PHOENIX — In a blow to groups trying to get voter-driven initiatives on the ballot, the Arizona Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that a law criminalizing per-signature payment is constitutional.
The seven-member panel unanimously agreed the 2017 law does not violate the First Amendment rights of petition circulators, reversing an Arizona Court of Appeals opinion. The court determined the law was not broadly restrictive.
"The statute forbids only per-signature compensation, leaving other productivity-based compensation intact," Justice Clint Bolick wrote. “Our clarification also means that the statute is not vague on its face.”
The case was brought by Petition Partners, the state's largest signature gathering firm. In 2020, then-Attorney General Mark Brnovich, a Republican, slapped the company with 50 misdemeanor criminal counts for its bonus programs that paid people for each signature collected for Proposition 208, a tax on incomes over $250,000.
Petition Partners faced up to $5 million in fines. The company denied wrongdoing.
The appeals court ruled the law has a chilling effect on free speech rights of people trying to get proposed laws on the ballot.
The Arizona Supreme Court ruled in 2020 that some of the bonus programs the company used ran afoul of the 2017 law. However, the court's ruling did not touch on the measure's constitutionality.
The ban on per-signature payments is one of several restrictions on petition collectors enacted by the Republican-controlled Legislature after liberal groups used the citizen initiative process to make changes lawmakers opposed, including an increase in the minimum wage.
