CEBV Weekly: March 11, 2024
Ignorant troglodytes stonewalling our freedoms. A four-party state. MAGA is terrified of losing power.
This week, when asked why the Arizona legislature refuses to pass a law making access to contraception a right, Senate Majority Leader Sonny Borrelli (R-30) retorted that the issue is fabricated, and that — we’re quoting directly here — women wouldn’t need contraceptives if they weren’t so promiscuous.
Yes, he really said that.
The threat to our reproductive freedoms, of course, is very real. Last year, Republican lawmakers, led by Matt Gress (R-4) and the evangelical Christian lobbying group Center for Arizona Policy, attempted to advance several bills codifying “fetal personhood,” which would give fetuses the same legal rights as people. And let’s not forget Clarence Thomas’s concurring opinion in the US Supreme Court decision that stripped women of their nearly 50-year constitutional right to make their own reproductive health care decisions — in which he stated SCOTUS “should reconsider” the right to contraception and annihilate an entire range of rights.
An ignorant, wife-beating troglodyte like Borrelli has no business even flapping his gums in public, let alone stonewalling our most fundamental freedoms. And yet here we are.
Sen. Sonny Borrelli, the No. 2 Republican in the state Senate, responded to a question about whether he would oppose future efforts to restrict access to emergency contraceptives by saying that women wouldn’t need contraceptives if they weren’t so promiscuous.
“Like I said, Bayer Company invented aspirin. Put it between your knees,” he said, implying that, if women hold aspirin between their legs, they won’t be able to have sex and risk pregnancy.
Borrelli is termed out and is running for the Mohave County Board of Supervisors, in which position he would be one of those in charge of canvassing elections and declaring results.
Voters prefer Gov. Hobbs over the Republican-led legislature, and it’s no wonder. A poll released this week from Noble Predictive Insights, a right-leaning firm, shows that Gov. Hobbs has maintained her consistent net +13 voter approval rating since February 2023 (currently 51% approve, 38% disapprove). Hobbs is performing far better than the Arizona state legislature, which has a net -1 approval rating (40% approve, 41% disapprove). As the pollster observed, “Hobbs is more popular than the legislature, and that gives her a strong hand when she goes toe-to-toe with them during legislative session.”
A four-party state. The pollster also points out that Arizona is becoming a four-party state, made up of MAGA Republicans, “McCain Republicans,” Democrats and independents. A politician who appeals to just one of those groups, such as an extreme MAGA candidate, won’t have enough support to win elections. And make no mistake: they absolutely know that.
MAGA is terrified of losing power. The bills in this week’s report are a perfect illustration of MAGA lawmakers making a panicked rush to clutter our ballots with 35 kinds of conspiracy-theory nonsense. The entire reason they’re doing that, of course, is precisely because they’re terrified of losing power. It’s ironic that their decision to double down on these ludicrous measures will only drive voters away even faster, accelerating MAGA’s losing streak and slide into irrelevance.
⏰ If you have 5 minutes: Use Request to Speak on the bills that are new to the Weekly; see “Spotlight” below.
⏰⏰ If you have 15 minutes: Also use RTS to oppose the bad ballot referral bills in committee this week; see “Ballot Referrals” below.
⏰⏰⏰ If you have 40 minutes: Use RTS on all bills in the Weekly.
⏰⏰⏰⏰ If you have 60 minutes: Join us on Zoom at 4pm on Sunday for our next CEBV Happy Hour conversation. This week’s featured guests are Stephen Richer and and Scott Jarrett from Maricopa Elections. We’ll meet every Sunday at 4 PM through the end of session. Sign up in advance here.
New to the Weekly
These bills have passed their chamber of origin and are now scheduled for committee hearings in the opposite chamber. This is your last chance to weigh in on them using RTS. More information is available in the “Use RTS” section below.
SB1330, Mesnard (R-13), removes the word “drop box” from elections statute, replacing it with “container” or “ballot box.” This could enable restrictions on drop boxes themselves and even the process of mail-in voting. OPPOSE.
SB1473, Kern (R-27), would force state agencies to repay 1% of their annual budget in fines for every 30 days they are late in filing audit reports. Yanking funds from Arizona’s chronically underfunded state agencies will only worsen their ability to file on-time reports. OPPOSE.
These bills have passed their chamber of origin and are now scheduled for a committee hearing in the opposite chamber. This is your last chance to weigh in using RTS. After you’ve done that, consider calling your senator and urging them not to crowd the ballot with this nonsense.
HCR2032, Jones (R-17), would ask voters to ban voting centers and limit precinct size to 1,000 voters. Sen. Ken Bennett (R-1) opposes the bill; urge him to stay strong!
HCR2038, Montenegro (R-29), would ask voters to declare that drug cartels are terrorist organizations, cluttering up our ballot for no good reason.
HCR2040, Smith (R-29), would ask voters to ban Arizona, its cities and counties, and its state universities and community colleges from spending public funds to promote a laundry list of culture-war conspiracy theories.
HCR2052, McGarr (R-17), would insert the legislature into the agency rulemaking process and prevent our state agencies from effectively doing their jobs.
HCR2056, Montenegro (R-29), would enshrine racism in the state Constitution in many ways, including banning certain content from being taught in schools, and could even carry unintended consequences such as outlawing Division 1 NCAA sports.
HCR2058, Heap (R-10), would blow up Arizona’s Independent Redistricting Commission (a nationwide model) by redrawing legislative districts in a grid-like pattern across the state, in violation of federal best practices, and allow any state lawmaker to sue if they didn’t like the result.
Monday
SB1146, sponsored by Anthony Kern (R-27), would allow meat, poultry and seafood products made from animals that were not given a mRNA vaccination to be labeled "mRNA free." The bill appears to be driven by a false conspiracy theory that mRNA vaccines have entered the US food supply. A similar bill was introduced last year in Tennessee. Duplicate bill HB2406, Gillette (R-30), is already through committee. Scheduled for House Land, Agriculture & Rural Affairs Committee, Monday. OPPOSE.
SB1406, sponsored by Janae Shamp (R-29), would require the Arizona Medical Board to give licenses to practice medicine to international graduates who have not completed an accredited US residency. Currently, this is not allowed anywhere else in the US. Doctors’ groups oppose the bill as a safety and quality issue. Libertarians in Arizona have long degraded professional standards in the name of “cutting red tape”; last year, Koch-backed libertarian group Americans for Prosperity pushed a similar bill, which failed to pass. Scheduled for House Health & Human Services Committee, Monday. OPPOSE.
SB1407, sponsored by Janae Shamp (R-29), would force employers to allow employees to claim a religious exemption from the COVID or flu vaccines, or any vaccination FDA-approved for emergency use. Employers would not be allowed to question an employee's religious beliefs, or to “discriminate” against an employee based on vaccination status. Currently employees must have a “sincerely held religious belief.” Arizona is already headed in the wrong direction for public health; vaccine exemption rates are so high, experts say they’re “a disaster waiting to happen.” This puts the collective well-being of all Arizonans at risk. Shamp introduced the same bill last year, which Gov. Hobbs vetoed. Scheduled for House Health & Human Services Committee, Monday. OPPOSE.
SB1511, sponsored by Janae Shamp (R-29), would force insurance companies to pay the medical costs for those who want to “detransition” from sex changes “and reclaim their God-given gender.” Shamp says she based the bill on a belief that “political ideology” is driving gender-affirming care. The bill is being pushed by the evangelical Christian lobbyist group Center for Arizona Policy. Scheduled for House Health & Human Services Committee, Monday. OPPOSE.
SB1649, sponsored by Ken Bennett (R-1), would preemptively ban the sale or production of lab-grown meat, and would allow anyone whose business is “adversely affected’’ by their sale (such as ranchers) to sue for up to $100,000 in damages. Lab-grown meat is produced by cultivating animal cells directly instead of raising and slaughtering animals for food. Cultivated meat uses significantly fewer resources, reduces pollution, and lowers food-borne illnesses. It’s not yet commercially viable on a wide scale, but scientists are working on it. Mirror bill HB2121 is already through committee. Scheduled for House Land, Agriculture & Rural Affairs Committee, Monday. OPPOSE.
HB2232, sponsored by Jennifer Longdon (D-5), would add “on-track equipment” to railroad crossing safety statutes, thus requiring that vehicles stop for this equipment. Scheduled for Senate Finance & Commerce Committee, Monday. SUPPORT.
HB2271, sponsored by Barbara Parker (R-10), would create a special vehicle license plate for Religious Educational Institutions. Arizona currently has 101 special plates, with a portion of each purchase going to a different cause. Not only does having so many plates create difficulties for law enforcement, but some of the plates raise money for political groups, such as the hate group Alliance Defending Freedom and the anti-abortion Arizona Life Coalition. Arizona added 8 more plates just last year. When will it stop? Scheduled for Senate Transportation, Technology & Missing Children Committee, Monday. OPPOSE.
HB2389, sponsored by Alexander Kolodin (R-3), would ban the sale of any motor vehicle in Arizona if it can be remotely shut off by someone not the owner of the vehicle who does not have a physical key. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is working to develop "passive" driver alcohol detection, using sensors that measure alcohol in a driver's skin or breath, as potential new standard equipment in new vehicles to prevent alcohol-related accidents and deaths. Alcohol-related crashes kill over 10,000 people every year nationwide. Opposition to the plan seems to center on the misbelief in a right to drive while drunk. (Driving is a privilege; the US Constitution guarantees a right to travel, but not the right to drive.) Scheduled for Senate Transportation, Technology & Missing Children Committee, Monday. OPPOSE.
HB2474, sponsored by Alexander Kolodin (R-3), would make it harder to circulate petitions to form a new political party, including putting time limits on signature validity and requiring petition circulators to register with the Secretary of State’s office. The No Labels and Green parties recently qualified for the Arizona ballot; the Patriot Party recently failed to qualify by just 3,000 signatures. Unaffiliated voters are now Arizona’s largest registered political bloc; making it harder for these voters to form like-minded organizations threatens our two-party structure. Scheduled for Senate Elections Committee, Monday. OPPOSE.
HB2545 and HB2546, sponsored by Rachel Jones (R-17), would exempt all vehicles manufactured after 2018 from vehicle emissions testing. The bills are virtually identical except that each uses a different attempt to exempt the changes from federal EPA air quality requirements, neither of which will stand up in court. The EPA says vehicle inspection and emissions “help improve air quality by identifying cars and trucks that may need repairs.” They also save consumers money on fuel in the long run. Scheduled for Senate Transportation, Technology & Missing Children Committee, Monday. OPPOSE.
HB2586, sponsored by Tim Dunn (R-25), would require “age and identity verification” for companies that provide “material harmful to minors” over the internet. Users must be at least 18, or companies would be subject to civil penalties. Similar legislation has been passed in at least 7 other states. A district court blocked a similar law in Texas on grounds that it violates First Amendment rights and is overly vague. Rogers’ bill does nothing to ensure people’s privacy; as the court stated, "People will be particularly concerned about accessing controversial speech when the state government can log and track that access." See also SB1125. Scheduled for Senate Transportation, Technology & Missing Children Committee, Monday. OPPOSE.
HCR2032, sponsored by Rachel Jones (R-17), would ask voters to ban voting centers and limit precinct size to 1,000 voters. The voting center model allows voters to cast a ballot anywhere in the county — for example, near work or their child’s school — instead of being tied to a single precinct location, and has nearly eliminated the need for provisional ballots. Returning to a precinct model would raise the question of whether counties can find enough poll workers. This is at least the third year in which Arizona’s Republican-led legislature has attempted to ban voting centers. Because this bill would go directly to voters, Gov. Hobbs cannot veto it. See also HB2547. Passed House 3rd 2/28. Bennett told Axios he opposes, meaning the measure is likely dead. Scheduled for Senate Elections Committee, Monday. OPPOSE.
HCR2058, sponsored by Justin Heap (R-10), would blow up Arizona’s Independent Redistricting Commission (a nationwide model) by requiring it to hold its own census every 10 years to determine how many citizens live in Arizona, prohibiting them from using federal best practices. This would be used to create districts of equal citizen population in a grid-like pattern across the state. Any state lawmaker would be allowed to sue if they didn’t like the result. Scheduled for Senate Elections Committee, Monday. OPPOSE.
Tuesday
SB1182, sponsored by John Kavanagh (R-3), is a shower-only version of last year’s “bathroom bill” that would ban trans kids from using the showers at school that align with their gender identities. Anyone who “encounters” a trans person in a shower area could file suit against public schools. A federal court found that these policies violate the US Constitution and Title IX, so in addition to being monstrously cruel and creating harm from continued anti-trans rhetoric, this would open Arizona to a host of lawsuits at taxpayer expense. Polls show that Americans from every political ideology and age group oppose anti-trans legislation. Gov. Hobbs vetoed last year’s bill. Scheduled for House Education Committee, Tuesday. OPPOSE.
SB1366, sponsored by Shawnna Bolick (R-2), would add blockchain (related to cryptocurrency) to Arizona’s “regulatory sandbox.” That program offers limited access to Arizona's market to test innovative financial products or services or other innovations without obtaining a license or other authorization. This would essentially deregulate a volatile playground for the mega-rich. Scheduled for House Commerce Committee, Tuesday. OPPOSE.
SB1369, sponsored by Shawnna Bolick (R-2), would require each school district and individual public school to post on its website information on students’ race, color, national origin, sex, disability, and age that is meant for the US Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights. Schools would also have to complete a newly created survey from the Arizona Department of Education on bullying, fighting, harassment and other school safety issues, which ADE would post on their website. Public schools are already subject to many laws covering discrimination and bullying, making this an excessive overreach. Meanwhile, bills to expand these protections to kids at ESA voucher-funded schools are going unheard. Scheduled for House Education Committee, Tuesday. OPPOSE.
SB1459, sponsored by John Kavanagh (R-3), would require district and charter schools to report details on student discipline to ADE, and states ADE’s belief that “the school has no reasonable justification for implementing disciplinary actions in fewer than 75%” of cases per year. If schools don’t meet this bar, ADE can demote the school’s letter grade. Arizona’s current state superintendent, Tom Horne, holds polarized positions on discipline and is pushing the change on the grounds that “discipline has evaporated and classrooms have become anarchic.” Scheduled for House Education Committee, Tuesday. OPPOSE.
HB2442, sponsored by Steve Montenegro (R-29), would ban emergency use immunizations from being required for school attendance. There are no scientific grounds to justify this bill; in fact, scientific reviews praise the emergency use authorization process. Gov. Hobbs vetoed the same bill last year. Scheduled for Senate Health & Human Services Committee, Tuesday. OPPOSE.
Wednesday
SB1056, sponsored by Warren Petersen (R-14), would ban city and town councils from raising taxes or fees without a two-thirds supermajority vote. A similar provision in Arizona state law has made it nearly impossible to fund our state’s many needs and priorities. This top-down move would hamstring our cities with the same problem. Scheduled for House Government Committee, Wednesday. OPPOSE.
SB1060, sponsored by JD Mesnard (R-13), is a watered-down version of a measure from last year (which Gov. Hobbs vetoed) that allows partisan observers inside the voting process on behalf of federal candidates, including during the setup process when other observers and the public are not permitted, in the name of “transparency.” State candidates would not be permitted this “transparency.” Allowing partisan candidate representatives this backstage access muddies a cleanly working process and could weaken confidence in our state’s elections. Scheduled for House Municipal Oversight & Elections Committee, Wednesday. OPPOSE.
SB1153, sponsored by Anthony Kern (R-27), would restrict Arizona agencies from creating rules that would increase regulatory costs by more than $500,000 over 5 years after implementation. The Legislature would instead be required to enact legislation to ratify the proposed rule into law. Although the far right says it will "rein in unelected bureaucrats," this shortsighted measure would kneecap Hobbs and Mayes' ability to regulate unaccountable, wasteful spending. A prime example is Arizona's universal ESA voucher program; parents who use the program are complaining about the payment processor, ClassWallet, and a different vendor could cost easily that amount or more. Gov. Hobbs vetoed this exact bill last year; in committee, the sponsor could not answer how many rules this would impact but said "it shouldn't matter." Scheduled for House Regulatory Affairs Committee, Wednesday. OPPOSE.
SB1187, sponsored by John Kavanagh (R-3), would require public schools in a district that has a bond or override election on the ballot to be polling places "only if other nearby appropriate government buildings are unavailable," voiding the available space and child safety exemptions currently in statute. No external entity knows better for local schools than their own staff; state lawmakers should not be mandating this decision for them. Scheduled for House Municipal Oversight & Elections Committee, Wednesday. OPPOSE.
SB1190, sponsored by Justine Wadsack (R-17), would create a special license plate for community college enrollment. Arizona currently has 101 special plates, with a portion of each purchase going to a different cause. Not only does having so many plates create difficulties for law enforcement, but some of the plates raise money for political groups, such as the hate group Alliance Defending Freedom and the anti-abortion Arizona Life Coalition. Arizona added 8 more plates just last year. When will it stop? Scheduled for House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee, Wednesday. OPPOSE.
SB1195, sponsored by Anthony Kern (R-27), would ask voters to ban Arizona, its cities and counties, and its state universities and community colleges from spending public funds to promote a laundry list of culture-war conspiracy theories. These include reducing meat or dairy consumption or production, eating insects, walking or biking more, taking public transit, reducing air travel, limiting the number of articles of clothing a person may buy or own, recycling water for drinking, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, limiting the increase of global temperature, producing or adopting a climate action plan, replacing private ownership, furthering Marxist ideologies, or implementing mass surveillance systems to monitor motor vehicle travel. As one columnist notes, "there is a move in our country to label anything that right-wingers don’t like as Marxist or Communist.” The “Marxist ideologies” line in this bill alone could usher in a McCarthy-level witch hunt in public schools. Scheduled for House Government Committee, Wednesday. OPPOSE.
SB1286, sponsored by Jake Hoffman (R-15), would require all district schools to close on primary and general election days, and district schools (but not charter or ESA voucher-funded schools) to offer their gymnasiums as polling places. Teachers would be required to attend inservice training and banned from taking a vacation day, presumably to keep them from working the polls. Arizona and the nation are already struggling to find enough election workers; it makes no sense to legislate a ban on teachers doing their patriotic duty — to say nothing of the disruption this would cause to families. Part of this year’s GOP package of bills to make wide-ranging, harmful changes to Arizona elections. Gov. Hobbs vetoed a similar bill last year. Scheduled for House Municipal Oversight & Elections Committee, Wednesday. OPPOSE.
SB1288, sponsored by Jake Hoffman (R-15), would tighten requirements for how electronic ballot tabulators are tested prior to elections. Arizona already requires logic and accuracy testing for its tabulators, which are already open to the public, though voters rarely attend. The bill falls short on specifics, and counties (which administer elections) have multiple concerns with it. Another conspiracy-theory-driven measure that has no business becoming law. Scheduled for House Municipal Oversight & Elections Committee, Wednesday. OPPOSE.
SB1330, sponsored by JD Mesnard (R-13), removes the word “drop box” from elections statute, replacing it with “container” or “ballot box.” This could enable restrictions on drop boxes themselves and even the process of mail-in voting. New to report. Scheduled for House Municipal Oversight & Elections Committee, Wednesday. OPPOSE.
SB1357, sponsored by JD Mesnard (R-13), would move the signature affidavit on an early ballot to be inside the envelope for “privacy purposes.” The bill does not contain an appropriation for the cost of redesigning ballot materials, which would be substantial. Voting rights officials have not indicated the current setup, which is also used by multiple other states, poses any problem. Scheduled for House Municipal Oversight & Elections Committee, Wednesday. OPPOSE.
SB1473, sponsored by Anthony Kern (R-27), would force state agencies to repay 1% of their annual budget in fines for every 30 days they are late in filing audit reports. The bill is driven by a misplaced belief that government is wasteful and lazy. In committee, Kern stated that school boards are misusing and abusing taxpayer funds, that agencies are “thumbing their nose” at audit enforcement, and “if we take away some of their budget, that will light a fire under their rear end.” Yanking funds from Arizona’s chronically underfunded state agencies will only worsen their ability to file on-time reports. New to report. Scheduled for House Government Committee, Wednesday. OPPOSE.
SB1638, sponsored by Frank Carroll (R-28), allows law enforcement to immediately remove any "transient occupant" of private residential property and charge them with trespassing. State statutes already exist to cover this behavior, making this bill unnecessary. The bill does not include solutions for housing or shelter. Scheduled for House Judiciary Committee, Wednesday. OPPOSE.
SCR1012, sponsored by Anthony Kern (R-27), would ask voters to restrict Arizona agencies from creating rules that would increase regulatory costs by more than $500,000 over 5 years after implementation. The Legislature would instead be required to enact legislation to ratify the proposed rule into law. See SB1153 above for more info. Scheduled for House Regulatory Affairs Committee, Wednesday. OPPOSE.
SCR1020, sponsored by JD Mesnard (R-13), would ask voters to amend the state Constitution to automatically extend the previous year’s state budget if lawmakers don’t pass one in time. This would remove the only real motivation for lawmakers to work together and avoid shutting down our state. Lawmakers' only constitutional responsibility is to pass a budget by the start of the new fiscal year (no later than June 30). The same bill failed to pass last year. Scheduled for House Appropriations Committee, Wednesday. OPPOSE.
SCR1023, sponsored by JD Mesnard (R-13), would ask voters to amend the Arizona Constitution to require cities and school districts hold their elections on general election days only. Scheduled for House Municipal Oversight & Elections Committee, Wednesday. OPPOSE.
HB2120, sponsored by David Marshall (R-7), would penalize cities and counties if they didn’t spend “enough” on law enforcement. It would deduct state funds from local governments that violate the measure, and redistribute those funds to other cities and counties. This fear-based bill is designed to hamstring efforts to redistribute law enforcement money to address the root causes of crime and poverty, such as education, health care, mental health programs and homeless services. This is the third straight year for the bill, which has failed to pass every year. Passed House 3rd + Hernandez ACL, one other. Scheduled for Senate Military Affairs, Public Safety & Border Security Committee, Wednesday. OPPOSE.
HB2375, sponsored by Lupe Diaz (R-19), would preemptively ban cities and counties from establishing any guaranteed income program such as Universal Basic Income. These types of programs challenge the premise that people (especially poor people) can’t be trusted to spend money responsibly and for their own good without supervision. In fact, they do a better job of reaching the poor than means-tested programs. Pilot programs in cities like Denver and Vancouver resulted in decreases in homelessness and increases in gainful employment. Scheduled for Senate Government Committee, Wednesday. OPPOSE.
HB2658, sponsored by Joseph Chaplik (R-3), would ban pedestrians from soliciting donations on a painted or raised traffic island or median. The penalties escalate, with a third offense carrying a penalty of up to six months in jail. Panhandling bans purport to be about safety, but in actuality criminalize homelessness, making the problem less visible rather than tackling the underlying social issues. It would be more productive to fund social housing or shelter beds instead. A similar bill with constitutionality issues failed to pass last session. Scheduled for Senate Military Affairs, Public Safety & Border Security Committee, Wednesday. OPPOSE.
HB2722, sponsored by Travis Grantham (R-14), would require the state of Arizona to pay for $10,000 worth of life insurance for each member of the National Guard. Grantham serves in the National Guard, meaning he would personally benefit from this bill. Arizona’s general fund is facing a $1.7 billion deficit. Scheduled for Senate Military Affairs, Public Safety & Border Security Committee, Wednesday. OPPOSE.
HB2759, sponsored by Alma Hernandez (D-20), would censor pro-Palestinian student organizations by banning all Arizona colleges and universities from formally recognizing student organizations that support a "foreign terrorist organization." If they refuse, they would lose state funding. The bill is inspired by the recent escalation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, an issue which cannot be reduced to a sound bite about genocide against the Israeli people. The Palestinian death toll has soared past 25,000, with most of the casualties women and children; the UN calls the scale of civilian killings “heartbreaking and utterly unacceptable” with no end in sight. The issue is complex and does not warrant a blanket ban. This is a weaponized policy that should not be enacted in the heat of a conflagration like the current conflict. One attorney says the bill is unconstitutional. Scheduled for Senate Education Committee, Wednesday. OPPOSE.
HB2788, sponsored by Rachel Jones (R-17), would ban Arizona, its cities and counties, and its public schools from adopting the UN goals for sustainable development. These goals include tackling substantive issues such as extreme poverty and hunger, quality education, gender equality and climate change. Scheduled for Senate Government Committee, Wednesday. OPPOSE.
HCR2038, sponsored by Steve Montenegro (R-29), would ask voters to declare that drug cartels are terrorist organizations, cluttering up our ballot for no good reason. Scheduled for Senate Military Affairs, Public Safety & Border Security Committee, Wednesday. OPPOSE.
HCR2052, sponsored by Cory McGarr (R-17), would insert the legislature into the agency rulemaking process by requiring the legislature give final approval for agency rules via a majority vote. This absurd overreach would prevent our state agencies from effectively doing their jobs. Also being advanced as a non-referral bill, HB2471. Scheduled for Senate Government Committee, Wednesday. OPPOSE.
HCR2056, sponsored by Steve Montenegro (R-29), asks voters to enshrine racism in the state Constitution. This culture-war-driven measure would prevent the state from giving minority-owned businesses any preference in state contracts, keep school districts from specifically hiring black or brown teachers in an effort to increase representation, block teachers from discussing inclusion and equity issues that have arisen despite the 14th Amendment, and ban certain content from being taught in schools. This would negatively impact student learning, teacher retention and recruitment, and does nothing to prevent discrimination on the basis of race or ethnicity in taxpayer-funded private schools receiving ESA vouchers. The measure could carry unintended consequences, such as outlawing Division 1 NCAA sports. See also SCR1019, Kern (R-27). Scheduled for Senate Government Committee, Wednesday. OPPOSE.
Thursday
HB2201, sponsored by Tim Dunn (R-25), would allow the state, its cities and counties, and public service corporations to transport groundwater away from the Harquahala Irrigation Non-Expansion Area. These areas are called “non-expansion” for a reason: they’re designed to preserve the viability of existing agriculture in an area where groundwater is the principal source of water and we’re already pumping more than the sustainable limit. This bill would allow additional pumping, and that’s bad policy. Scheduled for Senate Natural Resources, Energy & Water Committee, Thursday. OPPOSE.
HB2843, sponsored by Justin Heap (R-10), would broaden an Arizona law which allows Arizonans to use deadly force against people who are trespassing or breaking into their home, to also allow deadly force if an intruder is on someone’s land. This would allow ranchers to legally shoot and kill undocumented immigrants crossing their property, as well as likely increase the prevalence of cases such as the one in Missouri where an 84-year-old homeowner shot 16-year-old Ralph Yarl for simply ringing his doorbell. Scheduled for Senate Judiciary Committee, Thursday. OPPOSE.
HCR2040, sponsored by Austin Smith (R-29), would ask voters to ban Arizona, its cities and counties, and its state universities and community colleges from spending public funds to promote a laundry list of culture-war conspiracy theories. These include reducing meat or dairy consumption or production, eating insects, walking or biking more, taking public transit, reducing air travel, limiting the number of articles of clothing a person may buy or own, recycling water for drinking, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, limiting the increase of global temperature, producing or adopting a climate action plan, replacing private ownership, furthering Marxist ideologies, or implementing mass surveillance systems to monitor motor vehicle travel. As one columnist notes, "there is a move in our country to label anything that right-wingers don’t like as Marxist or Communist.” See mirror bill SCR1015. Scheduled for Senate Judiciary Committee, Thursday. OPPOSE.
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Bills in Rules Committees
Rules exists only to consider whether a bill is constitutional and in the proper form for passage; the committee doesn’t take testimony and doesn’t read comments. These bills will proceed to caucus (separate partisan meetings of all Democrats and all Republicans, which usually happen Tuesdays) and from there to a full floor vote. Contact your representatives and senator as indicated.
SB1129, sponsored by Wendy Rogers (R-7), would require law enforcement to immediately remove any "transient occupant" of private residential property and charge them with trespassing. State statutes already exist to cover this behavior, making this bill unnecessary. The bill does not include any solutions for housing or shelter. Scheduled for House Rules Committee, Monday. OPPOSE.
SB1477, sponsored by Anthony Kern (R-27), would create a "grade challenge department" within the Arizona Board of Regents to hear challenges from public university students regarding grades received in any class or on any assignment if a student alleges a grade was awarded because of “political bias.” The department could order faculty to regrade or reevaluate the student's work. Reminiscent of McCarthyist hysteria. Scheduled for House Rules Committee, Wednesday. OPPOSE.
SB1628, sponsored by Sine Kerr (R-25), would remove any reference to gender in Arizona law and replace it with “sex,” defined as the male or female label assigned to someone at birth based on their physical and reproductive characteristics. This narrow, inflexible and unscientific definition of biological sex would eliminate any legal recognition of transgender people. Not only is there no evidence that transgender-friendly policies endanger anyone, transgender people face a much higher risk of violence, a risk that is elevated under restrictive policies like these. The law could also negatively impact schools’ funding sources. Title IX forbids schools from engaging in sex-based discrimination, which includes sexual orientation and gender identity; under this bill, schools could be put in the impossible position of violating state law or losing federal funding. The bill is being pushed by the evangelical Christian lobbyist group Center for Arizona Policy. Passed House Judiciary Committee on party lines 3/6. Scheduled for House Rules Committee, Wednesday. OPPOSE.
HB2016, sponsored by Gail Griffin (R-19), would give water users in the Douglas area up to 24 additional months to grandfather in their level of groundwater pumping. The Douglas community's water supply is already in peril, yet this would further delay the state’s ability to limit pumping. In 2022, voters in Cochise County (Griffin’s home county) circulated and approved a citizen ballot initiative to go around Griffin, who has long blocked groundwater management in the area, and regulate their community’s groundwater use by creating an Active Management Area for the Douglas basin. Griffin described the voter measure in committee as “a new enemy”; this measure would circumvent the will of those voters. The bill needs an emergency clause, and passed the House with that bar, so your input is particularly needed. Scheduled for Senate Rules Committee, Monday. OPPOSE.
HB2017, sponsored by Gail Griffin (R-19), would allow builders to mix groundwater with river water or wastewater that serves other communities so they could undercut current state regulations on groundwater-reliant development. Currently, developers are required to show a 100-year assured water supply before building homes. Scheduled for Senate Rules Committee, Monday. OPPOSE.
HB2019, sponsored by Gail Griffin (R-19), allows anybody to challenge the results of an Arizona Department of Water Resources report on groundwater levels. This undercuts the highly specialized work of ADWR hydrologists in order to accommodate homebuilders who want to continue developing subdivisions that rely on depleting our state’s precious groundwater. Scheduled for Senate Rules Committee, Monday. OPPOSE.
HB2048, sponsored by Selina Bliss (R-1), would create a special license plate for the Northern Arizona Wine Trail. Arizona currently has 101 special plates, with a portion of each purchase going to a different cause. Not only does having so many plates create difficulties for law enforcement, but some of the plates raise money for political groups, such as the hate group Alliance Defending Freedom and the anti-abortion Arizona Life Coalition. Arizona added 8 more plates just last year. When will it stop?Scheduled for Senate Rules Committee, Monday. OPPOSE.
HB2123, sponsored by Austin Smith (R-29), would ban Arizona and its cities and counties from requiring water measuring devices for many rural wells. This in effect prevents the measuring and tracking of rural groundwater levels, which in turn contributes to continued overpumping. Researchers warn that Arizona’s groundwater is currently seriously overallocated, with unsustainable pumping threatening the state’s water future. Scheduled for Senate Rules Committee, Monday. OPPOSE.
HB2124, sponsored by Austin Smith (R-29), would require courts to award legal fees to the losing party in a lawsuit against an agricultural operation in order to take or reduce the water used by the other party if they determine the suit was a “nuisance action.” As Oscar De Los Santos (D-11) said in committee, this represents “a grave threat to due process rights” and “severely limits access to the courts to vindicate one’s rights.” Scheduled for Senate Rules Committee, Monday. OPPOSE.
HB2244, sponsored by Quang Nguyen (R-1), would ban vegetarian food products from being labeled as “meat” or “poultry” in an “attempt to deter consumers.” Violations would incur fines of up to $100,000 per day. Similar legislation has been introduced or passed in Texas, Mississippi, Louisiana, South Dakota, and Arkansas. Several years ago, a federal court blocked the Arkansas law for confusing consumers in order to benefit the state’s meat industry. Passed the House with 6 dems supporting. Scheduled for Senate Rules Committee, Monday. OPPOSE.
HB2380, sponsored by Neal Carter (R-15), would allow the state to deny an audit request from a city if the taxpayer conducts business in more than one city, basically defanging audits. We wonder which badly behaving taxpayer brought this bill to Rep. Carter to run. Scheduled for Senate Rules Committee, Monday. OPPOSE.
HB2393, sponsored by Alexander Kolodin (R-3), would allow political parties to opt out of the publicly administered presidential preference election and instead choose their nominee via their own private voting process. This is essentially privatizing our elections and does not, for example, guarantee secure electronic voting by overseas military as is currently allowed. The vast majority of voters support expanding the presidential preference election to allow more voters to participate; this moves us in the opposite direction. Scheduled for Senate Rules Committee, Monday. OPPOSE.
HB2404, sponsored by John Gillette (R-30), would ban county recorders from providing a voter registration card to someone whose mailing address is out of state, except for military and their family. This change would negatively impact a wide variety of groups, from retirees and winter visitors to college students. Scheduled for Senate Rules Committee, Monday. OPPOSE.
HB2406, sponsored by John Gillette (R-30), would allow meat, poultry and seafood products made from animals that were not given a mRNA vaccination to be labeled "mRNA free." The bill appears to be driven by a false conspiracy theory that mRNA vaccines have entered the US food supply. A similar bill was introduced last year in Tennessee. Scheduled for Senate Rules Committee, Monday. OPPOSE.
HB2547, sponsored by Rachel Jones (R-17), would ban voting centers and limit precinct size to 1,000 voters. The voting center model allows voters to cast a ballot anywhere in the county — for example, near work or their child’s school — instead of being tied to a single precinct location, and has nearly eliminated the need for provisional ballots. Returning to a precinct model would raise the question of whether counties can find enough poll workers. This is at least the third year in which Arizona’s Republican-led legislature has attempted to ban voting centers. Sen. Ken Bennett (R-1) opposes the bill, so it likely will not reach the governor’s veto pen. Scheduled for Senate Rules Committee, Monday. OPPOSE.
HB2629, sponsored by Ben Toma (R-27), would require schools to include at least 45 minutes of instruction in high-school American Government class designed to convince students that communism is bad. The curriculum would have to focus on "the history of communist regimes around the world and the prevalence of poverty, starvation, migration, systemic lethal violence and suppression of speech under communist regimes." State lawmakers shouldn’t be mandating curriculum; that’s the job of educators who are trained in curriculum development. Republican lawmakers have tried in past sessions to ban “ideologically biased curriculum”; doesn’t this qualify? Scheduled for Senate Rules Committee, Monday. OPPOSE.
HB2779, sponsored by David Marshall (R-7), would mandate that the State Board of Education increase its instruction requirements on Holocaust education from twice in grades 7-12 to at least 3 full school days. The state should not be mandating curriculum; that’s the job of educators who are trained in curriculum development. Being pushed by Superintendent Horne. Scheduled for Senate Rules Committee, Monday. OPPOSE.
HB2793, sponsored by Beverly Pingerelli (R-28), would require district charter school boards to restrict student access to the internet, including social media, and limit students’ use of phones during the school day to only for educational purposes or during an emergency, including during meals, passing periods and recess. Schools should be allowed to set their own policies and not struggle under top-down legislative mandates. Scheduled for Senate Rules Committee, Monday. OPPOSE.
HB2851, sponsored by Justin Heap (R-10), would drastically tighten and restrict ballot chain of custody standards. Part of a conspiracy theory package of bills predicated on the idea that our elections are somehow being stolen. Part of this year’s GOP package of bills to make wide-ranging, harmful changes to Arizona elections. Gov. Hobbs vetoed the same bill last year. Scheduled for Senate Rules Committee, Monday. OPPOSE.
HB2852, sponsored by Justin Heap (R-10), would stop Arizona from participating in ERIC, a multi-state system that weeds out duplicate, deceased or suspicious voter registrations. The ERIC system is one of the strongest safeguards against voter fraud for election officials; there’s no viable replacement. Republican-run states have been abandoning ERIC in the wake of far-right conspiracy theories and struggling to clean voter rolls without it. Gov. Hobbs vetoed a similar bill last year. Scheduled for Senate Rules Committee, Monday. OPPOSE.
2024 Session Timeline
These “deadlines” are highly flexible and can be changed or waived at any time with a simple majority vote.
Friday, 3/22 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, 4/16 100th Day of Session (the stated end goal; can be changed) Flag this handy list of contact info, committee chairs and assignments, updated for 2024.
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