Anti-Connerly forces vow to fight on

State Rep. Krysten SinemaProtect Arizona's Freedom (PAF), a group chaired by state Rep. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Phoenix) that opposes the anti-affirmative action Arizona Civil Rights Initiative, has vowed to fight on in its quest to keep the initiative off the ballot.

Sarah Luna, the group's communications manager, said that PAF plans to sort through the signatures on the ACRI petitions and look for a basis on which to challenge the proposed amendment to the Arizona constitution.

"It's a time intensive process," Luna told PolitickerAZ.com. "Depending on what we find, that'll determine what the appropriate legal action would be."

The ACRI is part of a five-state strategy devised by Ward Connerly, the California businessman and opponent of affirmative action. Connerly was the mind behind amendents in Michigan, Washington and California that prohibit state schools from making admissions choices based on factors such as race or sex, effectively eliminating affirmative action, which Connerly argues is itself a form of discrimination. Those three amendments all passed by wide margins. This year, Connerly had his sights set on five more states: Arizona, Colorado, Missouri, Oklahoma and Nebraska.

However, Connerly's plans have run into snags. Insufficient signatures forced the campaigns to withdraw in Missouri and Oklahoma, and in Colorado the group By Any Means Necessary is challenging over 53,000 signatures. BAMN believes many of them were collected by circulators who resided out of state, and that some signatories were tricked into signing. They have indicated they may challenge signatures in Nebraska as well, where the initiative campaign turned in enough, if they hold up, to qualify for the November ballot.

California businessman Ward ConnerlyBAMN has also filed a challenge in Arizona, but Sarah Luna says Protect Arizona's Freedom is "not part of their Arizona effort, and not affiliated at all."

However, in a statement released July 3, PAF listed the same complaints, saying they were concerned about the allegations in other states of "duplicate signatures on petitions, nonresident circulators and petition circulators with criminal backgrounds and others."

"As goes Oklahoma, Missouri & Colorado, so goes Arizona," Sinema is quoted as saying.

Max McPhail, executive director of the ACRI campaign, appeared on the J.D. Hayworth program on KFYI July 3, where he said the initiative drive turned in 334,658 signatures. He said the total demonstrated the appeal the initiative has in Arizona, and dismissed the importance of questions surrounding the circulators.

McPhail explained that the campaign used "five or six" different companies to gather signatures. "Maybe somebody slipped through the cracks," he said, but stated that none of the signature gatherers were from out of state.

He also said that if his initiative was in trouble, so were others; he claimed several campaigns used the same companies, including one for an initiative the governor backs.

One thing McPhail said is so far undisputed by groups like PAF and BAMN: "If this is in the ballot in November, it's going to pass, and it's going to pass by a wide margin," he predicted. "The only shot they have is to keep it off the ballot."