Your Oath Requires a No Vote on HB2873

HB2873 is unacceptable. It would change Arizona law to allow a referendum petition to be withdrawn at any time, for any reason, with no explanation required and no consent from the people who signed it. In practice, whoever submitted the petition could be intimidated or bought off to withdraw it after it was filed. This is a strike-everything amendment, a maneuver that guts an existing bill's entire content and replaces it with something unrelated, keeping the bill number and its already-completed committee approvals. Arizona's Constitution explicitly reserves the referendum power to the people as one of their direct democracy rights, independent of the legislature. The constitution requires that referendum measures be referred to voters when sufficient signatures are filed. Period. Marana residents gathered nearly 6,000 signatures, double the requirement, to put a data center rezoning to a public vote. This bill would have allowed whoever filed those petitions to pull them back over the heads of every person who signed. This bill attempts to override the Constitution with a statute. It is a setup for litigation that the public would have to pay for. Any referendum, on any issue, in any Arizona city or town, would become vulnerable until the courts threw it out. A developer with a lawyer and a checkbook could pressure the petition committee. The committee could withdraw. The signers would have no recourse. The referendum would disappear. We are tired of your voter suppression games. This bill hands a veto over public will to whoever has enough money or leverage to get to the petition committee first. As an elected representative, your oath requires you to support the Constitution and laws of the state of Arizona and to faithfully and impartially discharge the duties of your office. This bill is incompatible with that oath. It is your responsibility to VOTE NO on HB2873.