LAW and SOLE initiatives fail to get enough signatures to get on the ballot

Some excerpts from Don Goldwater's email -

We have the final count on the two initiatives. Unfortunately neither initiative received the number of signatures required to be put on the ballot. I can't thank our volunteers enough who put forth a heroic effort to collect signatures. The stories behind our great volunteers who collected signatures despite multiple death threats, physical attacks, harassment, adverse weather conditions and lack of outside financial support are numerous and well documented. Never once did they waver and never once did they quit. It has been an honor to work side by side with the hundreds of volunteers who chose to put their state and their neighbors first and their personal lives second.

In the end some would look at this as a defeat. I refuse to over look our great victories and accomplishments and neither should anyone else.

In the beginning our initiative, Legal Arizona Workers Act (L.A.W.) was the main factor that helped pass the Fair Employment Act. Had our initiative not been in place and going strong the governor would not have signed the bill into law.

Later our initiative was used as protection and leverage against dangerous bills designed to undermine and destroy the Fair Employment Act. Had our initiative not been in place and going strong I believe these bills would have passed and the Fair Employment Act would have been gutted and destroyed. Your hard work kept those bills in committee, never to see the light of day.

Our initiative helped give business the incentive to work with Representative Pearce and Speaker Weiers to fine tune the Fair Employment Act. The changes to Russell's law make it easier to defend the law in the court system, allows business the ability to work with their county attorney to investigate and prosecute suspected illegal aliens who were employed before January 1, 2007 and fine tunes the law's language preventing misunderstanding and abuse of the law. It is a great law to start with and Arizona has you to thank for it.

Due to your efforts, new laws in over 30 states regarding illegal immigration are either on the books or in the process of becoming law. All of these laws (and future laws) use the language found in both our initiatives and the Fair Employment Act as their template. Every state now understands the destructive consequences on both sides of the illegal immigration issue and are working to craft good laws to help protect the people and businesses of their communities.

Due to your efforts, the issue of illegal immigration, once thought of as a joke carried by fanatical radicals, now will help determine the winners of national and local races.

If all this is considered a defeat then may all our defeats prove as bountiful.

Never in the history of the great State of Arizona has an initiative been successful without paid signatures. We could not use paid signature gatherers due to the lack of monetary support that was previously made available to Propositions 200, 300, et al. In addition, the fact is the opposition owned or controlled most all of the companies gathering signatures for pay.