CEBV Weekly: June 2, 2025
Working one day a week is nice if you can get it. The threat of a constitutional convention. Budget update.
Our legislature has firmly entered “fog of secrecy” territory. The Senate worked in public view for just one day this week, and the House didn’t hold any floor sessions at all.
What happened? The Senate squabbled with itself, advanced a few bills (largely along partisan lines), and gaveled back out. They are coming back “subject to the call by the (Senate) President, whenever in his opinion legislative expediency1 shall warrant it.” That’s a fancy way of saying “we’ll come back when we want to.”
The House is set to reconvene on Wednesday, June 4, so some are speculating the Senate may return then too — but don’t count on it.
Meanwhile, driven by powerful special interest lobbyists, some lawmakers are scheming to revive an incredibly dangerous bill — and it’s one Gov. Hobbs can’t veto. We’ll cover that in the “Spotlight” section below.
Budget negotiations: there’s no money. Lawmakers’ one remaining task, constitutionally mandated before June 30, is the passage of a state budget. We’ve all known building a budget would be tough this year, with so much uncertainty surrounding state tax revenues, destructive federal tariffs, and a potential recession in the mix. Some hoped that waiting would provide more economic clarity.
Then April’s tax collection numbers came in last week, and they were $207 million higher than expected — mainly due to increased one-time individual income tax payments, which were driven by a surge in capital gains earnings as people locked in stock profits late last year before Trump took office. Sales tax revenue also increased due to pre-tariff purchases and stockpiling. And corporate tax collections slumped.
In other words, Arizona may temporarily have slightly more money than expected, but those are unique revenue conditions that won’t continue. Meanwhile, the business sector is sending us dire warning signals.
“I think we all understand that the numbers are flat here in Arizona. We all see that there isn’t a lot of room here.” — House Speaker Steve Montenegro (R-29), May 27
Nevertheless, GOP lawmakers are eyeing spending all of that one-time money, to the tune of just under $300 million. The Senate faction reportedly wants to see it split evenly between the governor and Republicans in the House and the Senate, with each party getting a $90 million pot of money to spend as they wish.
However, House Republicans aren’t willing to go along with that. Some items in the executive budget are things everyone agrees the state needs to spend on, such as replacing prison AC systems, repairing public school buildings, and giving DPS officers raises. (For reference, the line item for DPS raises is about $30 million.) It seems some would rather try to weaken Gov. Hobbs going into an election year by taking credit for that spending themselves, not giving her the credit.
So where does all this leave our state? Sensible lawmakers would do their best to govern via consensus, pulling together a majority of votes from all political factions to get the job done. But as in past years, Republicans want only themselves to be the ones deciding how revenues are spent. They intend to create a Republican-only budget agreement (despite deep fractures and ideological disagreements in their caucus), present that to the governor, and force her to do things their way.
Senate Appropriations chair John Kavanagh (R-3) told press he believes a budget will come together by the deadline.2 But this year, the deadline is well before the end of the fiscal year on June 30 — as of this writing, it’s only 20 days away. One key Republican, Matt Gress (R-4), is leaving the country for a personal event, and reportedly taking a number of members of his caucus along. Those members will thus be unavailable for legislative votes after June 22.
House Speaker Steve Montenegro (R-29) downplayed the fractures in the Republican caucuses, saying they will come together. To be honest, they usually do. Republicans consider Democrats their enemy and prefer not to negotiate with them unless absolutely necessary. The question is to what extent Gov. Hobbs is determined to play hardball by recognizing that the clock is running out and negotiating with a firm hand. As always, it means our elected officials need to hear from us.
“(Our elected representatives) are weather vanes, being pushed in a thousand different directions by a thousand different voices. The way that they go is determined by who pushes harder. That’s where we come in.” — Indivisible co-founder Ezra Levin
⏰ If you have 15 minutes: Directly contact your own state senator and ask them to vote NO on HCR2041, which would ask Congress to call a dangerous Article V constitutional convention. See the “Spotlight” section below for more information.
⏰⏰ If you have 30 minutes: Also directly contact Gov. Hobbs (602-542-4331 / engage@az.gov), along with your state senator and representatives, to oppose billionaire tax handout HB2704. See the May 26 Weekly for more info, refer to the May 12 Weekly for a list of specific lawmakers who need extra attention, and remember: Hobbs being responsive and accountable to her base (us) will improve her re-election chances for 2026. If you’ve already done this, do it again! Sustained pressure is needed to make our voices heard.
Remember, we aren’t holding a Happy Hour call this Sunday, June 1. Happy Hour will reconvene June 8, and will continue to meet every Sunday at 4 PM through the end of legislative session. Sign up in advance for future Happy Hour calls here.
We’ve been hearing rumblings that the Senate plans to bring HCR2041 back up for a vote. This previously stalled measure would add Arizona’s name to a list of states asking Congress to call an Article V constitutional convention.
This idea is incredibly dangerous, and because of powerful special interest lobbyists, we see calls for it nearly every year. These lobbyists will tell you they’re trying to add Congressional term limits to the US Constitution, but there are absolutely no rules in the Constitution that would govern an Article V convention, and no way to limit a convention to the stated intent. Just as the 1787 convention went far beyond its stated purposes, an Article V convention could result in a "runaway convention" and a whole new form of government.
CEBV has long opposed bills like these because an Article V convention could rewrite our entire form of government. This would put our democracy and our very way of life in extreme peril — especially with Trump and his minions hellbent on undermining our founding principles, destroying due process, dismantling basic legal protections and the rule of law, and attacking the rights of everyday people in order to get what they want. It is beyond reckless to allow our current crop of politicians to rewrite our Constitution.
The threat of a constitutional convention is so dangerous that many states are beginning to take the unprecedented step of rescinding previous bills that call for one (Connecticut recently rescinded its calls unanimously). As California state senator Scott Wiener explained in introducing a resolution in his home state, “There are no guardrails once a constitutional convention has been triggered. Once it begins, extremists could easily hijack it and drive the convention to strip protections for women, LGBTQ people, workers, immigrants, or any number of other groups, while undermining democracy and locking in the power of the largest corporations on the planet. California must do its part to prevent this chaos, and we must not allow our state’s previous calls for a constitutional convention to be co-opted by efforts to throw out the Constitution in pursuit of an extreme right-wing agenda.”
We’d heard the Senate was going to bring HCR2041 up for a vote this week, but they didn’t have enough votes to pass it. Instead they made a procedural motion to reschedule the vote. It could come back up as soon as this coming week, which means we must keep the pressure on.
If you’d like more detail on why an Article V convention is an obscenely bad idea, Arizona’s Sen. Lauren Kuby (D-8) and Rep. Brian Garcia (D-8) wrote a recent op-ed for the Tempe Tribune:
“There is way too much at stake in today’s America… any constitutional issue could be brought up, placing our most basic freedoms on the chopping block, including marriage equality, abortion rights, freedom of speech, voting rights, labor rights, birthright citizenship and even efforts to make it legal for President Trump to run for a third term.”
We need to make sure this bill stays dead. Contact your state senator and urge them to vote NO! We’re told two senators especially need to hear from you: Sally Ann Gonzales (D-20) and Kiana Sears (D-9). Contact Sen. Gonzales at sgonzales@azleg.gov or 602-926-3278; contact Sen. Sears at ksears@azleg.gov or 602-926-3374.
2025 Session Timeline
Monday, 6/30 Last day to pass a budget before state government shuts down
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What is “legislative expediency” here in Arizona, and when do we get to see it?
Remember, this is the same guy who told press two weeks ago that House and Senate Republicans already had a budget agreement.