Republicans who control the Arizona House and Senate are advancing a slew of measures asking the state’s voters to directly enact laws on subjects ranging from elections to immigration to making it easier to sue over citizen initiatives.

Democrats see the measures in large part as ways to get around Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs’ veto pen and advance culture war proposals such as laws aimed at transgender people or measures to stifle efforts to tackle climate change.

Sen. Priya Sundareshan, D-Tucson, said it is clear Republicans are trying to work around divided government rather than trying to enact laws that can win Hobbs’ signature.

“The large number of ballot referrals that are actually moving is a sign that they recognize that they have a Democratic governor now,” she said.

“But it’s also a sign that on some of these issues they’re not willing to negotiate and have a bipartisan solution,” Sundareshan said. “These are attempts to ram through a partisan kind of approach and take it straight to the ballot and hoping for a better outcome with voters.”

And Democrats have repeatedly pushed back on the efforts during debate, questioning why majority Republicans seem hell-bent on putting so many measures before voters.

“I don’t think it’s a great look to send to the ballot something that is only going to have votes from one political party,” Sen. Mitzi Epstein, a Tempe lawmaker who leads Senate Democrats, said during debate on one of the measures.

“I am just calling for my fellow legislators to please let’s do the work together” rather than going around Democrats and the governor to put things on the ballot.

The proposals that have passed at least one chamber so far include a ban on any climate change policies by local governments that is being promoted as a ban on Marxism and one that changes the constitution to ban auto taxes based on the number of miles driven.

There are no such taxes in Arizona. But with electric vehicles poised to become a greater share of vehicles on the road, existing gas tax revenue that pays for roads is falling and a mileage tax could be one way to replace that revenue.

Sen. J.D. Mesnard, R-Chandler, said it would be wrong to think that all the measures lawmakers are considering for November’s ballot are being proposed just because of Hobbs.

“In 2022, there were 10 measures on the ballot total, eight of them from the Legislature. And that was pre-Hobbs,” Mesnard told Capitol Media Services on Friday.

Several were constitutional amendments that required voter approval and three changed voter-approved laws and thus also needed the OK from voters.

“So, there was eight then, and this time around I would expect there to be more because there’s going to be constitutional changes which have to go to the voters,” Mesnard said.

But he did not discount the politics of all this.

“And then there’s always the potential of now that Hobbs is governor, if there’s some really good idea the Legislature thinks that people will like that the governor would veto, they would send it to the ballot,” Mesnard said.

We’d like to invite our readers to submit their civil comments on this issue. Email AZOpinions@iniusa.org.