Gavels, Bills and Capitol Thrills
Gavels, Bills and Capitol Thrills
Happy Opening Day! ... No controversial bills, she swears ... And the infinite javelina content loophole.
It’s the first day of 2024’s legislative session.
Fresh-faced lawmakers will soon be shaking hands with the guests and dignitaries as they squeeze into the cramped House chambers.
The 89 members1 of Arizona’s 56th Legislature will watch as the pound of the gavel signifies the start of the season like the New Year’s ball drop. There’s no fireworks, but it’s quite the show.
Gov. Katie Hobbs will deliver her second State of the State Address and set her top priorities this year. Lawmakers will set the tone with their responses — last year, a few stood up and turned their backs on her.
Follow along as we follow the drama, the bills and the money this legislative season.
The annual resurgence of legislators to the Capitol starts the clock to figure out next year’s budget and fight for legislation.
Lawmakers have less than a month to introduce bills, and they’ve already filed more than 200. And since most of them are seeking reelection this year, their legislative agendas are under the microscope with voters.
Listen as Hank answers Curt’s questions about how this whole legislative session thing works. What’s hell week? Check the podcast if you don’t know…
So we’ve collected a sampling of the most interesting bills legislators have pre-filed ranging from the controversial, much-needed and absurd.
We’ll bring you a breakdown of the biggest, most pressing bills in a future edition, but for now, here are the ones we’re adding to our tracking lists.
HB2115: Pee cup politics
Rep. Julie Willoughby wants to make her elected colleagues pee in a cup. Her HB2115 would require lawmakers to submit to random drug testing at the behest of the Senate president and speaker of the House.
If a legislator tests positive, they’ll be sent to their chamber’s ethics committee.
Unlike a 2012 attempt to require drug testing of our elected politicians,2 this one doesn’t bother to define “drug,” so it’s unclear if lawmakers would be referred for smoking recreational marijuana.
HB2081: Grandpa’s in the garden
Rep. Laurin Hendrix’s HB2081 essentially allows for human composting, or “natural organic reduction” instead of the current definition that considers cremation a heating process that turns human bodies into bone fragments. It’s a trendy new environmentally friendly way to go out.
HB2121: Beef battles
A group of Republican representatives wants to make sure Arizonans keep getting their meat from dead animals — not the cells of live ones. HB2121 would ban the production and sale of cell-cultured animal products, like a chicken filet made in a lab.
The lawmakers made sure to include a pillar of Arizona's five C’s in the bill, noting: “This state's cattle ranching industry is integral to this state's history, culture, values and economy” and that lab-grown meat “threatens to harm this state's trust land beneficiaries.” Rancher/lawmaker David Cook is a co-sponsor.
HB2040 & HB2122: Tay Tay ticket transparency
Rep. David Cook introduced HB2040 with a slate of Democratic co-sponsors to crack down on bulk ticket purchasers who use bots, or software designed to replicate human actions, to buy more tickets to events than allowed and upsell them to other buyers.
Meanwhile, Rep. Analise Ortiz, a co-sponsor of Cook’s bill, is leading the charge on HB2122, which would require anyone who “displays or offers a price for goods or services” to include all of the fees and hidden charges in the price tag.
The Ticketmaster crash that created an uproar last year as fans struggled to obtain Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour tickets sparked conversations about price transparency and quelling secondary ticketing markets. U.S. Senators are also working on similar legislation known as the Fans First Act.
SB1005: A state ban on equity
Sen. Jake Hoffman’s SB1013 would prohibit government-funded entities from engaging in, spending money on or working with companies that participate in a “diversity, equity and inclusion program.” Except for what’s required by federal law, they also can’t adopt policies to influence the makeup of a workforce based on “race, sex or color.”
Public entities also wouldn’t be able to “promote or adopt” a long list of topics that includes transgenderism, anti-racism, heteronormativity and social justice.
Hoffman ran the same bill last year, but it died in the House after Republican Rep. David Cook joined Democrats in voting against it.
HB2120: Defunding cities that defund police
Former cop turned Republican Rep. David Marshall’s HB2120 would prohibit cities and towns from decreasing their annual police budgets from the budget of the previous year. If the municipality “does not have the monies required,” it doesn’t have to abide.
But it’s unclear who and how would determine a town “does not have the monies required” to fund its police at the same level. The bill doesn’t offer any formula or guidance.
But if they cut police budgets, cities will lose state-shared funding by the same amount they cut from the police budget.
SB1003: Farewell to the flash?
The ability to use photo or radar devices that identify speeders and red light runners varies throughout the state, but SB1003 would do away with photo enforcement systems altogether.
The bill comes from Sen. Wendy Rogers, who wants to “keep the enforcement of the laws in this state in the hands of trained law enforcement officers.” Attempting to ban photo radar is basically an annual exercise at this point.
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Let the games begin: In just a year, lawmakers took Arizona’s budget from a $2 billion surplus to a deficit. Bob Christie explains how we got in the hole for Capitol Media Services and hints at how lawmakers will dig their way out. And when it comes to policy, Republican lawmakers say they’ve come to “an understanding” that sending a bunch of controversial, previously vetoed bills to the governor isn’t gonna work, Ray Stern reports for the Republic.
“There will probably not be really any controversial bills that I’m running this year,” Republican Sen. Justine Wadsack told Stern. “Last year, I ran the bills for the people. This year, I’m running the bills for the state.”
Water wars continue: Updating the state’s groundwater laws is among lawmakers’ chief priorities this year, Capitol scribe Howie Fischer notes, but since Republican leaders don’t like Gov. Katie Hobbs’ plan, she may have to use an executive “workaround.” And Inside Climate News’ Wyatt Myskow breaks down what Hobbs’ groundwater regulation plan would do and the growing pushback to it among Republicans at the Capitol. Meanwhile, the New York Times details why Colorado River states are in a rush to agree on a long-term plan this year: They don’t want to still be bickering under a new administration in 2025.
My turn!: State Treasurer Kim Yee wants to appoint three new Clean Elections Commissioners — a majority of the commission — arguing that since the commissioners have all served past their terms and it’s Yee’s turn to appoint someone, she can appoint three people at once. Hobbs said that’s not how it works and asked Attorney General Kris Mayes to weigh in. All this matters, the Arizona Mirror’s Jim Small writes, because the commission is in charge of enforcing the state’s new anti-dark money law, and Yee and other Republicans don’t like the law and would likely appoint commissioners who are weak on enforcement.
Adios and welcome back: The House Ethics Committee is holding another hearing on Tuesday to take more testimony from people who have had run-ins with Democratic Rep. Leezah Sun. Lobbyists Liz Goodman and Kayla Destiny Ruiz Davidian are expected to rebuff Sun’s denial that she ever threatened to throw another lobbyist off a balcony, Stern notes in the Republic. Speaking of politicians who shouldn’t be, Joe Arpaio qualified for the ballot in Fountain Hills mayor after losing to the incumbent in 2022, 12News’ Brahm Resnik flags.
Blast off: Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren sent a letter to NASA in December asking them to not put the ashes of a human on the moon, saying it was a “profound desecration of this celestial body revered by our people.” Officials from the White House and NASA spoke to Nygren about it last week, but decided to go ahead with the plan to let people pay $13,000 to put their cremated remains on the moon anyway, the Arizona Mirror’s Shondiin Silversmith reports.
Give it back!: Someone stole a headstone from the Gisela cemetery south of Payson and then returned it after the widow went to the police and posted on Facebook, Alexis Benchman reports in the Payson Roundup.
“(T)he culprit was shamed into returning the headstone!” Shelly Hale posted on Facebook of her husband Ralph’s headstone.
Today’s festivities at the Capitol will kick off with dueling press conferences from House Democrats and members of the Freedom Caucus in the morning.
The House and Senate will start with guest speakers at noon, and then the governor will deliver her speech at 2 p.m.
You can watch the governor’s speech live here.
We were going to laugh at all the crazy reactions from MAGA riot enthusiasts about the 3rd Annual denial of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
But then we stumbled on the Sierra Vista Herald-Review’s perplexing use of artificial intelligence technology. It seems the paper knows that anything javelina-related will generate clicks — so it posted results of someone asking ChatGPT if javelina are pigs and why a group is called a “squadron.” (Answers: No, and a squadron is “not a commonly recognized collective noun for these animals in scientific or zoological terms.”)
Turns out our AI-controlled future is more sad than terrifying.
The Legislature is officially down one member after Democratic Rep. Athena Salman resigned at the end of the year. Democratic activists in her Tempe district are scheduled to meet tomorrow to pick some potential replacements.
Lawmakers proposed that one after someone dropped a small baggie of pot in the Corporation Commission bathroom and suspected Democrat Paul Newman was the culprit.