Arizona voters will decide Nov. 3 whether cities and state agencies can keep using cameras to ticket speeders and red-light runners.
How it would work
Proposition 319, referred to the ballot by the Legislature as Senate Concurrent Resolution 1004, would stop any local authority or state agency from running a photo enforcement system unless it signed a contract before Dec. 31, 2026, according to the Legislative Council's ballot analysis.
Places that already have a contract would not get to keep it indefinitely. Each would have to put its program before voters at the next general election, which FOX 10 reports would be 2028. If voters say no, the cameras must stop within 90 days.
If they say yes, the program can run for 10 years before another vote is required. State law already keeps photo enforcement off highways, FOX 10 notes.
A no vote leaves the current rules in place.
The case for
Republican state Sen. Wendy Rogers sponsored the measure. She told KTAR she objects to drivers being photographed at intersections, compared the cameras to license plate readers on privacy grounds, and called the fines "a cash cow" for cities. Kristin Baumgartner, who chairs the Yavapai County Republican Party, told FOX 10 the cameras amount to surveillance of drivers who have done nothing wrong.
Part of the money from photo enforcement fines flows to the Citizens Clean Elections Fund, which helps pay for participating candidates' campaigns, so the measure would shrink that fund, KTAR reported. Rogers said she supports that effect. Democrats in Legislative District 3 have called the measure a back-door attempt to defund the Clean Elections Commission.
