Loading up the ballot

For the last four years, Republicans’ lawmaking schemes have been perpetually spoiled by Gov. Katie Hobbs — Arizona’s “veto queen” — who shot down 390 bills during her first three years and another 63 so far this year.¹

Their only tool around the governor’s mighty veto stamp — besides negotiating bipartisan bills — has been passing concurrent resolutions that go directly to voters on the November ballot.

There’s another reason the approach is politically advantageous. Beyond bypassing the veto-wielding governor, lawmakers use the referral process to add questions to the ballot that they hope will rally the base, giving conservative voters one more reason to head to the polls during the midterm election.

In 2024, Republicans used the strategy to put 11 referendum questions on the ballot. Only four of them passed.

This year, lawmakers waited until the final day of the legislative session to handle Republican ballot referrals. Before adjourning last week, they sent seven questions to voters’ November ballots — adding to three questions they teed up for this year’s election during the 2025 session.

But wait… even then, that’s (maybe) not all of the questions you’ll see on your ballot.

There are also three citizen-led initiatives that could end up on the ballot in a few months — two of which were at the center of a dramatic backroom deal gone awry, as we reported yesterday. But until about mid-July — after they file petition signatures and survive any potential legal challenge — their spot on the November 2026 ballot isn’t guaranteed.

However, one thing is certain: loading the ballot up with referendums places a lot more policy decision-making responsibility on the average voter.

Whether it comes out to 10 or 13 ballot questions — or somewhere in between — it’s a lot to keep track of.

So today, we’re gonna help you start thinking about how you plan to answer them.

Here’s a rundown of the 10 questions that, at this point, are guaranteed to be on your ballot.

We’ll start with the fresh ones and finish by brushing the cobwebs off the three referendums Republicans put on the ballot a whole year ago.

HCR2048 • military families; scholarship accounts • Republican Rep. Michael Way

After a deal to reform Arizona’s school voucher system died on the floor of the Senate last week, Republicans responded by sending voters a carefully packaged proposition to amend the Arizona Constitution.

Ostensibly, the ballot referral blocks the state from clawing back unused money from the accounts of military families participating in the school voucher program.

But slipped into the bill is a provision that would invalidate any measure approved by voters if it just so happens to violate this very specific circumstance.

It’s a tactical approach by Republicans. Their comments in support of the bill suggest that even as Democrats cry foul on the overt gamesmanship, the Republicans are going to stick to their narrow talking points about the military families.

But will their sleight-of-hand trick work? That’s up to the voters.

HCR2040 • school districts; labor organizations; resources • Republican Rep. Justin Olson

This is another ballot referendum that owes its place on the ballot to the ESA deal’s breakdown on Friday night.

It would prohibit school districts from using taxpayer dollars to “support the operations of a labor organization.”

The rest of the proposed change to law is basically an anti-teachers-union smorgasbord, banning school districts from letting unions use their “internal communications systems” to distribute materials and outlawing paycheck deductions for unions.

Which all reminds us of our reporting from April on Republican Rep. Matt Gress, who is a paid lobbyist against unions in at least four other states — but not Arizona.

HCR2007 • school districts; instructional expenses; requirements • Republican Rep. Matt Gress

Speaking of Gress, the swing-district Republican and former budget director for former Republican Gov. Doug Ducey sponsored the third education-focused ballot measure that Republicans passed late on Friday.

HCR2007 is an intricately designed proposal that would change very specific budgeting requirements for school districts. Most notably, it would require that school districts with more than 7,500 students (or any school district in Maricopa, Pima or Pinal counties) spend at least 60% of their operational budget on direct instructional expenses.

And it outlines punishments for school districts that fail to meet that threshold. For the first year of missing the target, the district would lose 25% of its funding. That scales each year of noncompliance to 100% after four years.

But it’s a pretty complicated measure that may require at least intermediate fluency in bureaucratese to digest.

SCR1004 • photo enforcement systems; voter approval • Republican Sen. Wendy Rogers

In contrast, GOP Sen. Wendy Rogers’ photo radar ban referendum is something anyone can grasp.

The measure would largely ban new photo enforcement systems and require cities with existing camera contracts to get voter approval to keep them running.

We reported on the resolution back in January, when Republicans passed it out of a Senate committee over the pleas of police departments from across the Phoenix metro area to allow them to keep using photo radar cameras to dole out tickets.

Interestingly, Democrats opposed the measure and sided with law enforcement, arguing that cities should be able to use the cameras without their voters directly approving them.

The conventional wisdom here is that residents don’t really like having to worry about automated cameras, but Arizona voters will decide in November.

HCR2044 • preferential treatment; discrimination; prohibited acts • Republican Rep. Steve Montenegro

The measure is essentially Republicans’ sweeping anti-DEI kitchen sink, with language focused on eliminating “preferential treatment toward or discrimination against an individual or group based on the basis of race or ethnicity.” Among other proposals, it asks voters to:

The measure is already being championed by the Goldwater Institute, the conservative think tank behind Prop 312, last year’s successful ballot measure that lets property owners seek tax refunds when cities or counties fail to enforce nuisance laws.

HCR2001 • citizenship; identification; contributions; early voting • Republican Rep. Alex Kolodin

The “Arizona Secure Elections Act,” as Republicans are calling it, is essentially a bulleted list of things that they probably thought sounded good as messaging and could fit neatly on a cocktail napkin.

Republicans’ entire election reform proposal — the brainchild of secretary of state candidate and Rep. Alex Kolodin — is about one page long. And most of what’s in it is already in state or federal law.

Simple, easy-peasy — right?

Democrats argue it’s that lack of nuance that could throw the elections system into a chaotic maze of new questions if the measure is approved.

Republicans say it would limit voting in Arizona elections to United States citizens (which wouldn’t change anything in Arizona law) and require valid government-issued ID to be shown before casting a ballot.

Democratic Senate Minority Leader Priya Sundareshan aptly summed up her party’s arguments with her Friday comments on the chamber’s floor.

She also snuck in a shot at Kolodin at the end of her speech, calling the bill part of his “doomed” campaign to be the state’s top elected administrator of elections.

HCR2003 • interscholastic; intramural athletics; biological sex • Republican Rep. Selina Bliss

The ballot referral is Republicans’ shot at notching a culture war win and imposing more stringent, black-and-white guardrails on who can compete in boys’ and girls’ school sports — while Democrats like Sen. Analise Ortiz argue it might not be constitutionally sound.

Namely, it would ban “biological males” from competing in sports for “biological females” or using bathroom or shower facilities that don’t align with their biological sex.

It’s the kind of measure that Hobbs has vetoed repeatedly — but this time, its fate will be in your hands.

Last year, Republicans approved three ballot referrals for the 2026 general election ballot. Here they are:

HCR2055 • drug cartels; terrorist organizations • Republican Rep. Steve Montenegro

If approved, the measure would officially declare drug cartels terrorist organizations and require the Arizona Department of Homeland Security to “do everything within its authority” to address the threat they pose.

It’s not super clear what that means in practice, but Hobbs previously vetoed the policy as a standalone bill, objecting to the idea of turning a department whose main job is administering federal grants into a law enforcement agency.

The measure also specifically states that nothing about calling cartels terrorist organizations is meant to help an asylum seeker’s claims. That means Arizona would be treating the cartels as terrorists for every reason except to prove that the people fleeing them deserve asylum.

HCR2021 • food; municipal tax; exemption • Republican Rep. Leo Biasiucci

While Republican lawmakers originally wanted to ban cities from taxing groceries altogether, the League of Arizona Cities and Towns negotiated a scaled-back deal.

Cities that already tax groceries could generally keep taxing them, but any future increases can’t go above 2%. Cities without a grocery tax, meanwhile, could only add one with voter approval, and the rate could not exceed 2%.

SCR1004 • prohibit tax; monitoring; vehicle mileage • Republican Sen. Jake Hoffman

Republican Sen. Jake Hoffman’s referral would ask voters to ban Arizona from taxing people based on how many miles they drive, which is not currently a thing Arizona does. But as electric vehicles eat into gas tax revenue, some states have floated mileage-based fees as a future replacement.

Beyond the tax issue, some conservative groups have expressed more conspiratorial objection that tracking miles driven could become a form of government surveillance.