The short version
Arizona’s constitution is the rulebook every other layer of government has to fit inside. The legislature, the governor, the courts, Maricopa County and the City of Scottsdale all get their powers from it, and it can be changed only with the voters’ approval. It was written in 1910, took effect with statehood on February 14, 1912, and has been amended well over a hundred times since, far more often than the U.S. Constitution.
What sets it apart is how little it trusts anyone in office. The delegates who wrote it were Progressives and populists who had watched railroads and mining companies run territorial politics, and they built in ways for ordinary voters to go around their own government.
The voters’ three tools
The initiative lets citizens write a law and put it on the ballot. A new statute needs signatures equal to 10% of the votes cast for governor in the last election; a constitutional amendment needs 15%.
The referendum lets citizens freeze a law the legislature just passed and make it face the voters. Most new laws wait 90 days after the session ends before taking effect, and a petition signed by 5% of the governor’s vote filed in that window puts the law on hold until the election.
The recall lets voters remove almost any elected official, judges included, with signatures equal to 25% of the votes cast for that office.
Why it matters locally
The same article reserves the initiative and referendum to the voters of every city, town and county, with local thresholds of 15% for an initiative and 10% for a referendum. And Article 13 lets any city of more than 3,500 people write its own charter. Scottsdale did so in 1961, and the charter guide explains the council-manager government it created.
The Voter Protection Act
For most of the state’s history, the legislature could amend or repeal a law the voters had passed. In 1998 voters closed that door with Prop 105, the Voter Protection Act. Now the legislature cannot repeal a voter-approved measure at all. It can amend one only with a three-fourths vote of each chamber, and only if the change “furthers the purpose” of the original. It cannot redirect money the voters set aside. And the governor has never been able to veto a measure the voters approved.
That is why Arizona politics is full of ballot fights: a win at the polls is close to permanent. It is also why the legislature has pushed back. In 2022 voters approved a single-subject rule for initiatives (Prop 129) and a 60% threshold for initiatives that raise taxes (Prop 132).
The plural executive
The constitution also splits the executive branch. Instead of one governor appointing a cabinet, voters separately elect the secretary of state, attorney general, treasurer, superintendent of public instruction, mine inspector and a five-member Corporation Commission to regulate utilities. Those offices can and often do belong to different parties. The statewide offices guide covers each one, and the legislature guide covers the branch that writes the statutes.
The convention of 1910
Congress passed an enabling act in 1910, and 52 elected delegates gathered at the territorial capitol in Phoenix on October 10. They chose George W. P. Hunt, a Globe merchant and territorial legislator, as president. Most delegates were Democrats allied with organized labor, and the document they adopted on December 9 reflected the Progressive program of the day: the initiative, referendum and recall; a Corporation Commission to regulate railroads and utilities; limits on child labor; and an elected executive split among many offices so no single figure could be bought. They debated but left out women’s suffrage and prohibition, partly out of fear Congress would reject the whole thing.
Voters ratified it on February 9, 1911. The sticking point in Washington was the recall of judges. President William Howard Taft, a former judge, vetoed the statehood resolution in August 1911. Arizona complied: in December 1911 voters struck judges from the recall and elected Hunt as the first governor, and Taft signed the proclamation on February 14, 1912. Scottsdale’s founder, Winfield Scott, who had served in the territorial legislature, had died in 1910 and missed it. At the first general election that November, voters put judicial recall back and, by initiative, gave women the right to vote.
Frequently amended, by design
Because the constitution goes to the voters for every change, and because citizens can propose amendments themselves, it keeps growing. Term limits, the Independent Redistricting Commission, the Voter Protection Act and the 2022 creation of a lieutenant governor all arrived as amendments. The legislature can refer amendments without the governor’s signature, so most election years bring a few.
The Scottsdale mirror
Scottsdale’s charter copies the state’s instincts. Voters approved the Preserve sales taxes in 1995 and 2004, and in 2018 a citizen initiative, Prop 420, amended the charter to require a public vote before non-preservation uses of the Preserve. In late 2024 residents gathered signatures to refer the council’s approval of Axon’s headquarters campus. But the constitution also makes the legislature supreme on matters of statewide concern, and in 2025 lawmakers passed a law that took that referendum off the ballot. The preemption guide and the voters and ballot measures guide pick up both halves of that story.