Jaime Molera, Plaintiffs/petitioners/appellants v. Michele Reagan

Summary

The Arizona Supreme Court held that the Invest in Education Act initiative could not appear on the ballot because its petition description omitted the measure's effect on income-tax indexing and ambiguously understated the magnitude of the proposed tax increases. Both omissions concerned principal provisions and created a significant danger of confusion or unfairness under the initiative-description statute. The court therefore reversed the superior court and did not reach the remaining challenges. Chief Justice Bales and Justice Timmer, dissenting, would have affirmed the judgment allowing the initiative to proceed to the ballot because the description was at most ambiguous and the indexing issue depended on an uncertain interpretation of the proposed text.