Arizona Supreme Court: No. CV-23-0123-CQ Filed Date: March 7, 2024
In re Erica Krystal Riggins
This case is in response to a Certified Question from the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Arizona seeking clarification of whether Proposition 209, passed by Arizona voters in November 2022, repealed or affected the validity of A.R.S. § 33-1126(A)(11), which was enacted by the legislature in July 2022 and provided an exemption for certain tax credits.
The court addressed whether Prop 209 expressly or implicitly repealed subsection A.R.S. § 33-1126(A)(11), which they determined it did not, so the tax credit exemption remains valid.
The court further discussed how to interpret statutes when a voter initiative and a legislative act address the same subject, stating that when possible, courts should harmonize and give effect to both voter initiatives and legislative acts addressing the same subject.
Justice Montgomery’s concurrence emphasizes that A.R.S. § 1-245 has not previously been applied to conflicts between voter initiatives and legislative acts, only to serial legislative enactments, and that equal weight must be afforded in harmonizing both of these constitutional means of enactment.
The dissent by Justices Bolick, Brutinel, and Beene argued that Prop 209 should be interpreted as a comprehensive scheme governing bankruptcy exemptions that supersedes A.R.S. § 33-1126(A)(11), by operation of law under A.R.S. § 1-245, rather than through implicit repeal analysis.