At the same time Arizona Governor Doug Ducey signed a law pushed by bureaucrats to impede citizen’s participation in governance, the residents of Oro Valley and South Tucson were embroiled in various referendum and recall efforts. While the legislation, HB2407, was supposedly to make it difficult to “overrule the results of determinations made by representatives of the people,” it did little to protect those representatives or their constituents from less-than-honest petitioners.
HB2407, which now requires judges to throw out citizen-sponsored initiative, referendum and recall petitions if there are technical flaws in the paperwork, lays out in great detail the clerical procedures for recall campaigns to follow. It is silent as to what can and cannot be claimed about the subject of a recall.
In other words, the new law uses minor clerical errors as a reason to reject recall and referendum petitions which contain voters’ signatures, but fails to ensure the validity of statements so that voters are not tricked into signing petitions based on false or otherwise questionable claims.
Case in point – the absence of an in-office serial number on the referendum petitions being circulated by the residents of Oro Valley was used by the Oro Valley Town Clerk as the basis to disqualify over 3000 signatures. The Arizona Supreme Court let stand a decision by the Court of Appeals that allowed the Oro Valley Town Clerk to reject the petitions.
Oro Valley Councilman, Mike Zinkin, who stood firmly with the residents said later that the “intent of the People was clear….the “letter of the law” did not allow for that intent to be realized.”
Yet on the other hand, in the case of South Tucson Mayor Paul Diaz, because residents were asked to sign petitions which included only rumor and innuendo, their intent cannot be fully ascertained. What is known, is that their decision was baseless if they relied soley on the information provided on the petition.
Diaz was recalled earlier this month based on the claims that he “joined the City Manager and gave the green light to Pasadera, a mental health and drug abuse service provider to convert the children’s home to another agency that will worsen the city severe homeless prostitution and drug addiction problems. He did this without approval from the City Council and without informing the community which will be severely affected Pasadera comes in.”
Contrary to what the recall proponents might have believed, Diaz had no right to restrict Pasedera from proposing a use for their own property. As the proposal wound its way through the permitting process, as prescribed by City ordinance, Pasadera was in fact prohibited from the using their property for the purposes to which recall supporters objected.
As it stands, our laws allow nearly anyone, to claim anything to remove an elected official from office. It is solely up to the recall group whether to make sound arguments based on real damages, or spew accusations based on speculations.
Legislators tried to clear up the requirements of recall, referendum, and initiative this year, and years before. While the rules are less muddy; what is crystal clear is that voters need to become informed and proactive. As one longtime political activist tells the attendees of his presentations “do not rely on campaign rhetoric” whether it is on a petition or in a mailer. “Votes matter; look at the record and then decide. Voters need to become aware that signing a petition is not an act without consequence. They matter or people wouldn’t be so eager for you to sign them.”
Many have called for a complete overhaul of the referendum, initiative, and recalls laws. Until then, it is incumbent on voters to act.
The residents of Oro Valley did just that. As a result of the Town’s decision to toss their referendum petitions on a technicality, three members of the Oro Valley Town Council face recall. Vice-Mayor Lou Waters, and Council members Mary Snider, Joe Hornat now face recall after thousands of residents signed the carefully crafted recall petitions. Those petitions are expected to be approved by the Pima County Recorder soon, and recall petitions are also being circulated against Mayor Satish Hiremath.
In their recall effort, OVCOG (Oro Valley Citizens for Open Government) cited specific votes by Council members which resulted in encumbrances for residents. They wrote in part, “Waters failed in his duties to Oro Valley citizens as a Town Council Member when he voted to purchase the El Conquistador Country Club Golf and Tennis facilities without public approval or input…. He voted along with Mayor Hiremath for the Council to pass a 0.5% sales tax increase without a sunset clause to supplement the cost involved to operate the golf courses…”
All true statements and all votes cited in those statements reflected action actually taken by the Town.