American Forum

ARIZONA EDITORIAL FORUM

Phil Gordon

By Phil Gordon, Daniel R. Ortega and Dr. Warren H. Stewart, Sr.

As Honorary Co-Chairs of Protect Arizona’s Freedom, we proudly support equal opportunity for all Arizonans. We oppose Proposition 107, an anti-equal opportunity ballot initiative which seeks to amend Arizona’s Constitution and is brought to us by California businessman and lobbyist Ward Connerly. Proposition 107 is bad for Arizona communities and it’s bad for Arizona’s economy.

Protect Arizona’s Freedom is a coalition of Arizona businesses, faith leaders, community organizations, students and education leaders formed to defeat this destructive and deceptively-written initiative when it was first brought to Arizona and four other states in 2008.

Warren Stewart

For many years Connerly has made millions of dollars running his initiative to amend the Constitutions of several states. In state after state, the Connerly campaign has faced allegations of shady and deceptive practices in forcing his initiative on state ballots. The same happened in Arizona in 2008 when a massive volunteer effort, involving thousands of Arizonans, uncovered fraudulent and illegal signature-gathering tactics. The initiative was ultimately removed from the Arizona ballot. It also failed to qualify for the ballot in Missouri and Oklahoma in 2008, and Colorado defeated the initiative that same year.

Daniel Ortega

In 2010 though, Connerly was successful in having the Arizona Legislature do for him what he couldn’t do for himself in 2008 – put an initiative on the ballot to amend Arizona’s Constitution and end equal opportunity programs in our state.



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