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SB1267 • 2026

candidate petitions; circulators

SB1267 - candidate petitions; circulators

Budget Elections Labor Technology
Passed Legislature

This bill passed both chambers and reached final enrollment, even if later executive action is not shown here.

Sponsor
David Gowan, Frank Carroll, Janae Shamp, Thomas "T.J." Shope
Last action
2026-01-26
Official status
Senate second read
Effective date
Not listed

Plain English Breakdown

The candidate explanation included some details that were not directly supported by the provided official source material. The summary and descriptions have been adjusted to reflect only what is clearly stated in the official bill text.

Candidate Petitions and Circulators

This bill amends the requirements for candidate nomination petitions, including format specifications and circulator qualifications.

What This Bill Does

  • Specifies that nomination petitions must be on paper of a specific size with designated sections for signatures, printed names, residence addresses or descriptions, and dates.
  • Requires circulators to sign their name on each petition and provide their actual residence address or a description of where they live if no street address is available.
  • Allows non-resident circulators to register with the secretary of state before circulating petitions, ensuring they receive legal service if needed.
  • Permits electronic forms for nomination petitions as long as there's a method to verify signatures and use unique markings like bar codes or QR codes.

Who It Names or Affects

  • Candidates seeking office through nomination petitions
  • Circulators who help gather signatures on petition sheets

Terms To Know

circulator
A person who collects signatures for a candidate's nomination petition.
nomination petition
A document used to nominate candidates for public office by collecting voter signatures.

Limits and Unknowns

  • The bill does not specify the exact penalties or consequences for non-compliance with these new rules.
  • It is unclear how this legislation will be enforced and monitored in practice.

Amendments

These notes stay tied to the official amendment files and metadata from the legislature.

Plain English: Fifty-seventh Legislature Appropriations, Transportation and Technology Second Regular Session S.B.

  • Fifty-seventh Legislature Appropriations, Transportation and Technology Second Regular Session S.B.
  • 1267 COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS, TRANSPORTATION AND TECHNOLOGY SENATE AMENDMENTS TO S.B.
  • 1267 (Reference to printed bill) Strike everything after the enacting clause and insert: 1 "Section 1.
  • Subject to the requirements of article IV, part 1, 2 section 1, Constitution of Arizona, section 23-363, Arizona Revised 3 Statutes, is amended to read: 4 23-363.
  • This amendment summary is using official source text because generated interpretation was skipped for this run.

Plain English: Fifty-seventh Legislature Appropriations, Transportation and Technology Second Regular Session S.B.

  • Fifty-seventh Legislature Appropriations, Transportation and Technology Second Regular Session S.B.
  • 1267 PROPOSED SENATE AMENDMENTS TO S.B.
  • 1267 (Reference to printed bill) Strike everything after the enacting clause and insert: 1 "Section 1.
  • Subject to the requirements of article IV, part 1, 2 section 1, Constitution of Arizona, section 23-363, Arizona Revised 3 Statutes, is amended to read: 4 23-363.
  • This amendment summary is using official source text because generated interpretation was skipped for this run.

Bill History

  1. 2026-01-26 Senate

    Senate second read

  2. 2026-01-22 Senate

    Senate Rules: None

  3. 2026-01-22 Senate

    Senate Appropriations, Transportation and Technology: DPA/SE

  4. 2026-01-22 Senate

    Senate Judiciary and Elections: W/D

  5. 2026-01-22 Senate

    Senate first read

Official Summary Text

SB1267 - 572R - Senate Fact Sheet

A
RIZONA
S
TATE
S
ENATE

NICHOLAS GUSTOFF

ASSISTANT RESEARCH ANALYST

JASON THEODOROU

LEGISLATIVE RESEARCH ANALYST

REGULATORY AFFAIRS &
GOVERNMENT EFFICIENCY
COMMITTEE

Telephone: (602) 926-3171

RESEARCH
STAFF

TO:����������������� MEMBERS
OF THE SENATE

�����������������������
APPROPRIATIONS, TRANSPORTATION & TECHNOLOGY COMMITTEE

DATE:����������� February
19, 2026

SUBJECT:�����
Strike
everything amendment to
S.B
. 1267 relating to minimum wage;
applicability

Purpose

����������� Exempts, from Arizona's
minimum wage requirements, employees with disabilities who are covered by an
issued special certificate in accordance with the federal Fair Labor Standards
Act of 1938 (FLSA). Contains requirements for enactment for initiatives and
referendums (Proposition 105).

Background

����������� The FLSA established
minimum wage, overtime pay, recordkeeping and employment standards for youth, full-time,
part-time and disabled employees. As of July 24, 2009, the federal minimum wage
is $7.25 per hour (
29
U.S.C. � 206
).

����������� The U.S. Department
of Labor, to the extent necessary to prevent curtailment of opportunities for
employment, must by regulation or order provide for the employment, under
special certificates, of individuals whose earning or productive capacity is
impaired by age, physical or mental deficiency, or injury, at wages which are:
1) lower than the minimum wage;

2) commensurate with those paid to nonhandicapped workers, employed in the
vicinity in which the individuals under the certificates are employed, for essentially
the same type, quality, and quantity of work, and 3) related to the
individual�s productivity (
29
U.S.C. � 214c
).

����������� In 2006, voters
approved Proposition 202 which increased Arizona's hourly minimum wage to $6.75
and implemented annual, cost-of-living increases based on the Consumer Price
Index (CPI). In 2016, voters approved Proposition 206 which increased Arizona's
hourly minimum wage in four stages from $10.00 in 2017, to $12.00 by 2020 and
implemented annual, cost-of-living increases based on the CPI (Proposition
202

and
206
;

A.R.S.
� 23-363
). According to the Industrial Commission of Arizona (ICA), the
state minimum wage in 2026 is set at $15.15 an hour (
ICA
).

����������� There is no
anticipated fiscal impact to the state General Fund associated with this
legislation.

Provisions

1.

Exempts, from Arizona's minimum wage requirements, employees with
disabilities who are covered by a special certificate that is issued by the U.S.
Department of Labor in accordance with the FLSA.

2.

Contains a statement of legislative intent.

3.

Requires for enactment the affirmative vote of at least three-fourths of
the members of each house of the Legislature (Proposition 105).

4.

Makes technical changes.

5.

Becomes effective on the general effective date.

Current Bill Text

Read the full stored bill text
SB1267 - 572R - I Ver

REFERENCE TITLE:
candidate petitions; circulators

State of Arizona

Senate

Fifty-seventh Legislature

Second Regular Session

2026

SB 1267

Introduced by

Senators
Gowan: Carroll, Shamp, Shope

AN
ACT

amending sections 16-315 and 16-321,
Arizona Revised Statutes; relating to nominating procedures.

(TEXT OF BILL BEGINS ON NEXT PAGE)

Be it enacted by the Legislature of the State of Arizona:

Section 1. Section 16-315, Arizona Revised
Statutes, is amended to read:

START_STATUTE
16-315.

Form of petitions; registration of circulators

A. The nomination petitions shall be in
substantially the following form:

1. Petitions shall be on paper eleven inches wide
and eight and one-half inches long.

2. Petitions shall be headed by a caption stating
the purpose of the petition, followed by the body of the petition stating the
intent of the petitioners.

3. There shall be ten lines spaced one-half of an
inch apart and consecutively numbered one through ten.

4. The signature portion of the petition shall be
divided into columns headed by the following titles:

(a) Signature.

(b) Printed name.

(c) Actual residence address, description of place
of residence or Arizona post office box address, city or town.

(d) Date of signing.

5. A photograph of the candidate may appear on the
nomination petition.

B. The following shall appear on the petition:

Instructions for
Circulators

1. All petitions shall be signed by
the

circulator.

2.
The
circulator is not
required to be a resident of this state but otherwise must be qualified to
register to vote in this state and, if not a resident of this state, shall
register as a circulator with the secretary of state.

3.
The
circulator's name shall
be typed or printed
under the circulator's signature
in the circulator verification portion of the petition immediately
after "I,"
.

4.
The
circulator's actual
residence address or, if no street address, a description of residence location
shall be included on the petition.

C. The secretary of state shall prepare sample
nomination petition forms and distribute the forms to all election officers.

D. Circulators who are not residents of this state
must be registered as circulators with the secretary of state before
circulating petitions.� The secretary of state shall provide for a method of
receiving service of process for those petition circulators who register
pursuant to this subsection. The secretary of state shall establish
in the instructions and procedures manual issued pursuant to section 16-452
a procedure for registering circulators and receiving service of process.

E. The secretary of state may authorize for
statewide and legislative offices the creation, use and submission of petitions
prescribed by this section in electronic form if those petitions provide for an
appropriate method to verify signatures of petition circulators and
signers. The secretary of state may require use of a unique marking
system for petition pages, including a bar code, a quick response code or
another similar marking system.
END_STATUTE

Sec. 2. Section 16-321, Arizona Revised
Statutes, is amended to read:

START_STATUTE
16-321.

Signing and certification of nomination petition; definition

A. Each signer of a nomination petition shall sign
only one petition for the same office unless more than one candidate is to be
elected to such office, and in that case not more than the number of nomination
petitions equal to the number of candidates to be elected to the office.� A
signature shall not be counted on a nomination petition unless the signature is
on a sheet bearing the form prescribed by section 16-314.

B. For the purposes of petitions filed pursuant to
sections 16-312, 16-313, 16-314 and 16-341, each signer
of a nomination petition shall be a voter who at the time of signing is a
registered voter in the electoral district of the office the candidate is
seeking.

C. If an elector signs more nomination petitions
than permitted by subsection A of this section, the earlier signatures of the
elector are deemed valid, as determined by the date of the signature as shown
on the petitions.� If the signatures by the elector are dated on the same day,
all signatures by that elector on that day are deemed invalid.� Any signature
by that elector on a nomination petition on or after the date of the last
otherwise valid signature is deemed invalid and shall not be counted.

D. The person before whom the signatures were
written on the signature sheet is not required to be a resident of this state
but otherwise shall be qualified to register to vote in this state pursuant to
section 16-101 and, if not a resident of this state, shall register as a
circulator with the secretary of state.�
A circulator is not
required to print the circulator's name on the verification portion of the
petition more than once.�
A circulator shall verify that each of the
names on the petition was signed in his presence on the date indicated, and
that in his belief each signer was a qualified elector who resides at the
address given as the signer's residence on the date indicated and, if for a
partisan election, that each signer is a qualified signer.� The way the name
appears on the petition shall be the name used in determining the validity of
the name for any legal purpose pursuant to the election laws of this state.�
Signature and handwriting comparisons may be made.

E. A person who signs a nominating petition must use
that person's actual residence address unless there is no actual residence
address assigned by an official governmental entity or the person's actual
residence is protected pursuant to section 16-153.� The signature of a
person who signs a nominating petition and who uses only a description of the
place of residence or an Arizona post office box address is valid if the person
is otherwise properly registered to vote, has not moved since registering to vote
and is eligible to sign the nominating petition.

F. For the purposes of this article, "qualified
signer" means any of the following:

1. A qualified elector who is a registered member of
the party from which the candidate is seeking nomination.

2. A qualified elector who is a registered member of
a political party that is not entitled to continued representation on the
ballot pursuant to section 16-804.

3. A qualified elector who is registered as
independent or no party preferred.
END_STATUTE