From AZ Open Election.  It looks like special interest groups are trying to deny the American Independent registered voter

Arizona Open Elections Website – Be a volunteer and support this cause

more voting clout.  Bottom line?  They don’t want to see their power decrease, but it will happen anyway.

We wanted to give you a quick update about the status of the Open Elections Open Government Initiative and the hearing in Maricopa County Superior Court this morning.

The political bosses and lobbyists who oppose the measure are challenging the constitutionality of the initiative in order to prevent it from appearing on the ballot in November.  The hearing was before Judge Mark Brain who will hand down his ruling early next week.

The proceeding began with the Open Government opponents amending their complaint to add Maricopa County Supervisor Mary Rose Wilcox and Arizona State Senator Steve Gallardo to the list of politicians and lobbyists suing to protect and maintain the current system of partisan elections that has helped keep them in office.

Special thanks to our legal team from Lewis & Roca of Kim DeMarchi and Will Voit.  Kim presented concise and convincing arguments that the Open Elections/Open Government initiative is indeed constitutional. Grady Gammage and Lucia Howard, two of the many folks who played a major role in drafting the initiative, were also on hand to support our legal team.

Opponents have been working hard in their attempt to thwart the will of over 365,000 Arizonans who signed the Open Elections/Open Government initiative.  They have tried to stop this Initiative by turning to the executive and legislative branches (the Governor and Legislature) to intervene and propose a competing measure admitting it was intended to confuse voters.  Now they are turning to the judicial branch to try and prevent it from appearing on the ballot.

It seems like they are running out of branches of government in order to stop us.

We’ll keep you posted.

Tom Milton

Campaign Manager
Open Elections Open Government
(602) 697-6167
info@AzOpenGov.org