While anyone who’s hung around the Arizona Legislature could tell you that Democrats and Republicans are as partisan and divided as ever, there are still times when even the strangest of bedfellows find an opportunity to work across the aisle.
Toward the end of this year’s session, a new partnership emerged between the most progressive Democrats and the most MAGA Republicans over a relatively new, pressing social problem: mass surveillance and data collection.
It’s a perfect example of the horseshoe theory of politics — the idea that at times, the furthest-left and furthest-right political players have much in common.
Yeah, this must be a British explanation.
Though the last-minute strike-everything amendment they hoped to put up for a vote on the final day of the legislative session never came to fruition, Republican Sen. Jake Hoffman and Democratic Sen. Lauren Kuby joined forces with the shared goal of protecting civil liberties.
Back in March, Hoffman took to the Senate floor and railed for about 20 minutes against SB1111 — a police-backed attempt to put regulations around mass surveillance systems like Flock cameras — saying it would allow dangerous overreach and violate the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Kuby also opposed it , saying it was "not a fixable bill.”
Hoffman’s speech ultimately killed that bill. And with that win under his belt, Hoffman and allies wanted to go further — with a New Hampshire-style law that would severely limit the use of cameras, and require data to be deleted almost immediately.
But one mighty force stood in their way: a collective of law enforcement unions, with whom they tried to negotiate a framework in three separate meetings. Ultimately, Hoffman and Kuby couldn’t work out a deal with the unions — who they say walked away from the talks as a hard “no.”
Hoffman told us that while he thought the Arizona Association of Chiefs of Police and the Arizona Sheriffs’ Association were both negotiating in good faith, the police unions were “to a far lesser extent.”
“The stakeholder meetings weren’t successful in getting law enforcement on board with self-regulating government mass surveillance technology,” Hoffman said in an interview. “There was a significant difference between the law enforcement unions and the law enforcement community in terms of how they approached the stakeholder meetings, the integrity with which they approached the meeting.”
But even the sheriffs’ association came away without signing onto the proposal.
“ASA supports reasonable guardrails, transparency, and oversight around LPR (license plate reader) technology,” Maria Fuentes, the executive director of the association, told us. “Our concern with the proposal, as drafted, was that several provisions raised operational and public safety concerns and needed more time for review given the complexity of the issue and the late stage of session.”
Fuentes also said that the association is “committed” to working on legislation that “protects privacy while preserving LPRs as an important public safety tool.”
However, she did not respond to a follow-up question about what specific provisions the association found concerning.
Kuby and Hoffman both noted that the ideal legislative model for a new law regulating surveillance cameras comes from New Hampshire, where data can’t be stored for longer than three minutes.
The idea is that, if there is an active warrant, law enforcement can immediately locate a wanted person by seeing them pass by a license plate reader — but everything else gets deleted three minutes later.
Law enforcement unions and other stakeholders thought three minutes was too little time, the lawmakers said. So the negotiating team shifted its original proposal to look something more like a model created by the Institute for Justice, a libertarian public interest law firm.
Their law would have required public hearings and ample notice when a city looks to adopt surveillance technology; required a supermajority on city councils or local governing bodies to approve them; and placed more regulations on vendors’ practices.
“As this world becomes increasingly surveilled, we thought there was an opportunity to really rein in and … work towards ensuring that private data wouldn’t be saved in a database that we had no control over,” Kuby told us.
Surveillance technology — particularly automated license plate recognition (ALPR) cameras like those made by Flock Safety — has caught the public’s attention after reports about that company’s highly questionable data retention practices. It’s a trend we reported on back in January, alongside a GOP backlash against photo radar cameras.
Flock has become a symbol for the modern surveillance state, coming under scrutiny from the left for its role in President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown. Though Flock said it doesn’t contract with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), 404 Media obtained records showing that ICE officials enlisted the help of local officers to search the database system.
It’s estimated that 5,000 police departments use the company’s technology, which takes pictures of license plates and uses artificial intelligence to save them into a huge database that all its customers share, so they can run a nationwide search.
If you want to see whether Flock has been tracking your movement, try plugging your license plate number into this Have I Been Flocked? website.
While Arizona became home to plenty of Flock cameras, many cities have decided to ice business with the company.
In the last year, Flagstaff, Sedona, South Tucson and (most recently) Chandler have all moved away from or canceled their contracts with Flock. Tempe, after councilmembers faced an anti-Flock campaign led by then-candidate and new councilmember-elect Bobby Nichols, is considering shifting its surveillance contract over to Axon.
For Hoffman, crafting the “nation’s most robust anti-surveillance, pro-privacy legislation” is a top priority for the 2027 session.
“It’ll be SB1001 next year. It will be the product that I developed in collaboration with privacy and Fourth Amendment stakeholders, Sen. Kuby and my staff,” Hoffman said. “I think we’ve made all of the necessary and reasonable concessions. Unfortunately, the police unions simply want the ability to surveil citizens.”
He expects the right-wing Freedom Caucus — as well as a good portion of Democrats — to support it. But he doesn’t plan for him and Kuby to go it alone without getting law enforcement on board, saying it’s “good from a public confidence standpoint” for the policing community to be supportive of a bill laying the groundwork for mass surveillance oversight and reform.
As for us, we’ll be waiting on the edge of our seats until December or so for that first bill to drop.
Fortifying their image as a sham effort: Fortify AZ, the group behind the more voucher-friendly of the two citizens initiatives attempting to regulate school vouchers in Arizona, called it quits yesterday, KTAR’s Shira Tanzer reports. The group will instead throw its weight behind killing the Protect Education Act, the more voucher-hostile initiative attempting to qualify for the ballot, per spokesman Barrett Marson. The motives of the Fortify campaign — which we described as a “voucher Trojan Horse” last month — were always suspect. The move comes just days after Republican lawmakers and the teachers union almost reached a deal to suspend both initiatives as part of a grand bargain on school vouchers. That deal imploded, as we reported on Monday, and lawmakers sent their own question to the ballot that includes a “poison pill” to invalidate the Protect Education Act.
When it rains, it pours: As Colorado River negotiations continue to stall, the basin states are still sour at each other and the threat of litigation is increasing, the New York Times writes. And the other threat — that a federal plan could be imposed on the states — is not very tenable, since that draft plan would leave room for tweaks and negotiations every two years. Considering how well negotiations have gone so far, nobody likes the idea of doing this every two years. On the bright side, the Lower Basin states have worked out their own “landmark plan” for Arizona and Nevada to buy water from San Diego, and the pilot program for that could come online in a matter of months, as the Arizona Daily Star’s Tony Davis reports. By selling some of its river water to other states, San Diego could help pay for some of the debts it has accrued from its desalination plant.
Can’t we all get along?: In the latest update from the long-running court battle between the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors and the county Recorder’s Office, Recorder Justin Heap wants a judge to hold the board in contempt for allegedly ignoring a court ruling from two months ago requiring them to give Heap some of his IT staff back, which the board denies, per KJZZ’s Wayne Schutsky. Both sides “appeared to agree” to meet with a mediator at Monday’s hearing, Schutsky writes.
“As I stressed before, please keep talking to each other,” the judge in the case said. “I know it’d be a miracle if this thing resolved outside of court, but you know miracles are still possible.”
Vowing to fight: As the DACA program hits its 14th anniversary amid a crackdown by the Trump administration, Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes told Dreamers — immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children without the proper paperwork, including 18,000 in Arizona who got DACA protections and work permits — that she will “fight for your rights, fight for your families,” Gloria Rebecca Gomez reports for the Arizona Mirror. The Trump administration’s slow strangling of the DACA program, including several policies Mayes has sued to stop, is making life harder for hundreds of thousands of DACA recipients who are now having trouble renewing their status in the program and can no longer get health insurance through the Affordable Care Act, to name just a few of the hurdles raised by Trump officials over the past two years.
Checks out: Other states that have adopted universal voucher programs in the wake of Arizona’s program are running into similar issues to those Arizona has hit, namely that the vouchers are going to kids who already attend private schools and who generally come from wealthier backgrounds, per the Associated Press. In Arizona, the AP’s analysis found that scholarship usage is nearly three times higher in high-income ZIP codes than in low-income neighborhoods.
“In theory, these programs are supposed to give children an educational opportunity they wouldn’t otherwise have. In reality, students already in private or home school are most likely to benefit, an analysis by The Associated Press shows.”
We’re waiting for Arizona to start a news voucher program. In the meantime, please consider upgrading to support local independent journalism.
Freedom fighters wanted: Several members of the congressional Freedom Caucus are leaving office this year — including its former leader, Republican U.S. Rep. Andy Biggs — forcing some head-hunting for its next crop of leaders, Politico reports, with a rundown of some of its potential future leaders. Not to mention, the caucus faces the possibility of being in the minority after this year’s election.
“We’re losing a lot of talent — there’s no doubt about it,” Arizona Republican U.S. Rep. Eli Crane said. “So it’s just kind of like a next-man-up mentality.”
We’ve gotten a lot of chuckles over the years about former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio — and a weird number of them were birthday-themed. (As he’ll never let you forget, he shares a birthday with Donald Trump.)
Like laughing at how he tweets at actress Pamela Anderson and other celebrities on their birthdays every single year.
Or how for a few bucks, he’ll record a Cameo birthday wish for you. (Someone who will remain nameless once even paid Arpaio a whopping $38 to record a congratulations to the Agenda for winning one of our several “best newsletter” awards from the Phoenix New Times.)
Or how for his own birthday, he auctioned off signed pink underwear.
Anyway, the New Times’ Stephen Lemons — among the great foes of the self-described legendary lawman — attended Arpaio’s 94th birthday party on Friday, and let’s just say the attendees weren’t exactly A-listers.
Lemons reports:
Former mob enforcer and serial killer Sammy “The Bull” Gravano gifted Arpaio a bronze bull statuette and made the sheriff an honorary member of the mafia.
Disgraced former politicos — including former Republican U.S. Rep. Trent Franks and former state legislator David Stringer, both with troubling sex allegations hanging over their heads — were also on hand to pay their respects.
Kevin Decuyper, a local wackjob known for his white nationalist pronouncements, was there.
Republican Sen. John Kavanagh took time away from a marathon legislative session to roast Arpaio.
But the guest Arpaio was surely pining for, Trump, who pardoned him in 2017 for a criminal contempt-of-court conviction, didn’t show. Trump was undoubtedly preparing for his own birthday festivities, including the UFC fight on the White House lawn.
Still, he sent a letter of birthday congrats.