Ruling keeps pair of issues off ballot

Arizonans will not get a chance to decide whether to raise their taxes for new transit projects.

Without comment, the state Supreme Court Tuesday upheld a trial judge's ruling that backers of the proposed sales tax hike waited too long before challenging the ruling of Secretary of State Jan Brewer that they did not submit enough valid signatures. That leaves them no legal way to pursue their contention that Brewer and county recorders erred and that Proposition 203 should be on the November ballot.

Tuesday's ruling also kills any chance of voters deciding Proposition 103, a measure to place 570,000 acres of state trust land off-limits to development. That initiative also had been pronounced short of valid signatures by Brewer.

"It's the end of the road for both propositions," said attorney Paul Eckstein, who represents both measures. He said that, based on the high court ruling, the separate lawsuit challenging Brewer's decision in the trust lands measure also was filed too late.

The ruling is a double-barreled setback for Gov. Janet Napolitano, who strongly supported both measures.

Napolitano even cut a special deal with homebuilders, agreeing to fund transit projects solely with sales taxes - and not development fees - to get them to support Proposition 203. As part of that same deal, the homebuilders agreed not to oppose the trust lands measure as they did two years ago when it died.

The governor was in Denver at the Democratic convention and did not immediately respond to requests for reaction.

Marty Shultz, treasurer of the road tax campaign, said the proposal will have to be resurrected.

"We've got explosive growth," said Shultz, an executive with Arizona Public Service. He said state population will grow from about 6.4 million now to about 12 million in 2040.

Campaign chairman David Martin predicted "impending doom on what's going to be occurring on the transportation front."

Martin has another reason to push the measure: He is president of the Arizona chapter of Associated General Contractors, whose members include companies that could benefit from new road and mass transit projects. Much of the more than $1.1 million raised for Proposition 203 has come from Associated General Contractors members.

Steve Voeller, president of the Arizona Free Enterprise Club, hailed the death of the initiative. He said the tax plan was too aggressive and would have harmed the state's economic recovery.

Central to Tuesday's ruling is how initiative petitions are verified.

Backers of the road tax submitted petitions with about 260,000 signatures.

Brewer threw out petitions with more than 21,000 names because of problems like the failure of circulators to properly notarize their own signatures. She then submitted a random sample of what remained to county recorders for verification.

But initiative supporters waited to file suit until the recorders finished their count and concluded that fewer than 139,000 signatures were valid; it takes 153,365 to propose a change in state law. That was 20 days after Brewer's initial report.

On Tuesday the high court agreed with Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Mark Aceto, who said challengers should have sued Brewer 10 days after her initial finding.

That makes it too late for road tax backers to try to restore those first 21,000 names. And without those, Eckstein said there is no chance he could get enough of those signatures disqualified by the recorders declared valid to put Proposition 203 on the ballot.

The same problem exists for Proposition 103, which, as a proposed constitutional amendment, needed 230,047 valid signatures on petitions.

Brewer tossed about 33,000 signatures even before sending the balance to counties. But initiative supporters waited until that random check by counties showed there were insufficient names remaining on petitions before filing suit, a move that also came too late.

Arizona was given about 10 million acres of land by the federal government when it became a state in 1912, with the state required to sell or lease the property for as much money as possible to generate cash flow, most of that for public schools. About 9.3 million acres remain.

Proposition 103 would have amended the state constitution to remove that sale or lease requirement for 570,000 acres. Backers said it would not hurt state education revenues because the open space would increase the desirability and value of the remaining adjacent state trust lands for developers.

The lion's share of the funding to put that measure on the ballot came from the Nature Conservancy.