Minimum wage hike, open primaries proposal shouldn't make AZ ballot, suits argue

Ballot measures intended to raise Arizona's minimum wage and eliminate partisan primary elections shouldn't be allowed on November's ballot, three separate lawsuits filed Friday allege.

One Fair Wage, the group pushing a planned ballot measure to raise the minimum wage in Arizona, didn't properly fill out its petitions and turned in numerous invalid signatures, a lawsuit by the Arizona Restaurant Association claims.

The 13-page suit filed Friday against the Raise the Wage AZ measure details eight alleged problems among the collected signatures and the paperwork associated with them. The group estimated it submitted 354,278 valid voter signatures — more than the 255,949 needed to qualify to appear on November's ballot.

One Fair Wage President Saru Jayaraman said in a statement the complaint was "the latest desperate tactic from a deep-pocketed special interest group to thwart the will of Arizona voters."

"We’re prepared to challenge this and any other anti-democratic trick they try to use to continue suppressing wages for thousands of tipped service workers across the state,” she said.

Also on Friday, the conservative Arizona Free Enterprise Club filed a lawsuit against the Make Elections Fair Act that attacks the constitutionality of the proposed measure. And a group of Democratic lawyers filed an additional lawsuit against the proposed elections act challenging its signatures.

Supporters of the proposed open primary measure turned in petitions with 584,124 valid voter signatures this month, well over the 383,923-signature threshold it needed to make November's ballot as a constitutional amendment.

“In their rush to undermine the will of Arizona voters for future elections, the special interests that drafted this measure ignored our laws and our Constitution,” Scot Mussi, president of the Arizona Free Enterprise Club, said in a prepared statement. “This egregious disregard for law and order exudes arrogance from these parties and should disqualify their measure from the November ballot.”

The lawsuits are among several challenges to citizen initiatives and legislative ballot referrals that opponents of the proposals have made this election cycle.

One Fair Wage held a news conference in June announcing its own lawsuit against a referral in the state Legislature that would codify a new sub-minimum wage option for employers of tipped workers. Proposals on abortion, immigration and judicial retention have also been the subject of legal action.

What do the measures propose?

If voters get the chance to approve Raise the Wage AZ in November, minimum wage workers will see their pay rise to nearly $18 an hour by 2027, then grow even more with annual cost-of-living increases. It would also eliminate Arizona's tipping credit for employers that allows them to pay workers who receive tips less than minimum wage.

Jayaraman pointed out in June the increase would still mean workers don't make a "living wage" in Arizona. According to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Living Wage calculator, workers would need $24.70 and $20.12, respectively, to support themselves in the state's two biggest counties, Maricopa and Pima.

Opponents of the measure claim it will hurt consumers in the long run and take away an option that allows workers to make more than minimum wage with tips while keeping employment costs down for employers.

A fiscal note on the proposal by the state Joint Legislature Budget Committee says it's difficult for anyone to determine how a minimum wage increase would impact the economy, but suggests it's possible to see a "decline in both employment and business activity" if businesses aren't able to pass the higher costs from the wage increase to consumers or raise productivity.

The Make Elections Fair Act would ask voters to eliminate Arizona's partisan primaries. Any voter would be able to vote in every election, a significant change from the current system in which voters of qualified parties vote only for candidates in their party.

In the July 30 primary election, independent voters must choose a partisan ballot. People registered with parties that don't have candidates, like the new No Labels party that in April quit its goal to field a presidential candidate, can't vote at all in the primary.

Lawsuit over minimum wage measure alleges sloppily completed petitions, bad signatures

Changes by lawmakers over the years to the citizens initiative process codified in the state Constitution have created a number of rules that must be met by groups who want voters to pass a new law.

The lawsuit contends many petitions the group submitted don't have proper registration numbers, don't disclose whether petition gatherers were paid, don't contain accurate dates for when petition gatherers registered to work on the campaign, contain affidavits by signature gatherers that aren't filled out correctly, and are "improperly notarized."

Problems with the signatures themselves include illegitimate or missing signature dates, duplicates and signatures by unregistered voters, the lawsuit states.

The Arizona Restaurant Association wants the allegedly bad signatures and petitions disqualified and to prevent the measure from appearing on the ballot. It also wants reimbursement of attorneys' fees.

Arizona Restaurant Association President and CEO Steve Chucri, who is named as an individual plaintiff in the lawsuit, said in a statement that the association's analysis of the petitions showed the group turned in "approximately 30,000 fewer signatures than they reported" and that "the petitions themselves are rife with errors."

"We're very confident in this case," said lawyer Kory Langhofer, one of the lawyers for Chucri and the association.

Conservatives, Democrats challenge proposed election measure

The 22-page challenge to the Make Elections Fair Act from the Arizona Free Enterprise Club alleges the measure packs in "twelve different amendments, covering not less than three separate and distinct topics of election law."

Technically, that's not allowed under the state Constitution, which decrees: "If more than one proposed amendment is submitted at any election, the proposed amendments shall be submitted in such a manner that the electors may vote for or against such proposed amendments separately."

The proposed changes would "inject never-before-seen concepts into that venerable document," the lawsuit states. Those include "granting lawmaking powers to the Secretary of State" and "creating a new breed of 'super statutes' that are not subject to ordinary amendment by subsequent legislatures, but can instead only be amended by the Legislature every six years."

As the lawsuit describes it, the act would institute open primaries, eliminate public funding for partisan primaries, and bind the ability of future lawmakers to pass a new law assigning a chosen number of candidates to advance to the general election. The act proposes the latter number be limited to two to five.

The suit alleges the act would also utilize "Rank Choice Voting" for the general election, but that's not quite accurate. The proposal suggests Rank Choice Voting could be a way to sort out how to handle a general election where there are more than two candidates. But it leaves that decision to the lawmakers, or if they decline, to the secretary of state.

Those features amount to multiple amendments of the Constitution that voters should be able to address in separate measures, according to the lawsuit.

Besides the Arizona Free Enterprise Club, an organization that raises large amounts of money for Republican candidates, the plaintiffs in that lawsuit include businesswoman Susan Garvey and John Shadegg, a former Arizona congressman.

At the same time, Democratic lawyers representing three registered voters filed a lawsuit with claims similar to those in the suit against the Raise the Wage AZ measure. It echoes the separate amendment argument, then adds in complaints on signatures, petitioner eligibility and how the campaign describes what the measure would do.

Chuck Coughlin, the political consultant running the effort, said supporters "look forward to prevailing in court."

"It is evident that our opponents, who belong to the entrenched political parties, are desperate to maintain their current power," he said. "The past several weeks have been a testament to Americans that our primary election system is broken. Our partisan primary system suppresses American freedom and shackles Arizonans to the two parties that are failing all of America today."

JP Martin, spokesperson for the Secretary of State's Office, said the signature check for Raise the Wage needs to be completed by Aug. 22.

The verification for the Make Elections Fair measure finished on Friday, he said.

The signature verification process eliminated about 28,000 signatures — leaving more than enough to qualify for the ballot, assuming it prevails on the challenges.

Reach the reporter at  [email protected] or 480-276-3237. Follow him on X @raystern.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Minimum wage, open primaries ballot measures targeted by lawsuits