Voting rights activists are putting lawmakers on the spot and trying to get promises that Republicans won’t do an “end run” around voters by repealing last year’s election reform law before voters have a chance to repeal it themselves.

Activists with the political committee Protect Your Right to Vote, which gathered more than 110,000 valid signatures from registered voters to put the law, HB2305, on hold until the November election, held a press conference on the House lawn Monday to announce their latest tactic in fighting the election law.

Protect Your Right to Vote spokesman Robbie Sherwood said the group asked House Speaker Andy Tobin and Senate President Andy Biggs for their promise that once the Legislature repeals HB2305 and cancels the referendum election against the law, they won’t come back and approve any of the election law changes.

“It’s an attempt to put Biggs and Tobin on the record that they won’t pull a fast one on this,” Sherwood said before the press conference.

The House of Representatives has already approved a repeal bill, HB2196, and a Senate panel has approved a twin bill, SB1270. While several lawmakers have argued that they don’t know of any attempt to reintroduce the same provisions in the law, opponents of the law counter that most Republicans have not promised to oppose any attempt to do so.

And the only two people who can stop legislation in its tracks, Biggs and Tobin, have not pledged to do so.

“Even the folks who said they don’t support (repealing and replacing the law) are choosing their words very carefully,” Sherwood said.

Neither Tobin nor Biggs is likely to sign the pledge.

Randy Parraz of Citizens for a Better Arizona, set fire to a petition on the lawn, demonstrating what he believes lawmakers think of the voters’ will.

“It means something when 144,000 voters stand up to the Legislature and say, ‘you got it wrong,’” Parraz said while holding the flaming petition.

Parraz led a group of about 50 activists into the House lobby to deliver the petition to Tobin along with dozens of that they originally used to deliver the signed petitions for the referendum. From the second floor, they chanted slogans like “let Arizona Vote” and “Speaker Tobin where are you?”

Tobin never appeared.

Sherwood said he agrees with some of the law’s proponents that even if the referendum is held and the law is struck down, Prop 108 from 1998, known as the Voter Protection Act, doesn’t prevent lawmakers from approving the exact same bill next year.

But he said the political repercussions may stop them.

“I agree (a referendum) is not voter protected, but it is in a way. If it goes to ballot and voters soundly reject it, any legislator is going to think twice before bringing back a piece of 2305 back as a different bill. They’ll say, ‘look the voters said no,’” Sherwood said.

Protect Your Right to Vote chair Julie Erfle said the group is still hoping to stop the repeal, though it doesn’t look likely they’ll succeed at the Legislature. She said the committee has not yet started speaking with Gov. Jan Brewer about vetoing the repeal, but they will likely begin that conversation when the Senate bill is taken up by the full chamber.

Erfle also said a legal challenge is on the table, though likely not on the repeal itself. She said if lawmakers do re-approve provisions of the law, a lawsuit will be more likely.

“There’s some disagreement among attorneys about whether or not we could bring a lawsuit at this point just over the repeal. But there’s still the possibility that just the repeal in and of itself could be legally challenged,” she said.