her State of the State during the opening session of the 56th Legislature on Jan. 9, 2023, in Phoenix.
It has become increasingly clear that far-right Republican legislators … are absolutely terrified of Arizona voters.
Last week, it was a bill aimed at making it more difficult for voters to amend the state Constitution. Senate Bill 1002 asks voters to require 60% passage, rather than a simple majority, to pass a constitutional amendment.
“Too many times we’ve all seen our constitution changed, sometimes good, mainly for the bad and I would like to see that changed,” the bill’s sponsor, Sen. Anthony Kern, R-Peoria, told the Senate Elections Committee last week.
It’s not surprising that he would feel that way, given that the Republican Party's grip on state government is slipping.
- ADVERTISEMENT -
And so, we are told, after 111 years of majority rule, that a minority of voters should be able to impose their will on the rest of us.
Naturally, Kern’s bill – the latest in a years-long effort to erode our constitutional right to make laws at the ballot box – passed the Senate Elections Committee on a party-line vote.
Next up: new rules aimed at giving House and Senate leaders the power to cut off Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs at the knees. Henceforth, any Republican legislator who dares to work with the administration installed by Arizona voters in November will be wasting his or her time.
Under the new rules approved last week, Senate President Warren Petersen, R-Gilbert, and House Speaker Ben Toma, R-Peoria, must agree to any motion to change or suspend the rules, a maneuver that’s used to force a vote on a bill. So, as first pointed out by Arizona Mirror's Jim Small, if a few Republican rebels try to join with Democrats on a budget or a bill, giving them the votes needed for passage, it won’t matter.
Petersen and Toma now have the final word on everything, and democracy be damned.
That brings us to this week and House Bill 2552, barring the state from using ranked choice voting to elect our leaders. The bill was introduced on Monday by Rep. Austin Smith, R-Wittmann, and has 38 Republican co-sponsors.
The very idea of opening up our primary election system and giving every Arizona voter a voice in who will be on the November ballot apparently terrifies Republicans.
“RCB is a disaster,” Smith tweeted on Monday. “This (bill) has support from a majority of the Republican caucus in both the @azhousegop & @azsenategop. We stand united in not bringing Rank Choice Voting to Arizona. Let’s get it done!”
In the few states that use ranked choice voting, voters rank the candidates in their order of preference. If no candidate wins a majority vote in the first round of counting, the candidate with the fewest votes is dropped and the second-place votes of those who voted that candidate are then reassigned to the rest of the field. The process continues until someone wins.
In essence, it’s an automatic runoff system – one that doesn’t require another election when no one wins a majority.
Maine adopted a ranked-choice voting system in 2016. Alaska voters adopted it in 2020 and used it for the first time in 2022, electing Democrat Mary Peltola over Republicans Sarah Palin and Nick Begich for the state’s lone U.S. House seat.
Naturally, there’s a move on by Alaska conservatives to repeal ranked choice voting. Peltola is the first Alaska Democrat elected to the House since 1973.Nevada voters in November took a first step toward establishing ranked choice voting and in Arizona, there’s talk about launching an initiative drive to put the proposal on the 2024 ballot.
A group called Save Democracy Arizona is exploring the idea of how to best open up our primary elections, ditching the taxpayer-financed partisan contests that too often result in voters pining for a none-of-the-above option come November.
One of the ideas under consideration: ranked choice voting."It’s a better system that allows people to put country over party or state over party and it disempowers party influence and empowers voters," longtime political strategist Chuck Coughlin told me late last year.
The very idea has sent a chill through the ranks of Republican operatives. Last week, the Republican National Committee unanimously passed a resolution opposing ranked choice voting.
“The RNC has officially taken the position of opposing RCV and calling on the GOP at every level in every state to oppose schemes to manipulate voters,” tweeted Tyler Bowyer, Arizona’s Republican national committeeman and longtime leader of Turning Point USA.The Arizona Free Enterprise Club, the dark-money group that in 2014 ran Arizona Public Service's secret campaign to stack the Arizona Corporation Commission with friendly faces, also is horrified at the prospect of ranked choice voting.
“The supporters of this absurd process claim they want free and fair elections, but that couldn’t be further from the truth,” the group warned last week. “They want to find any way they can to manipulate our election system in their favor. Now, as national groups arrive in Arizona to push ranked-choice voting in our state, it’s up to you to decline to sign their petitions. It’s on our Republican legislature to take action to stop this system or any other similar system from being enacted in the state.”
Or, you could just put up candidates who can actually appeal to those outside the hard-right or hard-left base.That is, if the goal is to elect Arizona leaders who are actually representative of Arizona voters.
Supporters of ranked choice voting says it’s a way to dilute the strength of the Republican and Democratic base in a state where a third of the voters are now independent.
Opponents say it’s just too complicated and is designed to hamstring conservatives.
In Arizona, it would eliminate the MAGA’s chokehold on the Republican Party. Simply put, if you want to win a primary, you’d have to win over people who aren't hardcore partisans.
Thus comes Smith’s bill to try to shore up a broken system that Arizona voters, increasingly, are abandoning.
God forbid, we allow every voter a voice in who is on the November ballot.
Reach Roberts at laurie.roberts@arizonarepublic.com. Follow her on Twitter at @laurieroberts.
Support local journalism: Subscribe to azcentral.com today.
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Arizona's MAGA legislators are terrified of Arizona voters and it shows