Leach v. Reagan

On July 19, 2018, eight individuals filed a lawsuit in Arizona Superior Court challenging the legal sufficiency of a constitutional amendment initiative known as the “Clean Energy for a Healthy Arizona Amendment,” which would require that electricity providers generate at least 50% of annual sales of electricity from renewable energy sources. The plaintiffs asserted that the initiative petition should not be placed on the ballot because it was circulated and submitted by an improperly registered entity that, among other things, failed to mention the California entity—Tom Steyer’s NextGen Climate Action—that the plaintiffs alleged was the actual sponsor of the initiative. The plaintiffs also contended that employment of circulators of the petition was improperly conditioned on the number of signatures obtained, that the petition lacked sufficient signatures to qualify for the ballot, and that the petition was substantively defective and circulated under false pretenses.