By Howard Fischer | Capitol Media Services via Arizona Capitol Time
Secretary of State Katie Hobbs is urging a federal judge to throw out a challenge to a law that could make it more difficult for groups to put initiatives on the ballot.
In new legal filings, attorneys for Hobbs are defending a 2014 law which says that if petition circulators do not show up in court then all the signatures they gathered will not be counted, regardless of whether it turns out they actually were valid. Hobbs said the law serves a legitimate state purpose and does not unduly burden the right to circulate petitions or to vote.
Hobbs also brushed aside arguments that the law violates the First Amendment by making it less likely that initiatives will qualify for the ballot.
“The First Amendment does not mandate that ballot access be easy,” wrote Assistant Attorney General Joseph La Rue who is defending her and her office.
“There is no first Amendment right to place an initiative on the ballot,” he argued in the new legal papers to U.S. District Court Judge Susan Bolton. “The fact that a regulation makes it less likely that initiatives will be enacted is therefore not constitutionally determinative.”
