Arizona Constitution

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Arizona Constitution
Legislative Branch
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Article IV

• Article IV contains all requirements for the
  Legislative Branch
• It is broken down into 2 Parts
• Part I contains how the Initiative and Referendum
  works
• Part 2 refers to the two house of the State
  Legislature

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Article I, Part 1 Initiative and Referendum

• There are two ways that the people are involved
  in deciding laws or measures that are in use by
  the State.
• The first of these is the Initiative
• An Initiative is a law that is brought into
  existence by the people of the State
• The first part of the process is to come up with
  the overall idea and then to present it to the
  Secretary of State

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• Every Initiative shall be presented to the
  Secretary of State who will publish the petition
  and then send the person initiating the Petition
  the paperwork for signatures.
• Any petition requires 15 of the registered
  voters in each county to sign the Petition
  signifying their approval.
• In addition it requires 15 of the entire States
  registered voters
• This means that you would really need more then
  15 of the total registered Voters in each area
• Prevents places like Tempe and Phoenix from
  forcing a initiative that only they want

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• Once the Signatures are gathered they are
  returned to the Secretary of State who verifies
  5 of the Signatures.
• Once they have been Verified the Secretary will
  schedule an election and publish the initiative
  for that election
• It only takes a simple majority of all voters in
  that election to approve the Initiative for it to
  become Law
• The Governor may not Veto an Initiative nor can
  the Legislature Nullify it

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• Legislature may amend to make the Initiative
  better but it takes ¾ of all electors in the
  Legislature to approve the change and it must
  better not negate the Initiative
• In order to divert funding it must go back to the
  people after ¾ of both Houses of the Legislature
  for their approval.
• It takes a majority of the people who vote to
  approve the change
• The difference between and Initiative and a
  referendum is the Initiative comes from the
  people and the referendum comes from the
  Legislature

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Article IV, Part 2, Legislative Branch

• Section 1 Para 1 Senate House
• Senate is composed of one member elected from
  each of the 30 Legislative districts
• 30 Senators
• House is composed of 2 members elected from each
  of the 30 Legislative Districts.
• 60 Representatives

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Qualifications by House

• Senate
• 25 years of Age
• 3 years a citizen of Arizona
• US Citizen at time of Election
• Citizen of District that you are elected to serve
• House
• Same as the Senate

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Organization

• House and Senate chooses its own officers
• Speaker of the House
• President of the Senate
• Minority and majority leader
• Judge the election results
• Determine eligibility of members
• Determine its own rules and procedures
• Takes a majority of members to conduct any
  business

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Term Limits

• 4 two year terms regardless of the House before
  you must move to another house
• Must remain from the house you have hit a limit
  for own full two year term before being elected
  to the same house
• Term is two years

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Bill procedure

• All Bills must be read before the full house
  three complete times and approved each time
• Must be on different days unless deemed an
  emergency
• Final passage must be done by roll call vote of
  the Ayes and nays
• Must be presented to the Gonvernor for final
  approval of disapproval once approved by both
  Houses

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Recall of Elected Officials

• Article VIII covers removal from office of any
  elected or appointed official within the State of
  Arizona
• Unlike the US Government almost all State
  officials are subject to recall for any reason
• Recall petition takes 25 of the people who voted
  in the last General election for that office to
  sign for a recall petition
• Does not mean you had to vote in that election

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Closure

• 30 legislative districts
• 30 Senators
• 60 Representatives
• Requirements for House and Senate are the same
• 25 years old
• 3 years Arizona Resident
• Us Citizen
• Citizen of District you are serving
• Questions