As a freshman lawmaker in 2023, Republican Rep. Selina Bliss sponsored a bill to let cities cap the number of short-term rentals in their jurisdictions.
Another lawmaker ran the same bill the year before with bipartisan support, so she thought it would be an easy win.
“As a naive freshman, I came in thinking that this wouldn't be that difficult,” Bliss told us. “(I) learned rather quickly that there’s a lot of people that are against reform in the short-term rental industry.”
This session marked the fourth year in a row that Bliss’ short-term rental reform efforts failed.
But this year was different: For the first time, both the group that lobbies for cities and the largest short-term rental platform in the world — Airbnb — backed Bliss’ bill.
Then, after months of negotiations, that rare consensus died the way many bills do: in the hands of a committee chair.
And while the bill was top of mind for many lawmakers and lobbyists this session, its death seems to boil down to a lapse in memory.
Bliss’ HB2429 would have let cities limit the number of people who can stay overnight in a short-term rental while giving cities more authority to deny or revoke short-term rental licenses. It also required sex offender background checks for renters.
It came together after many behind-the-scenes conversations, which usually means a bill has a real chance of passing. Lawmakers, lobbyists and interest groups don’t spend weeks haggling over language unless they think a measure can actually make it across the finish line.
The League of Arizona Cities and Towns, a powerful lobbying group representing municipalities at the Capitol, has spent years trying to restore cities’ authority after former Gov. Doug Ducey signed a 2016 law largely banning local oversight of short-term rentals.
The group secured a limited win in 2022 through a law allowing cities to require licenses for short-term rentals and revoke them for repeat nuisance violations.
But short-term rental-related issues have persisted: Sedona declared a housing shortage emergency in late 2024 and determined that short-term rentals account for about 20% of its housing stock. And Scottsdale residents have long complained about nuisances at vacation rentals, from rowdy bachelorette parties to drug busts.
While the short-term rental reform that emerged in Bliss’ bill this year didn’t go as far as the League wanted, it was tame enough to win rare support from Airbnb — putting two longtime adversaries on the same side.
That makes its death much harder to explain.
Both Bliss and League lobbyist Tom Savage aren’t sure why it died.
“It’s kind of a head scratcher,” Savage said. “This is a rare opportunity where you see the platforms and the regulators on the same side of a bill, and I think that should have signaled consensus. Why it didn’t get a hearing in committee is kind of a mystery.”
Part of the reason is timing — Bliss’ bill didn’t officially clear the House until mid-March, about two weeks after bills are supposed to move to the opposite chamber during crossover week.
Plus, the bill went up for a final House vote twice. It initially passed without support from the “majority of the majority,” an unwritten Capitol rule that requires the majority of Republicans to back a bill for it to advance in the opposite chamber. But only 13 Republicans voted for it the first time around.
Bliss secured the majority of Republican votes after adding an amendment to require mandatory sex offender background checks for renters. But after finally getting her bill through the House, it hit a wall in the Senate.
Bliss said she tried repeatedly to meet with Senate President Warren Petersen, but “he refused to hold an appointment with me.”
And after some assurances from Republican Sen. Shawnna Bolick that the short-term rental bill would make it on her Regulatory Affairs and Government Efficiency Committee agenda, that agenda was published without Bliss’s bill.
Bolick told Bliss there wasn’t enough room on the agenda. She suggested trying Republican Sen. David Farnsworth’s Appropriations Committee instead. While most committees had already finished for the session, appropriations was meeting for an extra week.
In a final dose of false hope, Farnsworth suggested the bill would land on his appropriations agenda. That never happened.
“It is frustrating to get so close and so much agreement, and not get there,” Bliss said.
But it’s not as devastating for Farnsworth, who delivered the final blow. He said he used to own an Airbnb in Snowflake, and he’s a “low regulation kind of guy.”
That’s not why the bill was cut from his committee, however.
He doesn’t actually remember why he killed it.
“At this point, I honestly don't remember if I discussed (the short-term rental bill) with someone else and made a decision, or whether it just kind of fell through the cracks,” he said.
Missing those committee hearings meant Petersen never had to decide whether to bring the bill up for a final vote, but he told us he would’ve voted yes on the bill.
Petersen’s support won’t matter as much next year, since he’s leaving the Legislature to run for attorney general. Bliss said she’ll still try again in 2027 if she wins reelection, this time by running a mirror bill in the Senate, so both chambers can work the same bill at the same time.
Airbnb lobbyist Lauren Bouton said the company is “always open to have a conversation with folks,” but made clear that future efforts will need industry buy-in.
“We hope that if they would like to work on a policy next year, that they come to us early,” she said. “And if they would like for something to move, we hope that they are looping in industry.”
And to get the short-term rental bill passed next year, it might also help if someone loops Farnsworth in.
“My memory is not clear, but ultimately I take responsibility for deciding not to put it on the agenda, whether I decided or forgot,” the senator said. “But of course, I should have had a follow up conversation with the sponsor, which obviously I did not.”
Here he comes: President Donald Trump is coming to Phoenix on Friday to speak at a Turning Point USA event, Morgan Fischer reports for the New Times. The “Build the Red Wall” event will be held at the Dream City Church, where the late founder of Turning Point, Charlie Kirk, was a member. While Turning Point finds its way post-Kirk, Democrats are hoping the new National Ground Game group can compete for the youth vote, including by challenging Turning Point members on the ASU campus, per the New York Times.
There they go: Arizona’s Democratic Sens. Mark Kelly and Ruben Gallego keep popping up in conversations about presidential candidates for 2028. Last week, they went to a key gathering of a dozen prospective candidates in New York and the event’s host, Rev. Al Sharpton, gave the New York Times his take on how each candidate did.
Gallego: “A lot of people didn’t know who he was,” Mr. Sharpton said, adding that Mr. Gallego was able to link his opposition to President Trump’s deportation agenda to civil rights. “It was effective.”
Kelly: “He came off as a folksy, everyday guy,” Mr. Sharpton said. He added that attendees appreciated that he had come early to attend a reception with delegates.
Veto season is upon us: Gov. Katie Hobbs announced she’s imposing a bill-signing moratorium on Monday, saying she will veto all bills until GOP lawmakers make their budget proposal public. Hobbs already paused budget negotiations during a dispute over Prop 123, the education funding measure. She says if Republicans do indeed have a budget proposal, they’ve “kept it secret from the public and continue to hide it from scrutiny.”
“Governor Hobbs quit the budget talks more than three weeks ago after it became clear her numbers did not add up, and now she is trying to distract from that failure with a bill-signing freeze. That is political theater,” House Speaker Steve Montenegro shot back on Twitter.
Full-time pay needs full-time work: Hobbs says state lawmakers should “show up” and do their jobs better before they start demanding voters give them a pay raise, Capitol scribe Howie Fischer reports. Lawmakers have several constitutional changes in the works to raise their pay, which is $24,000 annually for what is considered a part-time job. (Lawmakers can’t raise their own salary,1 per the state constitution, so they want to change the constitution.) Even though Hobbs is pushing back on the pay raises, she still used the low pay when she was a state senator a decade ago as a fundraising pitch, Fischer notes.
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What’s (not) coming down the pike: Arizona and the other states that rely on the Colorado River keep getting bad news about the snowpack that feeds the river, per the Colorado Sun’s Shannon Mullane. The most recent grim news came from Airborne Snow Observatories, which uses planes to take laser measurements of snowpack. In some places, the snowpack is just half of what it was in April 2025.
“If there’s anything in your memory about a dry year that you’ve seen, a warm year that you’ve seen, 2026 is beyond all of that,” said Raquel Flinker, an official with the Colorado River District.
“What was the name of that place with the awesome enchiladas?”
That’s what we imagine former Vice President Mike Pence was asking his aides as they waited to fly out of Sky Harbor in 2018, although probably with less of a stoner vibe.
Pence had eaten at Ajo Al’s when he visited Phoenix the year before. When he came back, he made sure enchiladas, rice, beans and chips were delivered to Air Force Two.
This little tidbit was lost to time until Axios resurfaced it, along with a long list of famous politicians who ate in the Phoenix area.
That list includes former President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama taking shots at Macayo’s in 2009. And way back in 1987, former President George H.W. Bush learned how to fry tortillas at the Estrella Tortilla Factory.
1 But lawmakers can — and have — jacked up their own “per diem” pay, which means some lawmakers now take home close to six figures. (Yes, we’re still looking at you, Republican Sen. David Gowan.)