Court Opinion

ID: 9607905
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 03:03:08.212986+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:02:41.427000
License: Public Domain

EHRLICH, Judge,
specially concurring.
I concur in the majority’s ultimate disposition of this case. I also agree with its affirmance of the trial court’s rulings regarding the number of signature lines required by Ariz.Rev.Stat.Ann. (“A.R.S.”) section 19-901 and the petition-attachment requirements of section 19-121(E). I specially concur, however, because of my disagreement with the majority’s conclusion that Barry DiSimone qualified as a “political committee” under section 19-114(B).
Nothing in the record demonstrates that, when he sought the referendum information from the Carefree Town Clerk on September 6, 1994, as well as when he applied for and received the referendum serial number three days later, see A.R.S. § 19-111(A), DiSimone was acting in anything but an individual capacity.1 This is true even if he was respond*585ing to his perception that other residents of the town were like-minded in their opposition to this development. Presumably, any one who begins the daunting process of circulating a referendum petition believes that there is support for his position but to believe in such backing is not to say that a person thus is not acting in an individual capacity.2 Acting as an individual at the time of his receipt of the referendum serial number, DiSimone was not required to file the “statement of organization” form provided for.in section 19-111(C). Accordingly, the town clerk should not have rejected the petition for that reason.
Sections 19-111(A) and (C) provide:
A A person or organization intending to propose a law or constitutional amendment by initiative petition or to file a referendum petition against a measure, item, section or part of a measure shall, before causing the petition to be printed and circulated, file with the secretary of state an application, on a form provided by the secretary of state, setting forth his name or, if an organization, its name and the names and titles of its officers, address, his intention to circulate and file a petition, a description of no more than one hundred words of the principal provisions of the proposed law, constitutional amendment or measure and the text of the proposed law, constitutional amendment or measure to be initiated or referred in no less than eight point type, and applying for issuance of an official serial number. [Emphasis added.]
C. The secretary of state shall print in pamphlet form and shall furnish to each applicant, at the time the application is submitted, a copy of the text of this article governing the initiative and referendum and all rules adopted by the secretary of state pursuant to this title. In addition, the secretary of state shall at this time furnish the applicant with a statement of organization form and a notice stating: “This statement must be filed before valid signatures can be collected.” The secretary of state shall furnish a sufficient supply of these pamphlets to the county, city and town clerks who shall similarly furnish the pamphlet to each applicant.
Section 19-114(B), the enforcement mechanism for section 19-111(0, reads:
Signatures obtained on initiative and referendum petitions by a political committee proposing the initiative or referendum or any of its officers, agents, employees or members prior to the filing of the committee’s statement of organization are void and shall not be counted in determining the legal sufficiency of the petition.
Section 19-11KA) makes clear that the referendum-petition process distinguishes between individual applicants and those applying on behalf of a group or organization. Under that subsection, individual or representative applicants seeking to file a referendum petition are required to provide the same information (name, address, statement of intent to circulate a petition, and the text of the law or measure to be referred), except that a group applicant also must provide the name of the group and the names and titles of its officers.
The problem in this case arises from section 19-111(C), which does not delineate between individual and group applicants. However, a harmonious reading of sections 19-111(0 and (A) with section 19-114(B), which we are required, when possible, to do, see Achen-Gardner, Inc. v. Superior Court (City of Chandler), 173 Ariz. 48, 54, 839 P.2d 1093, 1099 (1992), necessitates an analysis of subsection (C) that also follows the individual-group dichotomy established in subsection (A).
The first and third sentences of section 19-111(C) specify that “each applicant” is to be provided, by the secretary of state or the proper local authority, a “pamphlet” containing “a copy of the text of this article governing the initiative and referendum and all *586rules adopted by the secretary of state pursuant to this title.”3 However, the second sentence, where the secretary of state is directed to “furnish the applicant with a statement of organization form and a notice stating: ‘This statement must be filed before valid signatures can be collected,’ ” conspicuously uses the term “the applicant” and not “each applicant.” Given the individual-group distinction established in section 19-11KA), I think that the better interpretation of subsection (C) is that the secretary of state is not required to provide individual referendum-petition applicants with the statement of organization.
While Van Riper herself says that subsection (C) requires that all applicants be given the statement of organization forms, she nonetheless argues that the statutory directive to distribute the form is not a directive that all applicants fill out and file the form. For this she relies upon section 19-114(B), arguing that, because that provision expressly penalizes only “political committees” which have collected petition signatures prior to filing their statement of organization, a reading of section 19—111(C) as requiring all applicants to file a statement of organization would render section 19-114(B) “redundant and futile.”
Van Riper’s reasoning is valid as far as it goes; statutes should not be interpreted in such a way as to render any word, clause or provision “superfluous, void, contradictory or insignificant.” E.g., Guzman v. Guzman, 175 Ariz. 183, 187, 854 P.2d 1169, 1173 (App.1993). However, I believe that the same reasoning confirms my reading of section 19-111(C). In light of section 19-114(B)’s singular focus on “political committees,” the second sentence of section 19-111(0) only makes sense and, thus, would not be rendered surplusage, if read as exempting individual referendum-petition applicants from receiving the statement of organization. Requiring individual petition applicants to fill out the statement of organization, marking “not applicable” to every entry except the date, or extensively crossing-out and editing the questions so that sensible answers can be entered is both absurd and wasteful, particularly given that the statement of organization in that case would add no information to that already included in the original application. E.g., Flexmaster Aluminum Awning Co., Inc. v. Hirschberg, 173 Ariz. 83, 89, 839 P.2d 1128, 1134 (App.1992) (court of appeals construes statutes in manner that gives them reasonable meaning). Reading such a hollow requirement into the statute also undermines the spirit of this state’s long-standing public policy supporting the initiative and referendum. See Ariz. Const., Art. IV, pt. 1 (1914); The Records of The Arizona Constitutional Convention of 1910 (John S. Goff, ed.), passim; John D. Leshy, The Making of the Arizona Constitution, 20 Ariz.St.L.J. 1, 63-64; Western Devcor, Inc. v. City of Scottsdale, 168 Ariz. 426, 428, 814 P.2d 767, 769 (1991).
In sum, the most logical interpretation of sections 19-111(A) and (C) and section 19-114(B) describes a process whereby an individual referendum-petition applicant is not required to receive, nor, by extension, to file a statement of organization. It is on this basis that I would reverse the trial court’s ruling that the petition was defective.

. In characterizing DiSimone as a representative of a “political committee,” the majority, as did the parties, utilizes the definition found in section 16-901(15). However, the preface to that statute makes it clear that the definitions contained therein pertain only to "this chapter.” There is no reference in Chapter 6 of Title 16 to Article 2 of Title 19, as there is no reference in A.R.S. § 19-111 et seq. to A.R.S. section 16-901. The incorporation of that definition of "political committee” into Title 19, Article 2, comes from the "Statement of Organization” form created by the Secretary of State, which refers, without statutory support, to A.R.S. section 16-902, "Organization of political committees.” Ignoring this puzzle, however, and accepting the applicability of the definition of "political committee" in section 16-901(15), when DiSimone received the referendum serial number, he was not part of “any association or combination of persons that is organized, conducted or combined for the pur*585pose of ... support of ... [a] referendum____” A.R.S. § 16-901(15) (emphasis added).

. The significance of any evolution from individual to representative action and the consequent necessity of the filing of a statement of organization at that time is not at issue here.

. No rules have been adopted.