The Arizona Supreme Court on Tuesday said a Republican ballot referral that would make it a state crime for migrants to cross the southern border and empower local police officers to arrest them can go before voters in November, rejecting a claim from opponents that the sweeping proposal violates a constitutional provision limiting ballot questions to a single subject.
BY Jim Small, AZMirror
Four Latino advocacy groups had sued, arguing that the referral violates the Arizona Constitution’s single-subject requirement because it changes disparate parts of state law. Dubbed the “Secure Border Act” by GOP authors, Proposition 314 would create a new felony offense for the sale of lethal fentanyl, punish undocumented Arizonans who submit false documentation to apply for jobs or public benefits and make crossing the southern border illegally a state crime punishable with prison time.
A trial court last month rejected the argument, and the state Supreme Court unanimously upheld that ruling on Tuesday. In a brief order, the high court said that there is a “strong presumption” that anything the legislature sends to the ballot is constitutional, and the plaintiffs failed to present enough evidence to overcome that.
Republican lawmakers had inserted language into the legislation declaring that the overarching purpose was to address “harms” originating at the southern border in an attempt to combat a legal challenge on the single-subject issue.
The opponents had argued that allowing the legislature to declare that its work was constitutional by including blanket language broadly linking disparate provisions would render the state’s single-subject requirement meaningless. The requirement is designed to prevent logrolling, or binding popular proposals to unpopular ones. They said that allowing GOP lawmakers to use broad themes to defend a piece of legislation that was once five separate bills undermines that.
One of the early iterations of a bill that was later inserted into the act was vetoed by Gov. Katie Hobbs, and two others were near-identical mirrors of that failed proposal. The remaining bills that inspired provisions in the act, including the portions having to do with the sale of lethal fentanyl and legal punishments for submitting false documentation, had previously stagnated in the legislature.
But the Supreme Court disagreed, saying that it is enough that the components of Prop. 314 are “reasonably related” to the subject of the border.
“It is not necessary that the components have a free-standing relationship to each other,” Chief Justice Ann Scott Timmer wrote in the order.
Alejandra Gomez, the executive director of Living United for Change in Arizona, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, said the ruling “threatens the fundamental freedoms and civil rights of all Arizonans” by allowing Prop. 314 to advance to the November ballot. She pledged that her organization would fight to defeat it at the ballot box and knock on more than 1 million doors before Election Day to “inform and mobilize voters.”
“The motivations behind this proposition are clear: to instill fear, promote racial profiling, and enable the unchecked over-policing of Arizona’s neighborhoods,” she said in a written statement. “If Prop 314 passes, every Arizonan, regardless of where they live, will be subjected to intense scrutiny, invasive stop-and-frisk tactics, and an unprecedented level of law enforcement investigation.”
Viri Hernandez, the strategy director for Poder In Action, another of the plaintiffs, said the ruling makes clear to Arizona law enforcement agencies that “continued racial profiling is acceptable” in the state.
“And it reaffirms what communities of color have known for a long time — the justice system in Arizona was never built for our safety,” she said. “We will continue to fight for and protect our communities in the face of ongoing state violence.”
If voters approve Prop. 314, the measure is likely to remain embroiled in litigation challenging its constitutionality. That’s because it will cost money to enforce, and Arizona voters in 2004 amended the state constitution to require that any ballot measure that increases state spending must not only provide money to pay for those costs, but that money can’t come out of the state’s general operating account.
And Republicans didn’t allocate any funding to make the proposal’s requirements a reality, despite repeated warnings from law enforcement and state officials about the inevitable costs.
Link to original article: https://azmirror.com/2024/08/14/prop-314-az-supreme-court-rejects-bid-to-block-secure-border-measure/
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