She had no qualms about putting her name next to Ms. Sinema’s, who at 28 was the Legislature’s youngest member — as well as an openly bisexual lawmaker whom “a lot of people liked to pick on,” as Ms. Sinema put it.

The bill stipulated that the project had to be paid through private donations. On Mother’s Day, Mr. Bliss raised more than $100,000 through a benefit concert here, out of $375,000 he has raised so far. (He said there is still about $10,000 to go.)

The concert brought together some big names in both comedy and civil rights. One of them, Dick Gregory, 80, had marched alongside the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and staged hunger strikes in the name of racial equality. Another, Tom Smothers, 75, was a star of “The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour,” a top-rated show on CBS from 1967 to 1969 before it was canceled over the provocative tone of its political commentary, particularly on the Vietnam War.

The bill passed unanimously in the Arizona House and Senate in 2006, which was unusual for a legislative body that remains politically divided. It was an encouraging moment for Mr. Bliss, who said it “confirmed it was a mission worth committing to.” Since then, he has gotten a commemorative Bill of Rights display unveiled outside the Poweshiek County Courthouse in Montezuma, Iowa, and another has been approved in Everett, Wash. Mr. Bliss has also begun raising money for a monument outside the Texas Supreme Court building in Austin.