History of Initiative & Referendum in Arizona

Laws • History
List of measures

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This article was significantly based on an article published by the Initiative & Referendum Institute and is used with their permission. Some portions of this article may have been adapted from Wikipedia, and information on the page may need to be updated.

The History of Initiative & Referendum in Arizona began when it acquired statewide initiative, referendum, and recall rights at the time of statehood in 1912. The first initiative in the state was for women's suffrage. The initiative passed by a margin of greater than two to one on November 5, 1912.

In 1914, Arizona saw a total of 15 qualified initiatives, which held the record until 2006 when 19 initiatives were passed. Four of the 1914 initiatives passed due to the efforts of organized labor. One initiative prohibited blacklisting of union members, a second established an "old age and mothers' pension," a third established a state government contract system, and a fourth limited businesses employment of non-citizens. Lastly, voters in 1914 passed an initiative that barred the governor and legislature from amending or repealing initiatives. In response to this, the state legislature tried to pass a constitutional amendment that would make it more difficult to pass initiatives. Because this amendment needed the approval of voters, the Arizona Federation of Labor waged a campaign against the measure. The amendment was defeated in 1916.

John Kromko and the initiative process in Arizona

John Kromko put forward many initiatives that led to reforms in Arizona. Kromko, like most Arizonans, is not a native; he was born near Erie, Pennsylvania, in 1940 and moved to Tucson in the mid-1960s. He was active in protests against the Vietnam War, and in the 1970s and 1980s he was elected to the lower house of the state legislature several times.

Kromko’s first petition was a referendum drive to stop a Tucson city council ordinance banning topless dancing, arguing for free speech. In 1976 Kromko was among the handful of Arizonans who, in cooperation with the People’s Lobby Western Bloc campaign, succeeded in putting on the state ballot an initiative to phase out nuclear power. The initiative lost at the polls.

Sales tax on food initiative

Once elected, Kromko set his sights on abolishing the sales tax on food. Unsuccessful in the legislature, Kromko launched a statewide initiative petition and got enough signatures to put a food tax repeal on the ballot. The legislature, faced with the initiative, acted to repeal the tax.

After the food tax victory, Kromko turned to voter registration reform. Again, the legislature was unresponsive, so he launched an initiative petition. He missed getting enough signatures in 1980, and he failed to win re-election that year.

Medicaid funding initiative

Kromko revived the voter registration campaign and turned to another cause: Medicaid funding. In 1981, Arizona was the only state without Medicaid, since the legislature had refused to appropriate money for the state's share of this federal program.

In 1982, with an initiative petition drive under way and headed for success, the legislature got the message and established a Medicaid program. Kromko and his allies on this issue, the state’s churches, were satisfied and dropped their petition drive.

Motor Voter initiative

The voter registration initiative, at the time under the leadership of Les Miller, a Phoenix attorney, and the state Democratic Party, gained ballot placement and voter approval. In the ensuing four years, this motor vehicle initiative increased by over 10 percent the proportion of Arizona’s eligible population who were registered to vote.

Freeway initiative

Kromko, re-elected to the legislature in 1982, took up his petitions again in 1983 to prevent construction of a freeway in Tucson that would have routed through several residential neighborhoods. Kromko's initiative was designed to make freeway plans subject to voter approval, but Tucson officials blocked its placement on the ballot through various legal technicalities. Kromko and neighborhood activists began a new petition drive in 1984, qualified their measure for the ballot, and won voter approval for it in November 1985.

Recent petition drive problems

In the 2008 through 2014 elections, Arizonans have attempted to place 49 initiatives and referendums on the ballot. Of those, only nine have actually been qualified for the ballot and only two have passed.

Criticisms of process

See Arizona 2006 ballot measures.

After 19 measures were proposed in 2006, legislators were worried about overuse of the initiative system. This led to legislators considering steps to limit or otherwise exert more control over the initiative process. Any attempt to alter the initiative and referendum process would require an amendment to the state constitution, and must be put forth as a referendum.

See also

• Laws governing the initiative process in Arizona