Powers of Initiative and Referendum: Keeping the Arizona Constitution's Promise of Direct Democracy The Centennial of Arizona's Constitution 44 Arizona State Law Journal 2012

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44 Ariz. St. L.J. 567 (2012)
Powers of Initiative and Referendum: Keeping the Arizona Constitution's Promise of Direct Democracy

handle is hein.journals/arzjl44 and id is 571 raw text is: THE POWERS OF INITIATIVE AND
REFERENDUM: Keeping the Arizona
Constitution's Promise of Direct Democracy
Lisa T. Hauser
I. INTRODUCTION
Of the fifty-two delegates elected to Arizona's constitutional convention,
thirty-nine were pledged to support initiative and referendum.' Thirty
promised to vote for recall.2 Their election followed a series of county-level,
party conventions to select candidates and adopt a platform. The issue of
whether to include the powers of initiative, referendum and recall in
Arizona's constitution dominated the delegate selection process.4 These
liberal, progressive, direct democracy provisions had been included in the
constitutions of Oregon and Oklahoma, but it was feared that their inclusion
in Arizona's constitution would not sit well with a conservative Congress
and President and would deprive Arizona of statehood.'
Direct democracy was a partisan issue as well. Forty-one of the fifty-two
convention delegates-and all but one of the thirty-nine committed to vote
for initiative and referendum-were Democrats. Their election was touted
as a triumph of the people over corporate interests amid popular
dissatisfaction with a territorial government thought to be controlled by the
railroads and mines. By reserving the powers of initiative, referendum, and
recall, the people could serve as a significant check on abuses by those
elected to serve in the legislative, executive and even judicial branches of
6
government.
With a super-majority of the delegates committed to vote for initiative
and referendum, their inclusion in Arizona's Constitution might have been a
foregone conclusion. In fact, the delegates eventually ratified the
*. Lisa T. Hauser is a partner with Gammage & Burnham, PLC. She dedicates this article
to the memory of her mother, Lenore M. Tewksbury.
1. JAY J. WAGONER, ARIZONA TERRITORY 1863-1912: A POLITICAL HISTORY 460 (1970).
2. Id.
3. Id. at 458.
4. Id. at 458-59.
5. Id. at 458.
6. The platform endorsed by Labor and Democrats endorsed recall as a means of
removing judges who abused their power by issuing injunctions in labor disputes. Id. at 464.