Legislative Council Analyses of the Ballot Propositions Drafted: Ballot Language in Development

The Arizona Legislative Council is a 14-member statutory committee of the Legislature chaired by the President of the AZ Senate. The Legislative Council right now is a blend of 14 members of the AZ House and Senate – 8 Republicans and 6 Democrats (because Republicans are in the majority in both chambers).

That statutory committee of legislators then hires the staff who work at the Legislative Council. A person named Michael Braun is the executive director for the Legislative Council (Braun is not a legislator – he’s appointed by the members on the Legislative Council).

The staff at Leg Council’s main job is to provide a variety of nonpartisan bill drafting, research, computer and other administrative services to all of the members of both houses of the Legislature. They are the folks that provide the bill summaries during legislative session for example. They also actually draft many of the bills legislators propose (at each legislator’s direction).

Ballot Proposition Analyses

State law requires the Arizona Legislative Council to prepare ‘impartial’ analyses of ballot measures, which are then included in the publicity pamphlet that goes out to voters. Last week the Legislative Council staff finished developing draft analysis of each of the 14 Ballot Measures that will be on the fall ballot.

The 14-member Legislative Council met this week to review, edit, and approve the language developed by Leg Council staff – the language that will ultimately be included in the voter publicity pamphlet.

While some of the draft analyses prepared by the AZ Legislative Council went smoothly – there were disputes about language in certain Propositions – especially the one relating to abortion care.

You can read a bit about the drama in committee this week about whether the publicity pamphlet should use the word ‘fetus’ or ‘unborn human’ in the test in this piece by Stacey Barchinger at the Arizona Republic: Arizona for Abortion Access sues GOP-backed voter pamphlet language

After a long and somewhat contentious meeting on Monday the 14-member Leg Council body of legislators approved the language for each measure that’ll be included in the publicity pamphlet. You can see the language for each at this link: Ballot Measures 2024 Analyses. You can see in the analysis that in the end Leg Council approved using both the word fetus and unborn human (the word ‘unborn human’ appears in the first sentence).

Actual Ballot Language

The actual language for each proposition that will be on the ballot is decided by the Secretary of State in collaboration with the Attorney General.

The Secretary of State (Fontes) is supposed to prepare the ballot title and summary. Attorney General Mayes) reviews and approves the language that will actually be on the ballot to make sure it accurately reflects the measure’s intent and follows legal standards.

That actual language is still in flux (hasn’t been approved by AG Mayes yet)…  but here’s the DRAFT ballot language for a few of the propositions developed by Fontes’ team: General Election Ballot Measure Language.

For example, here’s the draft language for the harmful Proposition 134 – which for all intents and purposes would eliminate all future voter initiatives:

A “yes” vote shall have the effect of requiring an applicant wishing to place a measure on the ballot to collect a certain percentage of signatures in each of the 30 legislative districts. Signatures from 10% of the voters in each district would be required for a statewide initiative to appear on the ballot.

Signatures from 15% of the voters in each district would be required for an amendment to the Arizona Constitution to appear on the ballot. Signatures from 5% of the voters in each district would be required for a statewide referendum to appear on the ballot. If a proposed measure does not obtain the minimum percentage of signatures in any one of the 30 legislative districts, it would fail to qualify for the ballot, and would not be presented to voters.

A “no” vote shall have the effect of keeping the current constitutional language requiring only the signatures of 10% of the total number of statewide voters for an initiative, 15% of statewide voters for an amendment, and 5% of statewide voters for a referendum.

Here are links to our arguments for and against the various AZ ballot propositions (these arguments will appear in the upcoming Voter Publicity Pamphlet):

• Protect Voter Choice: Vote NO On Prop 133

• Arizona’s Voter Initiatives Under Threat: Vote NO on Prop 134

• Arizona’s Emergency Response at Risk: Vote NO on Prop 135

• Vote NO on Proposition 314 ‘Secure the Border Act’

• Protect Our Seniors: Vote NO on Proposition 315

• Vote for Access to Sexual and Reproductive Health (Yes)

• Empowering Arizona’s Moderate and Independent Voters (Yes)