opinion

Roberts: Gov. Doug Ducey disses 91 percent of Tempe voters

In March, Tempe voters said “oh, hell no” to dark money in their city’s elections.

Now, Gov. Doug Ducey is saying “oh hell no” to Tempe voters.

The governor – who enjoyed $5.2 million in dark-money support to win election in 2014 – has signed a bill that bars cities from requiring non-profit campaign groups to disclose the source of their funding in city elections.

Never mind that nine out of 10 voters just approved Tempe’s Sunshine Ordinance.

Ducey just vetoed them. All 91 percent of them.

Ducey is a big 'dark money' defender

Ducey and the Republican-run Legislature have long opposed efforts to allow voters to know who is trying to sway their vote.

Had such a thing been allowed in 2014, voters might have figured out that five independent campaigns working to get Ducey elected all got their funding from the Charles and David Koch network of conservative/libertarian zillionaires.

Is it any wonder that Ducey has spent his term cutting taxes and diverting public money to private schools even as the state’s investment in public education remains $1 billion short of where it was a decade ago?

Is it any wonder that Ducey enthusiastically turned Arizona into a guinea pig for lab tests that aren’t accurate and self driving cars that killed a pedestrian?

And, oh yeah, ensured that dark money interests – often from outside Arizona – can remain out of the public’s view as they spend millions to influence the direction of our state?

Now, even more dark money spending

In 2016, Ducey signed a bill that will actually allow even more dark-money spending in this year’s elections.

Ducey claims that dark-money groups have a First Amendment right to spend whatever they want to get their candidates elected without anybody knowing about it. He reasons that his (or presumably anyone's) supporters would be too timid to spend money on campaigns, for fear of harassment, if their identities were known.

Never mind that at least two U.S. Supreme Court justices have rejected that as a reason for allowing secrecy in campaigns.

Justices have argued for transparancy

Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote the 2010 Citizens United decision decreeing that corporations have a First Amendment right to spend as much as they want on political campaigns. But he didn’t say they have a constitutional right to spend all that cash under the cover of darkness.

"The First Amendment protects political speech; and disclosure permits citizens and shareholders to react to the speech of corporate entities in a proper way,” Kennedy wrote. “This transparency enables the electorate to make informed decisions and give proper weight to different speakers and messages."

The late Justice Antonin Scalia, weighed in on a separate 2010 case called Doe vs. Reed, in which the court ruled that petition signers don’t generally have a First Amendment right to keep their identities secret.

“Requiring people to stand up in public for their political acts fosters civic courage, without which democracy is doomed,” Scalia wrote. “For my part, I do not look forward to a society which, thanks to the Supreme Court, campaigns anonymously … and even exercises the direct democracy of initiative and referendum hidden from public scrutiny and protected from the accountability of criticism.

“This,” he wrote, “does not resemble the Home of the Brave.”

Or, as we know it in Arizona, the House of Secrets.

Voters can override Ducey

Fortunately, there is a way to change that.

A citizen group, Outlaw Dirty Money, is now collecting signatures to put a dark money disclosure bill on the November ballot. Both Republicans and Democrats are involved in the effort. (If you’d like to help, email info@outlawdirtymoney.com or call the campaign office at 602-633-5146.)

The group has until July 5 to collect the signatures of 225,963 voters to get on the November ballot.

Look for Ducey and his dark-money pals to pull out all the stops to kill the initiative, should the group get the support needed to put it the ballot.

A governor who would reject the wishes of 90 percent of Tempe’s voters isn’t likely to care about 225,963 more.

Reach Roberts at laurie.roberts@arizonarepublic.com.

MORE FROM ROBERTS:

Tempe voters say HELL NO to dark money

Legislature protecting dark money donors (again, that is)

Time for Arizona (read: you) to stand up to dark money