CEBV Weekly: May 6, 2024
A new ballot referral to fight. Yanking back a bargaining chip. The ballot images thing, *again*. And, not repealed yet.
A new ballot referral to fight. On Wednesday, the Senate Military Affairs and Public Safety Committee will meet to discuss a strike-everything amendment to Speaker Toma’s previously stalled HCR2060. (Remember, no bill is ever dead until the legislature adjourns.) According to their press release, Senate Republicans plan a ballot measure asking voters to allow local police to arrest migrants crossing the border.
Republicans losing = brown people scary. Though we don’t have official language yet, it appears the measure will be patterned after failed bill SB1231 (which Gov. Hobbs vetoed). This unholy resurrection is not only bad governance, but a transparent attempt by the Republican majority to change the conversation away from bad-for-them reproductive rights headlines and toward engaging their right-wing with whipped-up, unfounded fears on immigration. The “hey, look over THERE!” voter distraction tactic is an old game, and it doesn't work.
Arizona out of its lane. Federal law and the courts have made it explicitly clear that immigration policy and enforcement are the role of federal government, not the states. Even the Legislature’s nonpartisan rules attorneys have warned lawmakers that these bills violate the US Constitution. But our state lawmakers are hoping they can sucker voters in with hostile election-year rhetoric and score some cheap political points.
Use RTS to oppose HCR2060 by Wednesday at noon.
A two-week break. Meanwhile, the House has decided to take a nice long vacation; they’re adjourned until May 15.
⏰ If you have 5 minutes: Use Request to Speak to oppose the striker to HCR2060.
⏰⏰ If you have 15 minutes: Contact Gov. Hobbs and remind her that attacks on election integrity and voter privacy have no place in our state budget. (See “Budget Watch” below for more.) You can call 602-542-4331 or email engage@az.gov.
⏰⏰⏰ If you have 30 minutes: Contact Gov. Hobbs and your own lawmakers (or legislative leadership of either party) and ask them to fight for a state budget that does something about our out-of-control ESA voucher problem this year. Save Our Schools Arizona has a handy tool that makes this easy.
⏰⏰⏰⏰ If you have 45 minutes: Arizona desperately needs a different legislature. Find the competitive legislative district nearest you1, 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’ll feature Jody Rein, co-founder and leader of Indivisible's national Truth Brigade, for a presentation and conversation on combating disinformation. We’ll meet every Sunday at 4 PM through the end of session. Sign up here.
Carving out favorites. Remember last week when Gov. Katie Hobbs announced a hiring freeze for all state agencies? Republicans noticed that the order applied to all agencies, including the Department of Public Safety, and immediately asked Hobbs for an exemption.
Rejecting a powerful bargaining chip. Republicans have long preferred to fund certain agencies over others. They don’t want to hear that the budget mess they created means their favorite agencies will be impacted too. Evenly applying the consequences of the mess could have been a strategic play to force Republicans into impactful change. But instead, just days after issuing her order, Hobbs backed down.
Lifting the cap won’t help. It isn’t a hiring freeze that’s causing the ongoing trooper shortage — it’s low pay and poor benefits. DPS ranks behind other law enforcement agencies in the state for pay, including the police departments of Phoenix, Paradise Valley, Tempe, Scottsdale, Chandler, Mesa, Gilbert, Surprise, Apache Junction and Glendale. This has a direct impact on public safety. A spokesman for the Arizona State Troopers Association says the shortage has led to longer DPS response times, a lack of backup for troopers, and an inability to provide round-the-clock coverage outside of Maricopa and Pima counties.
The problem: no money. What DPS really needs isn’t a lifted hiring cap, it’s more money to pay officers. But with this legislature struggling to backfill a $1.8 billion deficit while refusing to address its two primary drivers (universal ESA vouchers and massive tax cuts), that just isn’t going to happen.
Violating voter privacy, again. Remember last month, when perpetual ballot-images crusader Ken Bennett (R-1) told Votebeat reporter Jen Fifield he had a plan to cram his failed bill into this year’s state budget? Bennett now says he has run his plan past Hobbs, and Fifield is reporting the idea is “likely to end up” in the budget.
A clear-cut issue. This idea has long lacked the support to become law on its merits. Lawmakers have rejected it again and again because it’s a terrible idea that the public hates. We hated the idea this year. We hated it last year. We hated it in 2022, when it had voting conspiracy theorist and election denier Sonny Borrelli (R-30)’s name on it. Nothing's changed — it's still a terrible idea. Circumventing public input and traditional lawmaking by going around voting rights experts who have already said no only makes it worse.
Undermining our freedom to vote. Publicly publishing an election cast-vote record or ballot images violates voter privacy, destroys our right to a secret ballot, and weakens the integrity of our safe and secure elections. It’s the brainchild of sketchy folks like Cyber Ninjas, who recommended the idea after their failed ballot review. Ballot-image shill John Brakey, a friend of Bennett’s who runs a company with the motto “Official election results cannot be trusted,“ is conveniently offering Arizona the use of its proprietary “audit” software; he spearheaded the hunt for bamboo fibers in our ballots in 2021 at the behest of then-Senate President Karen Fann.2 We could go on and on, but we’ll only say this idea is designed to generate more mistrust in our democracy and is clearly part of the continued wave of efforts to restrict and undermine Arizonans’ freedom to vote.
Absolutely not. Gov. Hobbs vetoed this horrible idea last year; she must stick to her guns in negotiations and clearly tell Bennett that under no circumstances will she support this. If it makes it into the budget despite that, we expect her to exercise her budgetary line-item veto power.
Finally through the second chamber. As expected, the Senate voted Wednesday to pass HB2677. MAGA Republican senators tried all kinds of procedural shenanigans to stop it (which didn’t work). Defeated and furious, they then spent more than three hours lamenting the repeal and trying to shame the two Republicans who voted for it.
Longer than a CVS receipt. There’s no time limit on vote explanations in the Senate, so naturally, several MAGA lawmakers approached filibuster length.
A tool to express dissent. Wednesday reminded us of April 6, 2017, when Republicans passed the bill that became Prop 3053 and Democrats spoke eloquently for hours in dissent to no avail. If control of the Senate flips as expected in November (and the chamber’s rules don’t change as a result), we can expect lots more of this windbag behavior from MAGA Republicans — who are likely about to experience the same cold shoulder they’ve shown Democrats. They’re a minority of Arizona’s electorate, but because they’ve been wielding a disproportionate amount of power at the Capitol, reality may present a rough transition. As they say, when you’ve lived your whole life with privilege, equality looks like oppression.
Not truly repealed. Though Hobbs has signed the repeal, it doesn't take effect until 90 days after the legislature adjourns for the year, whenever that is. Meanwhile, the 1864 ban is set to take effect June 27. This means a blackout in care until voters weigh in on the issue in November. This week, the Arizona Supreme Court agreed to hear Attorney General Kris Mayes’ request to stay the ban’s enforcement for 90 days so she can evaluate whether to petition the US Supreme Court for review — a move that could eliminate the blackout. We should know more by the end of this week.
HCR2060, sponsored by Ben Toma (R-27), is now subject to a striker that would make it a state crime to cross a federal border without the required documentation and give local police immunity to arrest migrants crossing the border. The bill, which echoes Arizona’s notorious SB1070, conflicts with a 2012 US Supreme Court ruling that said Arizona has no right to enforce federal immigration laws, and thus is likely unconstitutional. Gov. Hobbs vetoed a very similar bill earlier this year. The sponsor is running in a crowded primary for Congress in a deep red district. This measure smells like red meat for Republican voters rather than a serious proposal, and would unnecessarily clutter an already crowded ballot. Scheduled for Senate Military Affairs and Public Safety Committee, Wednesday. OPPOSE.
This past week, Gov. Hobbs exercised her power to protect Arizonans from the following harmful, CEBV-opposed legislation.
Vetoed:
HB2124, Smith (R-29), would have required 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.” This would have been a threat to due process and would have severely limited access to the courts to vindicate one’s rights. Vetoed 4/30.
2024 Session Timeline
Sunday, 6/30 Constitutionally mandated deadline for a state budget
Flag this handy list of contact info, committee chairs and assignments, updated for 2024.
Bookmark CEBV’s Linktree. Want to attend a Civics, Persuasion, Testimony, RTS or other training? Ready to register for an upcoming Spotlight Conversation or view a past one? Need to stay informed? Looking for our social media, inspiration, or self-care tips? It’s all here on our Linktree:
Those districts are 2, 4, 9, 13, 16, 17, 23, and 27. (Yes, we’re going to keep repeating this until November 5th, why do you ask?)
This bill was SB1431, which first introduced universal vouchers back in 2017, and which voters shot down in November 2018 by 2-to-1 margins.