By Howard Fischer |Capitol Media Services via Arizona Capitol Times
Republican lawmakers agreed Wednesday to ask voters to throw another hurdle in the path of their ability to write their own laws.
HCR 2029 would leave in place the existing number of signatures required to put a measure on the ballot. That is based on a percentage of the number of people who voted in the last gubernatorial election.
But it would add the additional burden of having to obtain signatures in each of the state’s 30 legislative districts — and in proportion to the number of gubernatorial votes in each district.
Using the 2014 election results, it takes 150,642 valid signatures on petitions to propose a statutory change, equivalent to 10 percent of those who turned out. Constitutional changes require 15 percent — 225,963 signatures — to get on the ballot.
