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Call to Action!!!
LD9 Democrats have been collaborating with our partner groups — Pima County Democratic Party, Project 15/30, Arizona Deserves Better, and The Arizona Ground Game (TAGG) — to collect 118,000 valid signatures on 6 different referenda and initiatives before September 6. As a practical matter, approximately 170,000 signatures are needed to assure the minimum number of valid signatures. (To read more about the different referenda, please read below)
The best chance of meeting this requirement is through door-to-door canvassing of known registered voters. Alternative activities include tabling in public locations to catch passersby. We need volunteers to help with both.
Our Project 15/30 field organizers will be organizing door-to-door canvassing starting soon — more information to come.
We need circulators! Please contact Lisa Wolfe to pick up petitions, [email protected].
Please click here to find additional opportunities for you to sign petitions and help collect signatures.
Saturday, August 14
One-stop/sign 8 petitions
Pima County Democratic Headquarters
4639 E First Street (close to Swan and Speedway)
9-11 am
Volunteers are needed to staff this event. Please contact Miranda, [email protected]
2nd Annual Petitions on the Porch
Home of Marlene and Roy Verdery (pct 56)
5322 N Via Entrada
9-11 am
Saturday, August 21
Literacy Connects
200 E Yavapai Rd.
4-7 PM
Help is needed for events in precincts 99, 164, 237, and 55. The days are variable. If you live in one of these precincts and/or are interested in helping staff an event, please contact Marlene Bluestein, [email protected]
If you can help with any of these events, please respond positively!
Democracy is Under Attack
Under the guise of responding to voter fraud (a problem that doesn’t exist), the AZ legislature passed laws to make it more difficult to vote and more expensive for counties to administer elections. They also enacted requirements for tracking ballots in a way that threatens the privacy of our votes. In response, an organization called Arizona Deserves Better was founded by a former Chair of the Navajo Democratic Party and the co-founder of Save Our Schools, who helped lead the 90-day signature-gathering efforts in 2017 to stop a law that would have further starved our schools. Arizona Deserves Better has raised money, hired lawyers, and printed petitions to refer the following bills to the ballot:
SB1485 If a voter does not vote an early ballot in all elections (primary, general and municipal) for two election cycles, county recorders will notify the voter, who then must sign and return the notice and also confirm their intent to remain on the list to receive a ballot by mail in the future. The Permanent Early Voting List (PEVL) is renamed the Active Early Voting List. For example,
Arizona voters who have voted by mail for decades would stop automatically receiving their ballots by mail if they missed voting in just one primary and one municipal election.
HB 2569 Prohibits state and county Election Departments from receiving grants to help run elections, including doing voter registration. Counties used grants in 2020 to expand drop box locations and pay for personnel beyond what tax dollars provide. Without these additional funds, drop boxes will be fewer, early voting locations will be fewer and lines will be longer.
SB 1819 This bill was rushed through budget reconciliation and contains several bad provisions. The worst require a specific type of ink and paper to be used for ballots (increasing the cost to counties) and requires barcodes and QR codes on ballots which could imperil the constitutional requirement for ballot secrecy.
Unfair Taxation Will Damage AZ Education and More
In November 2020, Arizona voters approved a surcharge on the income tax of wealthy tax payors for the purpose of supporting K-12 education. Forty-seven Republican state legislators and Governor Ducey have overturned the will of 1.7 million Arizona voters as expressed in that election by passing budget schemes like the “flat tax”. While helping their rich friends avoid paying their fair share, they are starving Arizona schools and infrastructure.
The Arizona Education Association, Stand for Children, and other coalition members are determined not to let the GOP get away with this and have filed three referenda petitions through their new coalition, Invest in Arizona. But these bills aren’t just about education: A flat tax was a disaster for Kansas which tried it in 2012 and would hurt Arizona’s infrastructure and universities as well as K-12 education. These are the bills to be referred to the voters:
SB1827 Caps tax rates at 4.5% to benefit those with incomes over $250,000 individual or $500,000 for joint filers, effectively repealing Prop 208, last year’s voter-approved 3.5% surcharge on high incomes.
SB1828 Creates a 2.5% flat tax, scrapping the current progressive rates (the failed Kansas experiment).
SB1783 Creates a loophole for small businesses to opt into to avoid last year’s voter-approved 3.5% surcharge on high incomes.
Please join your fellow LD9 Democrats and support these petition signature signing events. Please bring your neighbors, friends, family to volunteer and to sign these petitions. This may be one of the most important campaigns you have ever worked on!
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