Capitol High School
Get in, loser. We’re starting the legislative session.
Arizona’s 90 state legislators all have the same job. It’s their life experiences, interests and careers outside of the Capitol that shape their personal brands, however.
And with so many issues to tackle across the state, lawmakers have naturally grouped themselves into different genres of policy and politics.
For the more than 20 new “freshman” lawmakers1 heading to the Capitol on Monday, it might be difficult to figure out where they fit in.
We like to think about the Legislature as a high school cafeteria: The real personal dynamics at play at the Capitol are more about informal, fluid cliques than formal caucuses.
Like high school, the groups occur naturally. There’s not a recipe for divvying up the crowd — people flock to what they’re familiar with.
So we created this handy guide to the cliques of the Arizona Legislature to help the legislative newcomers figure out where to set their lunch trays.
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The Cool Kids
At Arizona Capitol High — like most high schools — the popular crowd runs the show.
Republicans reelected Senate President Warren Petersen to a second term as the Senate leader this year, while House Republicans backed Steve Montenegro as their speaker. Unlike student government, these positions come with real power. The speaker and president control the flow of bills, committee assignments and even staffing in their chamber.
Minority leadership positions are a little more like student body president — they come with some responsibility, but no real power. Senate Democrats elected Priya Sundareshan as their caucus leader, putting her in charge of setting the strategy for any wins the Left can get this year. House Democrats supported Oscar De Los Santos as their minority leader.
And as the Legislature’s influencers, Petersen and Montenegro have the power to push their priorities. De Los Santos and Sundareshan will mostly just organize the opposition.
The Teachers’ Lounge
If you can command a classroom, you might also be audacious enough to take up public office.
The Capitol is dotted with Democratic lawmakers who took up politics because of their first-hand experience with Arizona’s troubled public school system.
Reps. Nancy Gutierrez and Oscar De Los Santos plus Sens. Lela Alston and Eva Diaz are all current or former teachers who’ve espoused policies like increasing teacher pay, funding public education and scaling back the universal school voucher program.
Newcomer Rep. Stephanie Simacek might eat her lunch in the teachers’ lounge. She spent several years as a first-grade teacher and has placed education reform as one of her top priorities.
On the flip side of that coin, a handful of Republican lawmakers would feel right at home in the teachers’ lounge at Capitol High.
Rep. Matt Gress, a former public school teacher, has pushed plans for teacher raises while advocating for “parental choice” in education on everything from school vouchers to what kids are taught in school.
Newcomer Lisa Fink might find her place on the Republican side of the teacher’s lounge. She heads the Protect Arizona Children Coalition, a group lobbying for parental rights, and says she’s on the “front lines of protecting minors from transgender surgeries.”
And new Republican lawmaker, Michael Way, who runs his family business providing services to charter schools, will also likely find friends with the pro-universal voucher crowd.
Speaking of students, teachers and charter schools, sign up for our new weekly education primer, the Education Agenda. Our first edition lands next week!
The Cheerleaders
While we hate to induce the mental image of any lawmakers wearing cheerleading uniforms, there’s a subset of Republicans whose political identities revolve around MAGA loyalism.
The bills they push often fall under the umbrella of Donald Trump’s America-first brand, like strict border reform and tax cuts.
Trump’s biggest cheerleaders include the likes of Sen. Wendy Rogers, who says she owns two pairs of Trump-branded gold sneakers and has already sponsored a bill this session to name State Route 260 the “Donald J. Trump Highway.”
Mark Finchem is returning to the Legislature this year after a failed bid for Secretary of State in 2022. Like Trump, Finchem blamed his loss on election fraud, and in true cheerleader fashion, he was at the Jan. 6 riot watching fellow Trump fans break into the U.S. Capitol.
Republican Sen. Jake Hoffman deserves a honorable mention for his indictment in Arizona’s fake electors case over his involvement in a plan to proclaim Trump won Arizona in 2020. Right after his arraignment hearing for the charges, he went to cheer Trump on at a town hall in Phoenix.
We won’t be surprised if incoming Rep. Pamela Carter sets her lunch tray at the MAGA table this session. The former fitness television star was the Deputy Strategic Initiatives Director of Arizona for Trump Victory.
Future Business Leaders of America
A handful of Arizona’s lawmakers have huge financial interests in various industries that frequently conflict or collide with their lawmaking duties. And as successful entrepreneurs, they usually champion legislation that cuts taxes, loosens labor laws and deregulates business operations.
Rep. Joseph Chaplik runs an investment real estate company that has over $1 billion in sales volume, per his campaign site. Rep. Laurin Hendrix’s website says he’s owned businesses ranging from auto repair to banking.
Longtime lawmaker Sen. Kevin Payne owns a food truck business and has sponsored legislation expanding where food trucks can operate.
Newcomer Khyl Powell can suit up with the best of them as the owner of an industrial real estate development company in Gilbert. And returning lawmaker Justin Olson will certainly feel welcome in the business crowd as the Chief Financial Officer of Turning Point USA.
The Protest Squad
While the new norm for Republicans exists on the far right of the political spectrum, up-and-coming Democrats are moving further left.
Second-term lawmaker Sen. Analise Ortiz has championed the same issues a lot of Democrats have — like affordable housing, access to abortions and investing in public schools — but she’s been much louder about it.
Ortiz conducts on-the-ground advocacy work and has commanded an impressive TikTok following, where she’s not afraid to talk about the failures of her own party.
Ortiz and Rep. Oscar De Los Santos led a “shame” chant at Republican lawmakers for not voting on repealing a near-total abortion ban last year. That’s the kind of young Democratic energy that fits perfectly in this category.
New lawmaker Brian Garcia should fit right in with his advocacy for things like abortion access, addressing climate change and providing pathways to citizenship.
The Nerds
Unlike high school, being a nerd in the Legislature is a good thing.
Knowing how complicated processes like the state’s statutes and budget work gives lawmakers a leg-up.
Republican budget hawks like Rep. David Livingston, who used to run his own financial consulting business, have a lot to say when crafting the complex inner workings of what Arizona will spend and cut each year.
Republican Rep. Matt Gress, former Gov. Doug Ducey’s budget director, chaired committees that oversee audits on every state agency and how the budget is funded. And Republican Sen. John Kavanagh may be something of a class clown, but he still hangs out with the other budget nerds, having served on appropriations committees for more than a decade.
Republican Rep. Alexander Kolodin uses his expertise as an attorney to ask complicated legal questions at committee hearings and work on complex legislation like the bill that fixed Arizona’s election timeline last year.
Democratic Sen. Mitzi Epstein, a computer systems analyst, has emerged as a leader in the Democratic caucus after spending nine years at the Capitol. She’s often calling for points of order in the legislative chambers and knows the rules front-to-back.
That includes previous lawmakers returning for another stint after taking a term or more off.
All in all...a pretty depressing little group. Can they agree on anything? No.
Posturing for 2026 will begin early and Hank and Co. should start chatting up possible GOP contenders for the state-wide offices. Trump has already endorsed Karen Taylor Robson for Governor so that role is likely settled. But, 2026 has a new twist with the addition of a Lieutenant Governor to run as a teammate with each Gov. nominee. Who will Hobbs pick? Who will KTR pick?