CEBV Weekly: 2025 Preview Edition
Setting the stage for #AZLeg 2025, exploring the top issues, and previewing the first crop of bills
CEBV will run through our plans for 2025 at our first-of-the-session Zoom Happy Hour this Sunday, Jan. 12 at 4pm. Sign up here.
Welcome back to another year at our Arizona Legislature. It’s no secret what we’re up against: we worked very hard to change the balance of power, and instead we ended up with another legislative majority that’s determined to ignore voter wishes and move us down harmful paths. Not only did we lose legislative allies, but we also lost right-wing lawmakers who were willing to reach across the aisle to craft the everyday compromises that are so essential to the functioning of our state.
Republicans feel emboldened by their unexpected victory; we should expect them to double down on their bad ideas. We know that this situation demands new tactics, and CEBV has never rejected reality. The makeup of the legislature we are facing means we must think about the entire landscape of our advocacy differently — looking at our actions and adapting them in order to retain and build our effectiveness.
This year, CEBV will focus on key issues in the state legislature which not only demand strong solutions but tend to draw strong public support: voting rights and democracy, water, LGBTQ+ issues, and (in partnership with Save Our Schools Arizona) education. These issues are broadly popular and reach across political boundaries.
We’ll also concentrate on the governor’s office, and on ensuring Katie Hobbs remains a backstop in bill and budget negotiations and consistently vetoes bad bills. It is critical to show her that the voter base that supports her 2026 reelection expects her to hold the line against extreme lawmakers, not to bend and compromise away our ideals. As always, CEBV will keep events and issues in perspective and context. We have always promised not to waste your time asking you to advocate on bills that will go nowhere, and that is more true than ever this year.
To paraphrase one of our favorite political thinkers, Anand Giridharadas: it's scary out there right now, and if you feel disheartened, you are not alone. It's a very dark time, but the chaos we are seeing is the END of something, not the start. It's the last gasp of a time when being a mediocre white man who simply showed up was enough to vault you into power. America is trying to build something that's never existed before: a representative multicultural democracy. We CAN get there, but we have to be willing to fight for it. And, as always, our involvement remains vital to that process. It just doesn’t work without all of us.
Setting the Stage
The “mandate” that isn’t. Republicans picked up one seat in the Senate and two in the House, broadening their previously razor-thin single-seat majorities. Trump’s margins and coattails were small by historical standards; wriggling into office with less than half of the national popular vote is pretty weak. But predictably, Arizona (and national) Republicans are interpreting these narrow wins as a “mandate” from voters, and we can expect them to act aggressively. This all but guarantees they will overreach: in other words, they’re setting themselves up for ballot-box consequences. Remember, the party in power typically sees voter backlash in midterm elections. We must stay prepared to capture each of their missteps, as they make them, and then help voters connect those dots.
Doubling down on extremism. Warren Petersen, fresh off his re-election as Senate President for another term, is trumpeting “the most conservative legislature ever.” Arizona has long been a hotbed for wacky conspiracy theories, and the full clown car that is the 2025 Legislature continues that trend, with everything from QAnon, election denial and white nationalism to anti-LGBTQ+, anti-trans and anti-science propaganda already on the agenda. We can expect to see plenty of outrageous proposals — but remember, the Republican caucus is likely to fight among themselves, and Gov. Hobbs must hold firm.
No money. Nearly all of our state’s dwindling resources are already spoken for.1 But Arizona desperately needs more revenue: state agencies and boards are desperate for additional funding. Our state is so fiscally underwater that the top 3 requests alone total a whopping $1.36 billion.
After decades of repeated cuts, our state’s needs are many, and dire — but with former Gov. Ducey’s budget-busting tax cuts and profligate universal vouchers in place, the funding just isn’t there to serve these needs. This is the cost of “shrinking government”: cuts to the local services Arizonans need and expect. Our budget will continue to be a Hunger Games of competing demands as long as corporations and the wealthy escape paying their fair share.
Top Issues
Elections. Republicans once again plan to try to make it harder for people to vote in the name of “election integrity,” from going after “unsupervised” ballot drop boxes to attacking signature verification for early voting. The proposal that’s most likely to advance is restricting ballot drop-offs to hasten election results. Various Republican officials want to end those the Friday before the election, forcing anyone who shows up after that to void their early ballot, show ID and vote a new ballot in person. Our job will be to push back on any Democratic legislators who begin to wilt and “compromise” away our ideals.
How likely is this to advance? Despite polls showing that a whopping 84% of voters oppose their scheme, Senate president-elect Warren Petersen says he’s “very confident we have all the Republicans on board” to take away so-called “late early” ballot drop-offs. And a veto may not stop them: House speaker-elect Steve Montenegro has already threatened to skirt the governor by putting the issue on the 2026 ballot as a referral.
Water. Gail Griffin (R-19), who has long blocked rural groundwater management in Arizona, has once again been named chair of the powerful House Natural Resources, Energy and Water committee. But the status quo can’t continue for much longer. Lawmakers are working to push developers toward weaning themselves off reliance on groundwater, despite their objections. And, crucially, the current Colorado River water agreement expires in 2026. The river is stretched thin; its water is used by 40 million people from Wyoming to Mexico, and climate change is shrinking its supply. The use compact must be renegotiated, and every proposed cutback plan — even the one co-signed by Arizona itself — puts more of Arizona’s water on the chopping block than any other state. CEBV will be keeping a close eye on this issue as one of our focus areas for 2025.
Education. With an incoming legislative majority that’s openly hostile to public education, and the state’s fiscal picture stagnant at best, there’s little hope of restoring last year’s cuts to higher education and opportunity funding, let alone making the major reforms to runaway ESA vouchers that education advocates had hoped for. This year’s top hopes for education are, unfortunately, back to basics.
Lawmakers must deal with Prop 123, which resolved a school funding lawsuit by directing more than $300 million a year to K-12 public schools. The current funding expires July 1, and very little time is left to negotiate a renewal even if Hobbs calls a special session for a May special election. The state’s nonpartisan budget analysts are now assuming the state’s general fund will pick up the tab, and lawmakers are discussing a Prop 123 renewal as extra money on top of that obligation. This takes the pressure off lawmakers to quickly agree on a renewal, and our public schools desperately need the new revenue — but lawmakers are stubbornly doubling down on losing concepts that bogged down last year’s talks.
LGBTQ+ persecution. Perennial bigot John Kavanagh (R-3) has already introduced bills that attack LGBTQ+ people’s use of school bathrooms and pronouns, as if these are the most pressing issues confronting educators. A new MAGA legislator, Lisa Fink (R-27), is rerunning a bill from the evangelical Christian lobbyist group Center for Arizona Policy that seeks to redefine gender and sex in all areas of Arizona law. While these bills are disgusting, it’s incumbent on us to reshape the discussion, and to spotlight the bigotry and unpopular persecution of our LGBTQ+ neighbors.
Power Struggles
As with last year, primary tensions will be between our Republican-controlled Legislature and Democratic governor. That isn’t new — but some aspects have changed.
Director nominations. Senate President Warren Petersen nominated MAGA firebrand and fake elector Jake Hoffman to another term at the helm of the Director Nominations committee. Hoffman immediately announced plans to continue harassing Gov. Hobbs’ appointees and stonewalling their confirmation. And because the courts have rejected Hobbs’ attempt at a workaround, she will again have to contend with a power-mad, ideologically driven politician who’s determined to weaken the agencies that serve all Arizonans.
Sinema wannabe. Hobbs is already laser-focused on her 2026 reelection and, in a truly facepalm-worthy move, appears to be moving rightward in a misguided attempt to lock down her second term. Hobbs declined to join a group of Democratic governors in their plans to defend democracy against the Trump administration, calling it unproductive. She also vowed to “work with the Legislature that Arizona elects.” We’ll be clear: this way lies folly. Cozying up to MAGA won’t help Hobbs. If she wants to keep her seat, she must understand that the public respects politicians who flex their power for causes that matter, and tends to vote out those they see as willing to ignore their values to stay elected.
Meanwhile, despite attempts to present a unified front, Hobbs’ rifts with her Democratic colleagues look as wide as ever. When Hobbs convened a meeting to discuss renewal options for Prop 123, she invited only legislative Republicans, even though any successful proposal for this school funding boost will hinge heavily on bipartisan support.
Budget clout. It’s important to remember that Hobbs gets the final say on any bill lawmakers pass, including a state budget — though she certainly hasn’t acted like it. In the first year of her term, she let Republicans squander every cent of Arizona’s more than $2 billion surplus, helping set our state up for a massive deficit. In year two, she closed that deficit by approving major cuts across the board, from higher education to roads and water — while, for the second year in a row, leaving Arizona’s $1-billion-a-year voucher grift largely untouched.
But there’s still time to turn the ship around. The first concrete sign of how Hobbs plans to govern with the 57th Legislature is her budget proposal, which comes out Friday. We’re looking forward to seeing it.
As of this writing, lawmakers have introduced just 179 bills, a trickle that will soon become a flood. Many of those bills push the same manufactured, divisive culture-war issues that earned vetoes from Gov. Hobbs last year. CEBV will be covering the bills in our key focus areas (see above) as they move through committees. For many other subjects, we will refer our readers to organizations that do an excellent job of coverage.
Need help? We’ll offer our RTS 101 training on Monday nights, starting this week on Jan. 13. That link and so many others are available on our Linktree:
Why use Request to Speak? It’s important to register support or opposition to key bills for several reasons:
People on every side of an issue use RTS; it’s critical to show we’re watching and we’re numerous
Legislators review RTS, sometimes even changing their votes based on the names and quantity of “votes”
Media consults RTS to gauge the “heat” of an issue and how public opinion is registering
Comments are sometimes read in committees during debate; it’s important to get them into the record
Once your RTS fingers are prepped, join our lively statewide community of savvy politicos at our CEBV Happy Hour zoom call, starting this Sunday, Jan. 12 at 4 PM. We’ll discuss the Arizona state legislature, fire up our crystal ball to discuss the 2025 session, and explore the often-confusing issues our state is confronting.
A few committees are meeting this first week, and CEBV is tracking some of the bills being heard. Use RTS to weigh in; refer to the information, links and talking points here to craft your own comments to lawmakers.
Tuesday
HB2022, sponsored by Selina Bliss (R-1), would allow K-12 public and private schools to authorize employees to carry firearms on school grounds. The school would have to notify law enforcement of how many (but not which) employees are carrying, ensure the employees have a certification from an ADE-approved list of training programs, and keep their names confidential, including from parents at the school. The bill also gives these employees immunity from any liability if they are "acting in good faith during active threat events." Arizona's Republican state lawmakers have long tried to force guns into schools and lure kids toward gun culture. Scheduled for House Education Committee, Tuesday. OPPOSE.
Wednesday
SB1011, sponsored by Warren Petersen (R-14), would ban voters from dropping off their early ballots after 7 PM on the Friday before Election Day beginning in 2026. Voters would have to instead void their early ballots, present ID, sign a scary affidavit warning of felony jail time for fraud, and vote a new ballot in person. If voters wanted to drop off their mail ballots on Election Day, they could do so only at the county recorder's office — with just 15 locations for the entire state. Polls show that a whopping 84% of voters oppose this proposal, but Senate president Warren Petersen says he’s “very confident we have all the Republicans on board.” Scheduled for Senate Judiciary and Elections Committee, Wednesday. OPPOSE.
SB1028, sponsored by John Kavanagh (R-3), would reinstate statewide testing to graduate from high school. In 2015, when Republican lawmakers overwhelmingly chose to repeal the requirement, they stated that "the test has no meaning behind it" and that "placing all the responsibility and stress on individual students for the success of our educational system is unfair." Other states that have repealed their high-stakes test requirements caution against conflating a measure of learning with “a meaningless hoop to jump through.” Just six states still require high school exit exams. This is the third straight year this concept has been introduced. Scheduled for Senate Education Committee, Wednesday. OPPOSE.
2025 Session Timeline
Monday, 1/13 2025 Legislative Session begins
Monday, 2/3 Senate bill introduction deadline
Monday, 2/10 House bill introduction deadline
Friday, 2/21 Last day for a bill to get out of committees in its originating house
Monday, 2/24 Crossover Week begins (most committee hearings are suspended)
Friday, 3/28 Last day for a bill to get out of committees in its crossover house
(and the last day to use RTS until a budget drops)
Tuesday, 4/22 100th Day of Session (must be extended every 7 days)
Monday, 5/12 120th Day of Session (lawmakers' per diem pay is slashed)
Monday, 6/30 Last day to pass a budget before state government shuts downFlag this handy list of contact info, committee chairs and assignments, freshly updated for 2025.
Understand the timeline. The Arizona Legislature is intended to operate over a 100-day period, with regular and tightly prescribed deadlines. See the “Page 2” section of this Tucson Agenda post for a highly helpful rundown of that structure.
Know the committee chairs and legislative leaders. For a bill to have any chance at becoming law, it must first be assigned to committee. Bills that never get assigned or heard quietly die. My Bill Positions, fondly nicknamed “RTS 2.0,” is one way to help move a stalled bill, but there are other ways too. If a bill isn’t assigned, contact the House Speaker and the Senate President. If a bill is assigned but isn’t on an agenda, contact the chair of the committee it was assigned to. Consult this committee list for contact info and this flowchart for how to weigh in as a bill becomes law.
Be ready to contact your legislators. Look up your legislative district here. Store contact info for your representatives and senator in your phone now, so it’s easy to reach out later. Pro tip: flag each with a keyword such as “Rep” so you can pull them all up at once.
Bookmark CEBV’s Linktree. Want other ways to take action? Need to stay informed? Looking for our social media, inspiration, or self-care tips? Look no further than our Linktree.
Request to Speak. Sign up for an account if you don’t have one, dust off your password if you do.
Use our website. Civic Engagement Beyond Voting’s website features tons of resources, including a RTS training video that’s 5 minutes well spent.
Attend our Happy Hours. CEBV’s Zoom RTS Happy Hours start up again on January 12, including a legislative preview and Q&A with Melinda. We’ll meet every Sunday at 4 PM through the end of session; sign up in advance here.
Pick up the phone. If a state lawmaker gets 10 calls a day on one topic, their phone is ringing off the hook. By contrast, emails are easy to ignore: each lawmaker gets hundreds every day. When you call, be polite and introduce yourself by name. If you’re a constituent, say so. And consider calling less-friendly lawmakers, to avoid clogging the works for the ones who share our values. Lawmakers’ admins are almost always friendly and happy to pass along messages.
Keep it up. We’ll be back every Sunday with a fresh update. Check back weekly for actions to take, or simply enter your email address below to have the entire text of these updates emailed to you. (This is driven by Substack, separately from our CEBV emails. Those will still exist: as always, they’ll contain additional information and calls to action, along with a link to the content here.)
Flipping the Legislature to Democratic control wouldn’t have made it otherwise: reversing former Gov. Ducey’s budget-busting tax cuts means an all-but-impossible two-thirds supermajority vote in both the House and Senate.