The Daily Agenda: The state needs you
The Daily Agenda: The state needs you
The only downside is meetings ... The presidential indictment you knew was coming ... And the spoon theft remains unsolved.
You can be a critical part of state government.
With a new governor, there are tons of vacancies on Arizona boards and commissions that Gov. Katie Hobbs will fill in the coming months.
As of early March, the state had more than 700 openings on boards, commissions and task forces. In all, there are more than 200 boards and commissions across state government that the governor appoints people to.
Most of those positions aren’t very sexy, though some higher-profile openings need appointees, like members of the Arizona Board of Regents, State Board of Education and State Board for Charter Schools.
But your contribution to the state doesn’t need to be high-profile to be important. Your industry may have a board or commission where your input would be valuable. Dairy farmer? The Arizona Beef Council is calling your name. You may have a passion or expertise in a certain subject. If you’re a local elected official, like a mayor or council member, several boards and commissions are looking for your help.
Some boards simply need members of the public who care about keeping an eye on industries to spend a few hours each month at meetings to protect consumers. We’re all members of the public!
Every once in a while, these boards and commissions run into problems that land their members into the news.
Under Gov. Doug Ducey, openings on boards and commissions sometimes languished unfilled for long periods, leaving a lack of oversight. For instance, the Psychiatric Security Review Board didn’t meet for months in 2022 because it didn’t have enough members to constitute a quorum.
Ducey often took aim at boards and commissions and worked to eliminate some of them in a quest to streamline government. And when a board ran into trouble, he sometimes disbanded the board or canned its members.
Since taking office, Hobbs unexpectedly fired the whole Arizona-Mexico Commission to clean house, telling members they could reapply for their positions.
But don’t be spooked: Most boards and commissions won’t become headlines. Instead, they do the grunt work of enforcing state laws and policies that oversee certain industries or monitor specific policy arenas.
While nominees for agency directorships have to go through a legislative circus these days, people appointed to boards and commissions don’t have to.
If you’ve always wanted to get more involved and make a direct impact on the state, a board or commission is a great place to start. If you think a run for public office could be in your future, maybe try out one of these positions first to see if you can endure sitting through meetings — that’s a critical part of serving in office.
You just have to apply, using this online form, and wait to hear if you could be selected. You can find a full list of vacancies here.
Well, well, well: Former President Donald Trump was indicted on a range of charges by a New York grand jury after an investigation by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office into a hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels. There aren’t a lot of local angles on this, but it’s a big deal in politics. Check out these reactions from Arizona politicians and watch an interview with former Arizonan and one-time Trump press secretary Stephanie Grisham.
Another week, another round of vetoes: Gov. Katie Hobbs vetoed two more bills late last week, nixing a measure that would’ve required companies to allow employees to skip certain vaccines, including the COVID-19 vaccine, and fined companies that didn’t comply. She also vetoed a bill that would’ve banned camping in public areas, saying it wouldn’t help the homelessness problem and would instead just make it “less visible.”
Ban the competition: The Arizona Democratic Party will sue to keep a new centrist party, No Labels, off the 2024 ballot. The lawsuit against No Labels and Democratic Secretary of State Adrian Fontes claims the new party didn’t follow rules for collecting signatures required to gain ballot status and isn’t complying with laws on donors that apply to political parties, the Washington Post’s Michael Scherer reports. Dems have feared the moderate party could peel off voters and throw the election to right-wing candidates.
Church of demonic babies: A Tucson-based church (that may be a cult) has been buying up property on the top of Mount Lemmon for the past 20 years without telling its congregation or paying property taxes, the Arizona Daily Star’s Carol Ann Alaimo and freelancer Emily Bregel write. Most of the land is undeveloped, but a few luxury homes are reserved for “church” leaders, which may be a problem for the IRS.
“(Stephen M.) Hall has no formal pastoring credentials and preaches what critics call a warped version of Christianity: one that involves financial coercion, alienation from family members, subjugation of women and corporal punishment of babies to ostensibly drive out demons that keep them from falling asleep,” the duo writes.
Free-ish: Jacob Chansley, the so-called “QAnon Shaman” who was sentenced to prison for his role in the Jan. 6 insurrection, was released from prison early and moved to a halfway house. Chansley became one of the most recognizable figures tied to the insurrection and has recently gotten attention from Fox News’ Tucker Carlson, though legal experts have said Carlson’s interest didn’t spark the early release.
All that preparation: Anticipating that political candidates would attack the process in 2022, Maricopa County elections officials worked to improve the signature verification process for mail-in ballots, Votebeat’s Jen Fifield reports. Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer added more checks and balances to the process, including more training, increased signatures for comparison, additional auditing and more people assessing signatures. The only claim left alive in a lawsuit by failed gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake relates to the signature verification process and faces long odds in court.
Next year’s election fodder: Despite leaving the Democratic Party, U.S. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema is still using ActBlue, the left’s fundraising platform, to raise money, Politico reports. The platform says Sinema can still use it to fundraise because she caucuses with Democrats. Meanwhile, Sinema joined with a group of largely Republican senators to vote to remove “ephemeral streams,” or waterways that don’t continuously flow, from a definition of waters that require certain protections, 12News’ Hunter Bassler reports. President Joe Biden is expected to veto the bill.
Monday bill roundup: Lawmakers are wrapping up lots of bills around this time of year, nixing bills or sending them to the governor’s desk for action. Here’s a rundown of recent bill actions:
A housing bill would require the state to prioritize Arizonans on subsidized housing waitlists.
A plan to ding cities with higher minimum wages than the state (Tucson and Flagstaff) failed.
It’s a mixed bag for proposals to better regulate groundwater usage.
Hobbs will almost certainly veto an anti-abortion bill that would require doctors to provide care to babies born alive regardless of their ability to survive.
The Arizona Schools for the Deaf and Blind will likely get the bill needed to stay open, but it’s not clear for how long or why lawmakers have problems with the school.
Hobbs signed a bill to grant more assistance to people who have to move their mobile homes, helping three Phoenix-area mobile home parks right now.
There is always an egg bill, and this session is no eggs-ception.
Punting until later: After two hours of testimony last Thursday, the House Ethics Committee didn’t take any action on a complaint against Republican Rep. Liz Harris over a wild conspiracy theory floated by a speaker she invited to an elections hearing, the Arizona Capitol Times’ Nick Phillips reports. Harris said she did know about some of the content the speaker intended to present, but not all of it. The committee also reviewed text communications between the speaker and Harris, which showed Harris at least had a pretty good idea of what was coming.
Confirming your hunch: Maricopa County saw more new residents than any other county across the U.S. last year, adding nearly 57,000 people for a 1.3% population increase, Axios Phoenix’s Jessica Boehm reports. With such rapid growth, the Valley continues to struggle with sustainability, housing and cost issues.
Big changes for the big district: Phoenix Union High School District Superintendent Chad Gestson is leaving his post after eight years on the job, leaving behind a track record of massive changes for the district, Rhonda Cagle writes in the Republic’s op-ed pages. Separately, a safety committee for the district will recommend bringing police officers back to campus, with some stipulations, about two years after the district’s board voted to remove officers from campuses, KTAR reports.
Still the most perplexing lawsuit: Tempe music venue Shady Park and Arizona State University retirement community Mirabella reached a settlement in an ongoing legal battle over noise levels the retirees found too loud. The agreement ends the lawsuit and will require Shady Park to put in more sound abatement measures to reduce outside noise, the State Press’ Shane Brennan reports. Shady Park will again start hosting live music, though the full terms of the settlement are confidential.
Housing would help: After a court ruling that requires the City of Phoenix to disband and clean up the downtown Phoenix homeless encampment, Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego said she agreed with the ruling in spirit but that the city needed more indoor shelter space rather than an outdoor structured campground to address the problem, the Republic’s Taylor Seely reports. Other council members also weighed in on the ruling, and the council is expected to come up with ways to address this ruling and other recent rulings on homelessness.
Ups and downs: USA Today’s Nicole Carroll catches up with Sandra Day O’Connor’s son, Scott, and lifelong friend, Gay Firestone Wray, to hear how the 93-year-old former U.S. Supreme Court justice is doing these days. O’Connor, who has Alzheimer’s, has good days and bad, Carroll writes in a piece that goes through O’Connor’s past and present.
"On the good days, she can get a laugh out of us," Scott O'Connor told Carroll. "She'll say some quip and crack us up. On those days, Mom's still there."
TikTok for cops: So far this year, 17 police officers around the state have been investigated by the Arizona Peace Officer Standards and Training Board for misconduct like driving drunk or mishandling evidence, though police agencies only have to tell the board about problems if an officer ends up getting fired, Phoenix New Times’ Katya Schwenk reports. One officer was investigated because of various TikTok videos he made about his job.
Never stop watching Cochise: The Arizona Attorney General’s Office went to court last week in a hearing over AG Kris Mayes’ lawsuit against Cochise County for the board of supervisors’ decision to offload election duties to County Recorder David Stevens. The court case will move from Cochise courts to Pima County, Summer Hom of Arizona Public Media reports in an update on the lawsuit. Meanwhile, Stevens tangled with two people working to get signatures for a recall of Supervisor Tom Crosby, telling them they couldn’t gather signatures near the Hereford Post Office because they were on federal land, the Herald/Review’s Andrew Paxton reports.
Credit where it’s due: Nogales council members voted to allow their offices to have city-issued credit cards, which came after questions over how Mayor Jorge Maldonado, who already had a city card, had used the card to pay for things like meals and travel expenses for city business, the Nogales International’s Angela Gervasi reports.
Budget by the people: Tucson’s Ward 1 is experimenting with the concept of “participatory budgeting,” which allows people who live in the district to directly help allocate some city funds to priorities they believe the community needs, the Arizona Luminaria’s John Washington reports. People can pitch an idea for a project and vote on it to direct the money, with $450,000 of the budget allocated for the participatory project.
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