A scale and gavel
Superior Court Judge Scott Minder ruled Friday against the plaintiff's argument that House Concurrent Resolution 2060 is too broad to comply with a constitutional provision that prevents legislators from putting unconnected items into the same bill.
Jim Barton is a lawyer for plaintiffs Living United for Change in Arizona.
“So to say that we can talk about defunding the cartels in one breath, and then in the same bill, talk about whether a kid who's here without documentation can get a library card, those aren't the same topic,” Barton said. “They're not one subject. It's ridiculous to say they're one subject.”
Minder ruled all measures in the proposal are “responses to harms relating to an unsecured border,” and should be left to the voters.
“If literally anything you can come up with, basically anything they can blame on the unsecured southern border — if that's allowed to be a single subject then you don't have a single subject anymore,” he said.
Barton says plaintiffs plan to appeal the ruling to the Arizona Supreme Court.
The proposal contains numerous border-related measures, including allowing state officials to arrest and deport people who cross the border unauthorized, enhanced penalties for selling fentanyl that leads to a death, and making it a felony to apply for public benefits using false information.
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