Caucus Talk

More hot mics please ... Who's up for drinks? ... And there are more DeWit tapes.

Conversations among friends are just more honest. 

That’s why caucus meetings — the point in the legislative process where Republicans get together in a group to discuss bills and Democrats do the same — are perhaps the most interesting and illuminating point of any bill’s life. 

Lawmakers held their first caucuses of the year this week, fleshing out the first batch of bills that will go up for votes before the full House or Senate today. For most lawmakers, the caucus meeting is the first time they look at the bills before they’re asked to approve or deny them.

It’s a place where stupid questions are welcome. And sometimes, those stupid questions are right on the money. 

“Maybe this is just like a stupid question,” Republican Rep. Jacqueline Parker told her caucus when it came time to discuss Republican Rep. David Cook’s HB2109, which makes no substantive changes to law and serves as a “vehicle bill” for a strike-everything amendment. “But usually technical corrections don’t make it past committee and caucus and rules and go to the floor. Usually, these are vehicle bills.” 

For Republicans, caucus is their opportunity to speak up about the problems they see with fellow Republicans’ bills without having any Democrats around to hear them.¹ After that, party unity usually kicks in and most Republicans will hold their noses and bite their tongues and support legislation from fellow Republicans, even if they don’t love the idea. 

Our art intern, ChatGPT, really struggled with this one.

For example, Republican Rep. Justin Heap, a criminal attorney, dropped criticism of his caucus members’ propensity to back bills that benefit prosecutors during this week’s House Republican caucus meeting. Law enforcement is behind almost all changes to criminal codes, he said, and that means that the laws only get tougher on crime, and never stronger for the rights of the accused, forcing more defendants into plea deals.

“I’m not saying I’m a certain no. I would like to work with the sponsor, but here is my concern. … I am always extremely wary of giving prosecutors more tools, which they will use to put more pressure on defendants to take the offers and just settle the case out,” he said. 

Republicans have a one-seat majority in both the House and Senate, so any concerns raised during the caucus discussion can signal big problems ahead. If several Republicans speak up and Democrats also don’t like the bill, it may die a quiet death in a desk drawer and never receive that vote from the full chamber. 

For Democrats, caucus is the moment to consolidate talking points against Republican ideas, or ensure that whatever noncontroversial bills Republicans propose don’t contain any sneaky controversies. 

The first caucus meeting of the year also highlights Republican priorities — these are the first batch of bills to clear the committee process, and they’ll be among the first that lawmakers vote for on the floor of the House and Senate on Thursday. 

Some of those priorities include: 

• HB2134, which would up the penalties for fleeing from police

• HB2016, which attempts to push back against Douglas’ new restrictions on the use of groundwater by giving people more time to file for exemptions

• HB2109, which is a technical correction that does nothing except serve as a placeholder for legislation not yet introduced

• And SB1003, which would ban the state and cities from using photo radar and red light cameras.

And while keeping a close eye on caucus meetings may help shed light on what’s coming up next at the Capitol, watching caucus is not always as easy as checking the daily schedule. 

Legislative caucus meetings are exempt from Arizona’s open meetings law. But the legislative rules still required the meetings to be open until 2015, when House Republicans voted to allow caucuses to meet in secret, which they said would be used sparingly to discuss “sensitive topics.” (Democrats at the time tried to take the high ground on the issue, opposing the rule changes in the name of transparency. Except they had been having secret closed caucus meetings in violation of the rules for years.) 

In 2021, the Senate decided to have all its caucus meetings in secret, barring tenacious reporter Julia Shumway from entering all year. Unlike in the House, Senate caucus rooms don’t have video cameras, so the public never knew what lawmakers said about bills or anything else in those countless hours of meetings. 

But we do know those conversations can get heated! Like the time Republicans accidentally left the mics on and were caught talking about retaliating against former Republican lawmakers Paul Boyer and Heather Carter for voting against the GOP budget.

Oh and that Senate GOP caucus room with no cameras? That used to be the Capitol press corps office before lawmakers kicked them out. 

On Monday, we proposed some ways better keep in touch with you subscribers — and you all really seemed to like the idea of interviewing politicians with us. 

Lucky for us, Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer is a glutton for punishment and was kind enough to offer himself up for a mass interview. 

But we don’t want to make you sit through another boring Zoom meeting. 

So we asked our friend Charlie Levy, who owns all the cool bars and venues in Downtown Phoenix, if we could bring a crew to Crescent Ballroom. Charlie is a political geek, too, so he was happy to oblige.

Meet us at Crescent Ballroom at 4:30 today for the first installment of what we hope will be a regular happy hour with politicos. And bring your questions for Maricopa County’s top elections official!

We have no idea how many people will show up, so we’re only telling you paid subscribers where to go.

But we’ll also stream the conversation on our Facebook and Instagram starting at 4:30, and include some highlights in Friday’s edition for those of you who can’t make it.  

Smooth, Jeff: AZGOP Chairman Jeff DeWit resigned in a written statement yesterday after U.S. Senate hopeful Kari Lake leaked audio of him trying to bribe her to stay out of politics. DeWit called the recording “selectively edited” and taken out of context but he said he was resigning anyway because Lake threatened to release more tapes of him saying embarrassing stuff. He also said he was employing Lake at his private company when the conversation was recorded. (Lake at first said that wasn’t true, then she confirmed she worked “with” him, seemingly at a pretty suspect company he is president and CEO of.) And nobody seems exactly sure if the party can technically elect a new chair at its meeting on Saturday. Meanwhile, former lawmaker Jill Norgaard, who once told us that the press should spend its time investigating whether the Hickman’s Farms fire that killed 165,000 chickens was started intentionally to burn ballots rather than investigating the state Senate’s audit of the 2020 election, is now interim chair of the party. 

“This morning, I was determined to fight for my position,” DeWit wrote in the statement. “However, a few hours ago, I received an ultimatum from Lake’s team: resign today or face the release of a new, more damaging recording.” 

It’s for the economy: The Arizona Commerce Authority said it will secure “private funding” for its upcoming CEO forums, but wouldn’t clarify to the Republic’s Stacey Barchenger if that means the agency won’t use state funds. Attorney General Kris Mayes found the ACA violated the Arizona Constitution’s gift clause after the state agency spent over $2.4 million between 2018 and 2023 wooing business leaders with resort stays and sports tickets. Patrick Ptak, the group’s senior vice president and a former spokesman for Gov. Doug Ducey, said the ACA disagrees with Mayes’ findings and justified the spending as promoting economic growth. 

Thirsty for regulations: The Arizona Department of Water Resources is weighing whether to make the Gila Bend Basin halfway between Phoenix and Ajo an “active management area” to control groundwater pumping in the region that’s heavily reliant on farming and suffering plummeting water levels, the Star’s Tony Davis reports. Gov. Katie Hobbs had threatened to push forward with AMAs through her water department if lawmakers didn’t take up her proposal to make it easier for residents to create their own AMAs. The water department has to make a formal proposal and hold public meetings before Gila Bend could be regulated by an AMA. 

Bots beware: A pair of bills that would prevent resellers from using bots to mass purchase tickets or sell multiple copies of the same ticket passed a House committee, per the Republic’s Reagan Priest. The idea is to decrease third-party ticketing scams, and so far, it has bipartisan support. Meanwhile, a Senate committee rejected a plan from Sen. Wendy Rogers to ask voters to weigh in on banning photo radar and red light cameras, the Arizona Mirror’s Caitlin Sievers reports. Republican Sen. Frank Carroll joined Democrats to shoot down Senate Concurrent Resolution 1001, arguing the decision to have cameras or not should be made on the local level. Meanwhile, a bill to outlaw photo radar is up for debate from the full Senate tomorrow, though Hobbs is likely to veto the bill, should it make it to her desk. 

Race against time: Lawmakers still haven’t figured out how to avoid potentially missing the deadline to submit Arizona’s presential election results to Congress after tighter recount laws have upped the probability of deadline-busting recounts this year. The three main sticking points in negotiations are moving up the primary, shortening the time to verify voter signatures and dealing with delays from voters dropping off early ballots on Election Day, Jen Marson, executive director of the Arizona Association of Counties, told Axios’ Jeremy Duda.

Arguing with the AG: The Goldwater Institute is suing Phoenix over its recently passed prevailing wage ordinance that sets required pay rates for construction workers, the Daily Independent’s Mark Carlisle writes. The think tank is arguing the measure violates a state law that restricts municipalities from adopting a prevailing wage. Attorney General Kris Mayes previously issued an opinion saying the prevailing wage is legal, but Goldwater disagrees. 

Dear Diary: Tucson’s brother and sister duo Felicia and Cory Konold were sentenced to 45 and 30 days in prison for their roles in the Capitol riots, the Star reports. The two took a plea agreement that lessened their charges, but federal prosecutors said the pair tried to overpower police and chase them out of the Capitol, and that Felicia celebrated in her diary that the occupation caused "the politicians to run SO FAST from their seats."

Strike trilogy: Sky Harbor restaurant workers went on strike for the third time since September, KJZZ’s Kirsten Dorman writes. The union representing the workers said SSP America, the subcontractor employing them, changed the payroll system without negotiating while some employees said managers have fired or disciplined them since previous walk-outs. 

School voucher advocates were not pleased with Gov. Katie Hobbs’ proclamation declaring this week “school choice week” in Arizona.

1. Each caucus generally sends one intern to watch the other caucus. They’re the “spies.”