Arizona Advocacy Foundation

Activities

The Arizona Advocacy Foundation has reported conducting trainings on “how to participate in the legislative process” and registered users to employ the Arizona Legislature’s “request to speak” system, an online portal for commenting on legislative activity. ²

Litigation

The Arizona Advocacy Foundation is a left-wing activist group that initiated multiple lawsuits against the Republican-led Arizona state government for bills it saw as inhibiting voter rights. One lawsuit challenged Arizona House Bill 2244, which focused on quality control of proposed ballot initiatives. It provided politicians the power to disallow initiatives not written in a manner clearly and fully illustrative of the intentions and consequences of the proposed law. The court ruled against the Arizona Advocacy Foundation and upheld the law. ³

Another suit opposed Senate Bill 1516, which sought to loosen the limits of political donations to  igher thresholds of giving and to limit reporting from the donors. ¹ The bill was ruled unconstitutional and Arizona Advocacy Foundation won this case. ⁴

Studies

Arizona Advocacy Foundation authored a study criticizing Arizona election processes as adopting right- wing tactics to disenfranchise specific types of voters, particularly minorities. ⁵ The foundation was in turn criticized for “cherry-picking data”⁶ as a key claim relied entirely on the highly biased Al Jazeera. ⁵ The Arizona Advocacy Foundation recommended⁵ using data from the Pew Research Center, which is supported by the left-of-center Pew Charitable Trusts. ⁷

This same study accused Republican election officials of making voting as difficult as possible causing thousands of votes to be cancelled. ⁵ Then-Arizona Secretary of State Michele Reagan (R) rebutted by castigating the authors for suggesting that incomplete and inaccurate votes should be counted regardless of concerns as to legitimacy, legality, or authenticity. She further described the report as “exceptionally biased” and “grossly misleading.” ⁶

The Arizona Advocacy Foundation describes voter identification laws as voter suppression tactics that overwhelmingly target and affect voters lower on the socio-economic scale, the disabled, elderly and people of color. ⁸ It opposed a bill to require early voters to show proof of identification when dropping off their ballots. ⁹ The foundation also opposed House Bill 2124,⁹ which aims to prevent part- time Arizona residents from voting in Arizona local elections. ¹⁰

Leadership

Executive Director Joel Edman

Joel Edman is a left-of-center voting activist and a member of the Arizona chapter of the left-of-center American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). ¹¹ While attending Harvard Law School, Edman worked with the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinic and The Harvard Law School Immigration Project,¹² which offer legal support to illegal immigrants. ¹³ He was involved with the left-of-center organizations New Jersey Institute for Social Justice¹⁴ and the ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project. ¹¹

Board Members

Beth Meyer is a board member of the Arizona Advocacy Foundation¹⁵ and the co-founder, president, and CEO of Leading For Change (LFC) which partners with Planned Parenthood. ¹⁶ Meyer served as the Vice President of External Affairs for pro-abortion groups Planned Parenthood of Arizona and NARAL Pro-Choice Arizona. ¹⁵

Doris Marie Provine is a board member and a professor in Social Transformation at Arizona State University. Her expertise lies in immigration policy and she is the author of two books. Policing Immigrants: Local Law Enforcement on the Front Lines is an overview of the supposed negative impact of local police enforcing federal immigration laws. The second book is Unequal under Law: Race in the War on Drugs, which purports that drug enforcement laws are based in racism. ¹⁷ Provine is also on the board of the American Civil Liberties Union and volunteers at the left-of-center Hispanic voting advocacy group Mi Familia Vota. ¹⁸

Partners

One Arizona

The Arizona Advocacy Foundation helped form One Arizona by acting as its fiscal sponsor. ¹⁹ It is now a member of the progressive coalition, whose other members include the radical Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR),²⁰ the progressive RAZE, the illegal immigrant-supporting Puente Movement, and the climate change firm CHISPA. ²⁰

Arizona Wins

The Arizona Advocacy Foundation is a member of the progressive coalition Arizona Wins, which includes other left-of-center groups like the Sierra Club, the Animal Defense League, the Arizona Education Association teachers union, and the League of Women Voters. ¹ Arizona Wins played a key role in fighting Republican-sponsored legislation in 2017. ¹

Funding

In 2017 the Arizona Advocacy Foundation received $176,278 in grants,²¹ and in 2018, the organization received $146,020 in grants. ²² In 2018 the Arizona Advocacy Foundation possessed $143,444 in net assets after accounting for all expenses. ²³

Organizations that have reported making grants to Arizona Advocacy Foundation include NEO Philanthropy,²⁴ Proteus Fund,²⁵ and the New Venture Fund,²⁶ all left-of-center “pass through” advocacy funders.