GOOD TO KNOW!

Similar to the US Congress, the Arizona Legislature is made up of two houses: the Senate and the House. Thirty senators, one from each Legislative District, and 60 house representatives, two from each Legislative District, are elected every two years (in even numbered years).  

The work of a legislator is to author, sponsor, and vote on bills. If a bill is approved by both houses, it moves on to the Governor who can sign it into law or veto it.

Each Senator and Representative is elected to a two-year term. An individual can serve a maximum of four consecutive two-year terms in a house. After serving for eight consecutive years, an individual who wants to continue in the legislature can run for election in the other house or take a two-year break to run again from the same house.

The Arizona House is led by the Speaker of the House, the Senate is led by the President of the Senate. Each party in each house votes on leadership by party; i.e., the Majority and Minority Leaders. 

Legislative sessions begin on the second Monday in January and are scheduled to last 100 days. The legislature can vote to extend a session and the Governor can have the legislature return by calling a special session. 

After the 2022 election, 16 Republicans and 14 Democrats were elected to the Arizona Senate, and 31 Republicans and 29 Democrats were elected to the Arizona House. 

Observers of Arizona politics have noticed that the Democratic Party and the Republican Party occasionally censure a member of their party.

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema was censured by the Executive Board of the Arizona Democratic Party in January of 2022. The late Sen. John McCain was censured several times by the Arizona Republican Party. Both continued serving as US Senators unimpeded and the censures had virtually no impact on them.

Senators McCain and Sinema were elected by a vote of the people of Arizona. The political party with which they were affiliated had no legal means to remove them from office or otherwise impact their service as US Senators. 

This leads to the obvious question: “What are the effects of a censure?”. In short, there are few to no consequences following a censure. Censures are used by political bodies to express displeasure with an individual in their party.

Recently local legislative district party committees and county party committees have voted to censure Precinct Committeemen (PCs) and other party members. Again, these actions have little impact on the individual being censured. As in the case of US Senators, PCs are elected by a vote of the people (in their precinct). Their local party committee cannot overturn the will of the people. Some party committees have stated they will not endorse any individual they censure. 

Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) is a method of voting in which voters rank the candidates in order of their preference rather than casting a single vote for their candidate of choice. A voter’s favorite candidate would be ranked first and the least favorite candidate would be ranked last. 

Here’s how it works:

• Voters complete a ballot ranking the candidates in order of preference; e.g., if there are four candidates, the voter would rank them one through four.
• A candidate receiving a majority vote (50% + 1 vote) wins. 
• If no candidate wins a majority (50% + 1 vote) in the first round (tallying voters’ top ranked candidates), the candidate receiving the fewest first rank votes is dropped. 
• Voters who selected the dropped candidate as their first choice, have their second choice elevated and it then becomes their first choice. 
• This process continues until a candidate receives a majority of votes (50% + 1 vote). 

Additional information:

• The Arizona Legislature passed HB2552 which would have banned the use of RCV in Arizona. This bill was vetoed by Gov. Hobbs who explained the law was unnecessary. The legislature referred the RCV ban to the people who will vote on it in 2024.
• The complexity of tallying RCV ballots requires the use of a computerized tally system. 
• A candidate who is leading after the first choices are counted can lose the election. 
• A study by the MIT elections lab found that RCV produced reduced voter confidence and satisfaction. In addition, voters found RCV to be more difficult than traditional voting. https://electionlab.mit.edu/articles/effect-ranked-choice-voting-maine

Let’s give RCV a try. Using RCV, rate your soft drinks 1-6 here.

Enables voters to enact laws without approval of the legislature or governor.

Overview of initiative process:

• Filing with the Secretary of State 
• Collecting voters’ signatures on petitions. 
• Number of required voter signatures = 10% of Arizona voters
• 15% for amendment to constitution
• Completed petitions are due to the Secretary of State four months before next General Election
• The measure is then placed on the ballot.

https://azsos.gov/elections/ballot-measures/initiative-referendum-recall/initiatives

Arizona political parties select their presidential candidates with a special election called the “Presidential Preference Election” or “PPE”. 

Here are some facts about the PPE:

• The 2024 PPE is on March 19, 2024.
• Unlike Arizona’s Primary elections, only members of the candidates’ political party are permitted to vote in the PPE (e.g, Only Democrats can vote in the Democratic PPE.).
• The PPE for a party is often cancelled if the current president is a member of that party and is running for a second term (e.g., There was no Republican PPE in 2020 because Donald Trump was President and running for re-election.). 
• Similarly, it’s a Democratic PPE is unlikely to occur in 2024.

Arizona voters can recall any public officer.

Overview of recall process:

• Filing a recall statement with the Secretary of State
• Collecting voters’ signatures on petitions 
• The minimum number of signatures is 25% of the total number of votes cast for all candidates for the office. 
• Petitions must be returned to the Secretary of State within 120 days.

Waiting Period

• An elected official must have served six months in office before a recall can begin. 
• State legislators are an exception, a recall campaign for a legislator can begin five days after the first legislative session of their term begins. 

Reference 

https://azsos.gov/elections/ballot-measures/initiative-referendum-recall/recall

A Precinct Committeeman (PC) is an elected neighborhood representative of a political party; in other words, PCs are the party’s “grassroots”. Arizona uses the official title “Precinct Committeeman” for both men and women.

PCs serve voters of their party living within their voting precinct. The role of a PC as specified by Arizona Revised Statutes (ARS) is to assist voters with voter registration and in getting to their polling place. The general expectation of the party is that PCs will establish a working relationship with their voters and provide information on the party’s candidates and issues.

ARS specifies the formula used to establish a quota of PCs for a precinct. You might have noticed that PCs do not always appear on your ballot. This occurs when the number of people running for PC is less than the PC quota for the precinct. When a precinct has fewer PCs than the precinct quota, PCs can be appointed after the election upon approval of the County Board of Supervisors.  

Winning an election is a numbers game; i.e., the candidate receiving a majority of votes wins. In other words, politics is a game of addition. A successful candidate or political party seeks to add voters to their side; losing supporters makes winning elections less likely.

Against this logic, some party committees have begun limiting their members and candidates to those who meet their select criteria. They censure and rebuke candidates and elected officials who don’t meet their standards. This results in subtracting supporters instead of adding them. 

Voters belonging to a political party share a set of core values, they generally agree on 80-90% of the issues. Positions on the other 10-20% of issues, where party voters disagree, form the criteria sometimes used to exclude party committee members and candidates.

Political party representatives often have different positions on these divisive issues than the general public. In fact, these positions often entice people to become politically active which can result in parties putting forth polarizing candidates who are unlikely to win elections. 

A winning strategy for political parties is to embrace a “big tent” philosophy and welcome all party representatives, candidates, and voters who agree with most of the party’s positions. Realistically that’s how we lead our lives. Very few married couples agree 100% of the time. Why would we expect perfect agreement in politics?