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Topic 6 DQ 1 At the time of the drafting of the Arizona Constitution, the Progressive Party and Movement was very influential in American politics. As such, the framers of the Arizona Constitution added specific powers to the people, such as the recall of judges. What are the pros and cons of such democratic principles being embedded in a state constitution?

There are many different kinds of empowerment and legislative freedom to be found in Arizona’s Constitution that benefit their citizens. It makes sense that like other careers people can be removed from their position. So why should it be any different with judges and other high ranking jobs. The judges where put in their position by someone and if they do something wrong or out of the bounds of their position it makes sense to have them removed. Since there is a process on how to remove or recall judges no one oversteps their reach and that the law is followed even with a judge. An example of another career that has a process to removing someone is those that work for the Union. The Union has a 3-step system before they can just fire them kind of like in baseball 3 strikes and you’re out (UFCW, 2020). In Arizona’s Constitution Article VIII part 1 section 5 it states “ No recall petition shall be circulated against any officer until he shall have held his office for a period of six months, except that it may be filed against a member of the legislature at any time after five days from the beginning of the first session after his election”(Arizona Constitution, 1910). This means that even once someone gets to position of judge that they can be removed and replaced with someone in the legislature. Another section in Article VIII states, “…laws necessary to facilitate the operation of the provisions of this article shall be enacted…”(Arizona Constitution, 1910). This section talks about how only after certain steps have been done can they enact the next step.

Like the Union Arizona’s Constitution has steps to follow with removing a judge from their position. It very wise that they have these steps stated in their constitution for if it wasn’t in there someone could find a loophole to exploit which would make the process of removing a judge easier or unattainable. Since the Arizona constitution is very detailed and direct in its writings it helps make sure that the only con to be found with them having this removal or recall power is the time it takes. Since it takes a lot of voting and conversations it takes a lot of time and someone could even find a way to draw this process out over the course of several years. Part 2 of Article VIII in section 1 and 2 they state how to impeach people in the justice system (judges). Section 2 says “no person shall be convicted without a concurrence of two-thirds of the senators elected (Arizona Constitution, 1910)”. Reaching that two-thirds takes time since there are lot of people and offices to get those votes. So, the only con I see is that fact that it takes so much time that someone could get it to draw out over time which would be bad. Since there are more pros than cons, I see nothing wrong with them having this ability and others similar to it. For having a very detailed constitution helps avoid loopholes which leads to a lot of cons. Seem like Arizona found a way to write out their constitution that benefits both those in high positions and the people.

References Arizona Constitution. (1910). Arizona Legislature. https://www.azleg.gov/const/arizona_constitution.pdf UFCW. (2020, December 1). About UFCW. The United Food &Commercial Workers International Union. https:// www.ufcw.org/about/...