CEBV Weekly: June 10, 2024
Republicans scramble to replace their abortion blunder with an immigration blunder. And, what does it look like when Democrats fight?
Desperate to change the subject. On Tuesday, the Arizona House voted on partisan lines to advance to the November ballot HCR2060, which would allow local police to arrest suspected migrants while also running up massive taxpayer bills and greenlighting racial profiling. HCR2060 does absolutely nothing about the humanitarian crisis at our nation’s southern border. Of course, it’s also designed to try to distract voters from the fact that they tried to force us to live in 1864.
Behind closed doors. In a shocking move, House Republicans closed the chamber's viewing gallery to the public for the day while claiming full transparency ("the lights are on") because they were livestreaming the day’s events. That double standard is even more egregious when contrasted with the outrageous, consequence-free behavior of the tiny minority of anti-choice voters who screamed and sang at the tops of their lungs with leadership’s tacit blessing in the same gallery on April 24.
Unconstitutional three ways. Before lawmakers advance a referral to the ballot, they must ensure it passes constitutional muster or be prepared to defend it in court against costly, time-consuming lawsuits. Unfortunately for Republican leadership, HCR2060 appears to be facially unconstitutional in three ways1, violating:
the “single subject rule” (Article 4, Part 2, Section 13 of the Arizona Constitution restricts each piece of legislation to covering only one single subject);
the “funding source” rule (Article 9, Section 23 of the Arizona Constitution requires ballot referrals that cost the state money to identify a funding source other than the general fund that is “sufficient to cover the entire immediate and future costs”);
the Supremacy Clause of the US Constitution, which specifies that federal law takes precedence over state law in the case of a conflict.
Legal challenges begin. The morning after the bill’s passage, Latino rights group LUCHA and House Assistant Minority Leader Oscar De Los Santos (D-11) filed a legal challenge against HCR2060 on the first of those three grounds, that it violates Arizona’s single subject rule. We predict this lawsuit is just the beginning of many to come.
“2060 embraces a hodgepodge of disparate subjects, including employment verification; immigration law; immigration enforcement; sentencing for drug crimes; laws related to city, town and county administration of public benefits; and the legislature’s right to intervene in lawsuits. Simply put, this cannot conceivably be construed as a single subject... When I took office, I swore to defend the Arizona Constitution. A vote for HCR2060 violates that oath.” — De Los Santos in his vote explanation on Tuesday (click to view)
Lying to themselves. House Speaker Ben Toma (R-27) told press after the vote that the House’s partisan attorneys cleared HCR2060 for single-subject constitutionality (how exactly, we aren’t sure). He also argued incorrectly that HCR2060 will save the state money, mischaracterizing the bill’s fiscal note as estimating illegal immigration costs Arizona $3.2 billion a year. This is nowhere near true — instead, the fiscal note estimates that HCR2060 carries a multitude of new costs to the state. Those include $41 million a year for state and local police enforcement; $178 million in new incarceration costs by FY29; unspecified increases for public attorneys, judicial proceedings, interpreter services, courtroom maintenance and public benefits administration; and a drop in revenues via reduced state and local tax collections.2
Lawsuits cost money too. And then, of course, there’s the cost of defending the law in court. Because it’s the state of Arizona that’s being sued, taxpayers — us, in other words — must foot the bill. That gets expensive fast. For example, Republican legislative leaders have already spent $1.5 million of our taxpayer dollars trying to knock the popular Prop 211 (the Voters’ Right to Know Act, or “Outlaw Dirty Money”) off the books. But we digress.
Budget incoming. We’re hearing rumors that budget bills could drop as soon as this Monday, certainly by the following week. We’re not aware of any shifts between last week and this week, nor have we heard that any common-sense limits on Arizona’s out-of-control ESA voucher scam are being negotiated. It’s ludicrous beyond reason to expect the services we rely on (roads, public safety, health care, public schools) to shoulder our state’s $1.8 billion budget deficit, instead of the real problem (ESA vouchers). Voters overwhelmingly agree it’s time to roll back the grift; all that’s left is for politicians to do it.
A citizen push. In the meantime, voters are feeling ignored, and they’re starting to get loud. Teachers and parents rallied at the Capitol Wednesday to ask for common-sense guardrails on unaccountable universal ESA vouchers:
Get louder. Nothing is set in stone until a budget is signed into law. Now is the time to reach out to lawmakers and tell them you expect them to trim this year’s budget in the areas that are actually running up extravagant costs (ESA vouchers). We hear Hobbs and Democratic leadership are pushing for reform, but Republicans are refusing to give. Reach out to them: see “What Can I Do?” below for contact information.
Democrats Who Fight
Silly MAGA tantrum. Some of Arizona’s most extreme Republicans are calling for the impeachment and prosecution of Democratic attorney general Kris Mayes in a partisan tantrum that’s guaranteed to go nowhere. It apparently hurts their fragile feelings to see Mayes doing her job, as follows:
Issuing felony indictments against county supervisors who refused to certify election results in violation of state law
Reminding supervisors in Mohave County that scrapping machine counting of ballots violates state law
Refusing to defend in court a likely unconstitutional law barring trans girls from participating in school sports
Issuing a consumer warning against fraudulent, ideologically biased so-called "crisis pregnancy centers"
Using existing public nuisance laws to investigate the unlimited pumping that depletes Arizona’s groundwater
Desperate for attention. Arizona has suffered years of obstructionist, do-nothing AG hacks, and Mayes is essentially being accused of doing her job. Regardless, House Speaker Ben Toma (R-27), who is desperately trying to gain traction in a crowded primary for Congress in a deep-red district, told media, "All options are on the table."
Tolerance only goes so far. Mayes' office has already given the committee thousands of pages of documents and says it expects to hand over the rest by this Monday. But her tolerance for this nonsense will only stretch so far: in a statement, her office called it “a partisan stunt by far-right members of the Legislature” that “makes a mockery of real legislative oversight.” And she promised her work will continue, whether MAGA likes it or not.
Extremists need a reality check. It takes only a simple House majority to impeach, meaning all 31 Republicans would have to vote yes. Toma said he supports impeaching Mayes but “can't speak for everyone in his caucus” — an implicit admission that these antics are a tough sell in competitive districts and will likely turn off general-election voters.
“The schemers behind this sham impeachment know they don’t have impeachable offenses, know they can’t win in the Senate, and know beyond any doubt that going forward will be both a colossal waste of time and a colossal waste of taxpayer money. And they think *Mayes* should be impeached?” — EJ Montini for the Arizona Republic
Courageous leadership and a backbone. We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: Voters respect politicians who fight for us and the issues we care about. Mayes is doing that, fiercely and unrelentingly. MAGA doesn’t like it, but they can’t stop her from doing her job — and Arizona is better off for it.
⏰ If you have 10 minutes: Contact House Speaker Ben Toma and Senate President Warren Petersen. Tell them voters expect them to rein in the unaccountable universal ESA voucher grift this year. With a $1.8 billion deficit, Arizona just doesn’t have the money to keep handing out subsidies to parents who were already sending their kids to private and home schools (the vast majority of these vouchers are a new cost for the state). You can reach Toma at 602-926-3298 or btoma@azleg.gov, and Petersen at 602-926-4136 or wpetersen@azleg.gov.
⏰⏰ If you have 20 minutes: Contact Gov. Hobbs and insist that she fight for a state budget that does something about our out-of-control ESA voucher problem this year. No budget will pass without her signature; she gets the last word and she should act like it. You can reach her at 602-542-4331 or engage@az.gov. If you’ve already done this, please do it again! She needs to hear from us.
⏰⏰⏰ If you have 45 minutes: Arizona desperately needs a more reasonable legislature. Find a competitive legislative district near you3, then sign up to volunteer for, or donate to, the candidates that best represent your values.
⏰⏰⏰⏰ If you have 60 minutes: Join us on Zoom at 4pm on Sunday for our next CEBV Happy Hour conversation! This week we’re thrilled to feature veteran reporter Mary Jo Pitzl. We’re looking forward to her insights into the 2024 election landscape and perspective on Arizona's political climate. We’ll meet every Sunday at 4 PM through the end of session. Sign up here.
2024 Timeline
Sunday, 6/30 Constitutionally mandated deadline for a state budget Monday, 7/1 Last day to register to vote for primary election Tuesday, 7/30 Primary election Monday, 10/7 Last day to register to vote for general election Tuesday, 11/5 General election
Flag this handy list of contact info, committee chairs and assignments, updated for 2024.
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Many of you are probably already asking, “But didn’t the bill go through Rules?” (The Rules Committee exists only to determine whether bills are constitutional and in the proper form.) Yes, the bill went through Rules, but this language only went through on the Senate side, which isn’t televised. CEBV wasn’t able to be there in person that day, so we don’t know what the attorneys said, but the vote split along party lines, with only Republicans saying the bill was constitutional.
Arizona’s fiscal notes are notorious for lowballing a bill’s costs to the state. For example, the 2022 JLBC fiscal note for universal vouchers estimated a hit of “just” (😭) $64 million in FY2024. The actual cost? Roughly $750 million and growing — that’s over 11 times as much as what was projected. Oops.
Those districts are 2, 4, 9, 13, 16, 17, 23, and 27. (Yes, we’re going to keep repeating this until November 5; why do you ask?)