Rep. Bret Roberts / Capitol Media Services 2020
By Howard Fischer | Capitol Media Services
Republican lawmakers are moving to ask voters to throw another hurdle into their own ability to enact laws when legislators won’t act — one that apparently does not exist anywhere else in the country.
HCR 2016, approved Wednesday by the House Committee on Government and Elections on a party-line vote, would preserve the right of voters to propose their own laws and constitutional amendments. But instead of allowing approval on a simple majority, they would be enacted only if 60% of those who voted agreed.
At the heart of the proposal by Rep. Tim Dunn, R-Yuma, is his belief that the initiative process makes it too easy for special interests to go around the legislature and instead ask voters to enact laws.
“We have become a petri dish for outside money to come in and try to, with a small amount of voters, to get something passed that is very hard to get changed in the future,” he told colleagues.
Dunn said the problem is particularly acute during midterm elections — those without a presidential race on the ballot — when turnout is less. And on top of that, he said the record suggests that many people who vote for candidates at the top of the ballot do not make it all the way to the bottom where the initiatives are located.
This, he insisted, protects “the will of the voters.”
