My fellow Arizonans, I want your help with two initiatives for the 2006.

[SammyBlue]

I want to start a petition for the "Voter Initiative Reprisal Act."

Namely, I want this on the ballot.

If a voter passed initiative passes and any elected official in the state of Arizona votes to either void it or not fund it fully, their vote is an INSTANT resignation.

I got a burr up my ass when the Repiglicans in Phoenix told us that we didn't know what we were voting for in the Medical Marijuana Bill we passed for two straight elections and refused to implement or fund it.

I say we should have an act that states that any action that is an attempt to destroy a voter approved initiative by an elected official is an instant resignation.

Private people and NGOs can bring the passed law to court, but elected officials cannot!

Can we get this started???

On edit: The second initiative is called the "Elected Official's Certification Act," forcing all people wanting to run for office, including the ones in office to submit to the same background checks they require teachers (fingerprinting) and police officers (thorough background checks) to submit to. All those finding must be done by a non-partisan group and all finding must be disclosed publicly. As soon as someone registers as a candidate for any Arizona elected office (including Federal), they must submit to that background investigation.

This includes: Fingerprinting, criminal background, civil background, FBI warrants check, arrest record check and polygraph.

Any candidate who refuses forfeits their candidacy. Any elected official going for re-election that does not submit is ineligible from running. Officials seeking re-election must also open their office and the files to the background check.

I am getting very libertarian in my old age.

[NoodleBoy]

1. your first one would be extremely difficult to pass

I'm not even sure if that would be a good idea. Try to think of this with concerns of demagoguery in mind, where some obscure special interest groups supposedly adress an issue that the public thinks it feels strongly about but is nowhere near aware of its complexities, or the ramifications of the proposal going through (think prop 200). under your suggested proposal, dozens of elected officials who opposed 200 would be currently out of office, ranging from Napolitano, Goddard, Phoenix mayor Phil Gordon as well as other mayors, all if not most of the Phoenix City Council and numerous other city councils, and some elected members of county governments. It could even go all the way to McCain and other AZ members of Congress who were against 200 if they voted to give Arizona no federal funding for anything relating to the enforcement of Prop 200 (this wouldn't happen, State laws about elected officials can not carry over into Federal ones).

Aside from all of that, there is little power that the state legislature has beyond determining budgets, and the so-called power of the purse has been used for years as a last line of defense against growing executive powers, so denying the legislature that power would render it pretty ineffective.

Interestingly, on the flip side of this coin is an almost exact opposite bill Republicans put to the voters in almost every election, that being an attempt to strip the provision regarding putting bills up to statewide voters.

AS for your second idea, I think it's a bad one. I don't see the point in it-- in many states, it's illegal for anyone convicted of anything to run for office, and both parties have by-laws automatically excluding or giving no support for unpardoned convicted felons. As an aside, as well as it being pretty costly to put into place, there's nothing libertarian-sounding about it.