Breaking up the logjam

Time to pass the talking stick … Endless spring break … And The Apprentice takes on The Boss.

Arizona officials are locked in high-stakes negotiations over the Colorado River.

The fates of 40 million people, including every Arizonan, will be impacted.

States in the Colorado River Basin will have to make big cuts, which could mean economic growth stalls out, restrictions on new housing or agriculture, raising taxes and water rates, or any number of impossible-to-foresee consequences.

But first, do you know what we’re talking about here? Most people probably don’t.

Basically, the seven states that depend on the River struck an agreement a century ago to share the River’s water. In 2006, cutbacks were negotiated as it became clear that there wasn't enough River water to go around. But that agreement expires at the end of next year.

The signing of the Colorado River Compact in 1922.

Now, they have to divvy up the water supply again, which is shrinking as more people move to the Southwest and climate change gets worse.

And the clock is ticking. Negotiators are supposed to come up with a plan soon.

But apparently the 20 years they’ve had to renegotiate the agreement wasn’t enough time to hash out their differences.

If an agreement isn't reached in the coming weeks, the federal government will step in to provide a solution, and nobody knows how that will turn out.

So, are the states making any progress in negotiations?

Nobody knows that either.

That’s because it’s all happening behind closed doors.

This “train wreck” has been coming for a long time, Republic columnist Joanna Allhands wrote last month. Everybody agrees that longer, deeper water cuts are coming, and there have been some proposals to make those cuts.

“But no one knows which — if any — are still on the table,” Allhands wrote.

Even at the few scheduled times when those negotiators would normally speak to the public, they either refuse to talk in public or even be in the same room with each other.

"The unwillingness to answer the public's questions suggests that negotiations aren't going well," John Fleck, who teaches water policy at the University of New Mexico, told Northern Colorado’s KUNC. "I think it misses an important obligation in democratic governance of a river that serves 40 million people.”

We could go on and on about the need for more transparent communication about what’s actually happening at that negotiating table — and it’s essential — but there’s something deeper at work here.

Everybody in Arizona depends on the Colorado River to a greater or lesser extent, and everybody hears about the River from time to time.

But few people know enough to talk about it. Even fewer know enough to apply public pressure to officials.

The simple fact is that water issues are hard to understand. And if you want to understand water policy, you need a lot of context that isn’t easy to come by.

You have to know what an “acre foot” is. You have to wrap your head around how an aquifer works. You have to know the history that led us to this point.

Then you have to understand the legislative process, including the handful of lawmakers who hold the keys to water policy.

And then you need enough context to understand why some ideas, like building a pipeline from the Mississippi River, keep coming up. And why they never take hold.

And since water touches pretty much everything, you can’t understand Arizona’s housing shortage without grasping water’s role in it. Same for the data centers that are popping up in Arizona.

It’s a lot.

That’s why we launched the Water Agenda in January.

Want to know who the key legislators are? Here you go.

Want to understand the basics of the Colorado River negotiations? We explained that, too.

And don’t worry about having to wade through jargon-filled writing.

Instead, you’ll find clever writing like this:

“They say that the best way to make money during a gold rush is to start selling shovels. Here in Arizona, water districts are being bought up and consolidated by private companies from as far away as West Virginia and Canada.”

And just because it’s fun to read doesn’t mean it lacks depth. Far from it:

“In Arizona, numerous tribes only secured their water settlements in the past few decades, and some — like the Navajo Nation and Hopi Tribe — are still fighting for full recognition of their claims. For tribes, the River’s restructuring in 2026 is an opportunity to further assert their water sovereignty. For Arizona at large, it’s a chance to forge more partnerships with tribes — partnerships that could make or break the state’s water security.”

And in true Agendaverse style, the Water Agenda relishes the lively debate among Arizona officials:

“After Rep. Gail Griffin blocked fellow Republican Rep. Regina Cobb’s Rural Management Area (“RMA”) groundwater bill in four consecutive legislative sessions, Cobb decided to get creative in her battle tactics.

Cobb introduced an amendment to one of Griffin’s bills before it went to a floor vote. She added the entirety of her RMA bill.

Griffin was not pleased and asked the Caucus of the Whole not to support the amendment.

But in the House’s first-ever vote on the RMA concept, the amendment won 31-24, proving that Griffin was the bottleneck for groundwater policy reform.

After the amendment passed, Griffin withdrew the whole bill. Jan Miles, the Republican mayor of Kingman and supporter of the RMA bills, told Zogg that the whole situation was “mind-blowing.”

Rep. Gail Griffin

On top of all that, it’s funny:

“A fight between a rockfish, a feral hog, a common starling, and a carp.

Waterskiing with samurai swords and trashcans.

Democrats convincing Donald Trump to build a “zone of chaos” to keep out foreign invaders.

Government agencies turning animals into double agents to spy on other animals.

And a “Godzilla” monster that could make its way to Arizona.

What do these stories have in common?

They’re all the same story...”

If you boil it all down, the point of the Water Agenda is to make it easy for lots of people to know what they’re talking about. That’s the only way for the public to get a seat at the table.

The good news is getting there is as easy as clicking this button.

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Hardly working: After a two-week vacation, House lawmakers reconvened yesterday to announce they’re taking another two-week vacation. Lawmakers voted on a few remaining bills, but there hasn’t been any news on budget negotiations. Speaker Steve Montenegro said there’s not much left to do bill-wise, so he doesn’t want to call lawmakers back to the Capitol until there’s progress on the budget. Meanwhile, Democrats are not thrilled about the extended vacation. In an oped in the Tucson Sentinel, Tucson Democratic Rep. Kevin Volk noted that lawmakers only have about six weeks left to pass a budget — including the two additional weeks of spring break — and lawmakers haven’t been solving real problems when they do show up to work.

“Taking a break from not getting big legislative things done — in order to do nothing — is impossible to understand. And it’s infuriating to be a part of it,” he wrote.

The billion-dollar exodus: Arizona’s highest performing public and charter schools are losing students to school vouchers, and the ESA program is expected to cost taxpayers $1 billion next school year, 12News’ Craig Harris reports. Harris found 45% of the 87,000 kids using vouchers never went to a public school, and most of the school districts that voucher recipients once attended are A-rated. Meanwhile, Democratic Rep. Nancy Gutierrez penned an op-ed for the Daily Star arguing the Legislature should have passed a renewal of Prop 123 at the beginning of the year, but Republican lawmakers “cooked up a scheme” to instead tie the annual public school funding to constitutional protections for school vouchers.

"When Republicans finally reveal their plan’s details, we expect it to be really all about universal vouchers that have no regulation on safety and no proof of learning required,” Gutierrez wrote.

$352 million later: Maricopa County’s taxpayers’ tab for former Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s racial profiling verdict is poised to reach $352 million next year, the Associated Press’ Jacques Billeaud writes in his annual update.¹ Maricopa County supervisors just approved spending $34 million for continued court-ordered monitoring after a federal judge found Arpaio racially profiled Latinos about 12 years ago — and while the department has seen some improvement, current Sheriff Jerry Sheridan, who was Arpaio’s right-hand man, said he wants to “completely satisfy the court orders within the next two years.”

No ninjas allowed: The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors is set to pay a national consulting firm $400,000 to review its election procedures, Votebeat’s Jen Fifield reports. The firm, BerryDunn, looked at Maricopa’s elections in the past, and Supervisor Thomas Galvin is trying to differentiate the “review” from the infamous Cyber Ninjas “audit.” The firm would look into things like tracking procedures for the county’s paper ballots and tamper prevention at ballot drop boxes.

The thought of another Cyber Ninja audit is scary, but the decimation of local news is even scarier.

No drunk I’m not officer: Arizona’s Supreme Court found state liquor regulators aren’t liable if a bar over-serves a customer who injures someone, Capitol Media Services’ Howie Fischer writes. Car accident victims alleged the state Department of Liquor Licenses and Control failed to shut down a bar that was over-serving people. The court’s unanimous decision overturns an appeals court ruling. In other shady business news: An Arizona man who stole $900,000 from the IRS and federal loan programs was sentenced to four years in prison after opening bogus businesses for pandemic relief money, per KJZZ’s Kirsten Dorman.

How about finance classes?: The guy in charge of overseeing Isaac School District’s finances, after it ended up with a $28 million budget deficit, said the district overused COVID relief money and planned to pay for a security system it already installed using a program it was ineligible for, per KTAR’s Shira Tanzer. Meanwhile, two Mesa high schools will start teaching kids how to be social media influencers next school year, the East Valley Tribune’s Cecilia Chan writes. Influencer class participants will also be subject to classical writing lessons to “slip the veggies in the lasagna,” a Mesa Public Schools director said.

Take the infighting to Twitter: Republican Rep. Walt Blackman went off on far-right Republicans in a social media “article” (which is apparently something you can make if you pay for Twitter) where he doesn’t mention Trump, but says the GOP “has increasingly embraced performative outrage over principled governance,” the Phoenix New Times’ TJ L'Heureux writes. Blackman called Kari Lake’s 2024 Senate loss a “rejection of Republican infighting.”

We all knew this day would come. Businesses are posting job openings, but not for people.

This week in the A.I. Agenda: Companies that only want “resumes” from AI agents — autonomous programs that can make a series of complex decisions to complete tasks.

A decade ago, a YouTube video titled “Humans Need Not Apply” painted a picture of a future where automation and AI will render human jobs obsolete.

Fast forward to 2025, and this vision is unfolding with remarkable accuracy.

“No office politics. No coffee machine small talk. Just pure algorithmic productivity.”

That’s the tagline for JobForAgent.com, the first job board for autonomous AI agents. The postings on the site look familiar at first glance — researcher, podcast editor, SEO researcher, but there’s one key difference: only bots can apply.

Meanwhile, Congress might take over regulating A.I. completely, a college student wants her tuition money back after she caught her teacher using A.I., and much, much more.

Subscribe to the A.I. Agenda today and you’ll get the scoop in your inbox bright and early tomorrow morning.

President Donald Trump is playing dangerous games with the baby boomer vote after calling for an investigation into Bruce Springsteen.

He announced on Truth Social, where everything is true, that he’s launching a “major investigation” into Kamala Harris’ celebrity endorsements, including Springsteen.

Beyoncé and U2’s Bono are equally at risk.

Springsteen frequently calls out Trump during his concerts, and the president’s “positively unhinged” response, per the Republic’s Bill Goodykoontz, included calling the legendary singer a “dried out ‘prune’” who “ought to KEEP HIS MOUTH SHUT until he gets back into the Country.’”

Even the “Born in the U.S.A.” singer isn’t safe.

1. This is, as far as we can easily tell from a quick Google search, at least the 10th year that Billeaud has written this story.