The author writes about Arizona's longstanding belief in direct democracy via referendum, initiative and recall. The Legislature continues to grapple with election reform and strike a balance of how much binding authority should remain in the hands of voters in terms of initiative, referendum and recall, but Arizona’s penchant for people power has been demonstrated since before statehood. In the midst of his campaign for Congress in 1911, for example, Arizona’s Carl Hayden noted that everywhere he went he found voters eager to take control. "The people want their own kind of government,” Hayden told reporters. “They want to be the dictators.”

Since statehood in 1912, Arizona has been among the nation’s leaders in using the initiative process to either adopt a statute or amend the state constitution by placing a measure on the ballot. But such efforts are anything but easy. In fact, organizers have found it to be an expensive, time-consuming and exhausting process – and one that is unlikely to end successfully.

This paper, drawing upon historical data and information from surveys and interviews with more than 50 legislators, lobbyists, and knowledgeable observers, finds that the term limits reform adopted by the Arizona voters in 1992 has caused legislators to make some painful adjustments. Because of term limits many legislators have decided to run for another office prior to the expiration of their terms. This has often meant trying to move from the one legislative house to another, most commonly from the House to the Senate. On the plus side, the report finds that term limits have encouraged greater competition for legislative and other seats and have given voters a greater choice among candidates. To some extent, limits have been a force toward a more inclusive governing process. At the same time, they have generally reduced the power of legislative leaders and generally increased the influence of lobbyists and staff, though not all lobbyists and staff have gained equally. Recent newcomers to the Arizona Legislature are probably not any less knowledgeable than previous classes of newcomers, but under term limits there are more newcomers and members have less time to learn their jobs. For many, the limit to four two-year terms (eight years total) provides too little time to learn how to do the job and do it well.

Project STRIDE has been the source of many personal success stories since it began at Keys Community Center in August 1997. This report describes Project STRIDE’s activities and development over an approximately 16-month demonstration period and offers recommendations for the future. Information was gathered through interviews and discussions with staff, instructors, and participants, observations, and reviews of various program records. This is the second and final evaluation report on Project STRIDE. The first report appeared in June 1998.

Beginning in 1996, the City of Phoenix Enterprise Community Job Linkages Initiative set out to increase employment in this distressed area by matching "local people with local jobs." Morrison Institute for Public Policy (School of Public Affairs, Arizona State University) participated in the development of the job linkages initiative and evaluated its two demonstration projects. This report provides the concluding evaluation information for the second project at Friendly House and presents the lessons learned across the job linkages activities.