Arizona's Republican lawmakers are not exactly the poster children for pushing back against law enforcement (well, if you forget about that whole January 6 insurrection).
But on one particular issue, Arizona Republicans are taking a bold stand against the wishes of local police departments: ridding Arizona of those pesky photo radar cameras.
Last week, the Senate Appropriations, Transportation and Technology Committee approved Senate Concurrent Resolution 1004 along party lines. The resolution, sponsored by Republican Sens. Wendy Rogers and Mark Finchem, would give voters an opportunity in November to ban photo radar traffic cameras throughout the entire state. Rogers claimed in the committee hearing that 70% of Arizonans support a ban on photo radar, which allows police departments to give tickets for speeding or running red lights.
But despite their support for getting rid of photo radar, there doesn’t seem to be any appetite among Republicans for banishing Flock or other mass tracking cameras from the state.
It’s quite the opposite.
Republican Sen. Wendy Rogers points to her brain. (TJ L’Heureux)
This isn’t the first time Republicans have tried to ban photo radar cameras — it's something of an annual exercise. Last year, Rogers introduced a near-identical bill that met Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs’ prolific veto pen. By sending it to the voters instead, its sponsors hope to sidestep that certain veto.
"Automated enforcement removes discretion, undermines due process, and turns routine driving into a revenue stream. That's not how law enforcement should work in Arizona,” Rogers wrote in a press release. “The public is clear. If the Governor won't act, voters should.”
The automated nature of photo enforcement has also drawn criticism in Mesa, where the city rubber-stamped a judge’s signature on 45,000 citations. Officials have claimed the tickets are valid because they never needed a judge’s signature in the first place.
Police chiefs and commanders from several of the Phoenix metro’s cities that use photo radar cameras — including Scottsdale, Paradise Valley and Mesa — urged the senators to vote down the resolution and leave local jurisdictions with control over their policing. The Valley’s top cops celebrated the technology as a way to reduce crashes in the face of statewide police shortages.
“While I would prefer a fully staffed organization to enforce traffic laws, automated enforcement can help us bridge that gap as we work aggressively to address our staffing shortages,” said Commander Nick DiPonzio of the Phoenix Police Department, whose department faces a shortage of 600 officers and is launching its own photo radar system next month.
(In case you want to avoid the cameras, here’s a list of their locations.)
Rogers did not respond to our questions about standing against police departments (and, we learned, apparently does not answer questions from the press except by email).
Several experts testified that the cameras reduce speeding and fatal crashes, which happen at a higher rate in Arizona than across the rest of the country. Michelle Donati-Grayman of AAA Arizona cited an Insurance Institute for Highway Safety study that found such cameras reduced the fatal red light crashes by 21% in large cities like Phoenix.
But Rogers was characteristically unswayed by statistics showing the benefits of the cameras, which she called a “scam.” Her dubious evidence was that crashes in Scottsdale have steadily climbed in the past few years, despite the city's use of photo radar.
Paradise Valley has been using the technology since the late 1980s. When its mayor, Mark Stanton, showed up to testify against the bill, Republican Sen. John Kavanagh called the town “the cradle of photo radar enforcement.” Stanton seemed to take the ribbing personally, telling Kavanagh that Paradise Valley is known for more than just photo radar.
“I can see that Paradise Valley is known for more than photo radar. I think you’re also known for Flock cameras,” Kavanagh quipped back.
Nobody appreciates Kavanagh's quips more than Kavanagh.
While photo radar cameras might be largely unpopular, automated license plate reader cameras — especially those made by Flock Safety — have become widely used and even more controversial following revelations about the company’s highly questionable data retention practices.
While Arizona cities have used automated license plate reader cameras for years, Flock is a newer company that has become a leader in the field for its use of AI.
Its network of 80,000 cameras — which spans 5,000 police departments across 49 states — takes pictures of vehicles and compiles data into a huge database shared among Flock's customers so police departments can run a nationwide search.
That vast dragnet has turned the company into a symbol of the burgeoning modern mass surveillance state.
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.
Notably, the company has come under scrutiny from the left for its role in President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown. While Flock said it does not contract with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), 404Media obtained records showing that ICE officials enlisted the help of local officers to search the database system. Officials across the country have criticized the company for not doing enough to keep access to its records tight.
“It is my view that Flock has built a dangerous platform in which abuse of surveillance data is almost certain,” Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon wrote in a letter to the company’s CEO. “In particular, the company has adopted a see-no-evil approach of not proactively auditing the searches done by its law enforcement customers because, as the company’s Chief Communications Officer told the press, ‘it is not Flock’s job to police the police.’”
Illinois’ Secretary of State said that in an audit, his office found that Flock “allowed U.S. Customs and Border Protection to access Illinois license plate cameras on Illinois roads and surveil drivers.”
Flock has done plenty of business in Arizona.
The Scottsdale Police Department has used the database heavily, as has the Arizona Department of Public Safety, as the Arizona Mirror reported on a trove of data it obtained.
But the tide of public sentiment has started to turn against the company — and at times, the governments that use it.
Sedona cancelled its contract with Flock last fall, while Flagstaff followed suit in December.
In Tempe, leftist candidate Bobby Nichols has called on the city to end its contract with the company.
In deep-red Cochise County, Supervisor Frank Antenori called the company’s practices “a Fourth Amendment violation,” and the Trump-aligned Sheriff Mark Dannels agreed. The county is now reconsidering its grant for Flock cameras.
So are Republicans at the Legislature ready to rage against the surveillance state like they are against photo radar cameras?
Not exactly.
On its face, GOP Sen. Kevin Payne’s Senate Bill 1111 is supposed to protect citizens “from unchecked government surveillance,” a press release from his office noted. But experts say it would actually allow for widespread surveillance with few guardrails and would actually exempt all automated license plate reader data from public records, the Mirror reported.
Even Kavanagh, who made the jab at Paradise Valley for its Flock cameras, isn’t actually against them.
“I think Flock cameras can be a very powerful safety tool for law enforcement. If my child were kidnapped, I would want to be able to track a suspect’s car wherever it may be,” he told us. “I think the problem with Flock is unauthorized use for less serious purposes. As long as Flock cameras have the right safeguards around them, I’m okay with them.”
Score one for the surveillance state.
Kavanagh also didn’t have an issue with local police departments handing over Flock data to ICE or Customs and Border Protection for immigration enforcement — in fact, he said it would “be great.”
Yesterday, we wrote about how, thanks to a new law that treats “undesignated felonies” as a sort of hybrid felony/misdemeanor, Navajo County Recorder Timothy Jordan could stay in office, despite pleading to a felony from a road-rage incident where he pulled a gun on two teenagers in 2024 and lied to police about it.
But between the time that story was written and when it was published, the county announced that Jordan had resigned.
Navajo County posted its announcement of his resignation around 5 p.m. Wednesday. He delivered his resignation to the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday. There was no mention of the resignation at the 9 a.m. meeting on Tuesday.
The announcement did not say why Jordan decided to resign.
We reached out to Jordan through a county official before our story ran, and we reached out again on Thursday but Jordan didn’t respond. We also called a number listed on his candidate paperwork that is no longer in service. We also asked for a copy of his resignation letter, but did not receive it before yesterday’s deadline.
The Board of Supervisors will choose his successor, who will earn $83,300 a year.
Candidates, who must be Republicans, have until March 6 to send letters of interest and resumes to the Clerk of the Board.
Way to stand your ground: Gov. Katie Hobbs threw Attorney General Kris Mayes under the bus for her comments last week that Arizonans have a right to protect themselves under Arizona’s Republican-backed Stand Your Ground laws, if armed gunmen who don’t identify themselves as federal agents break into their homes. Hobbs called the comments “inappropriate” and urged Mayes to retract them, per the Republic’s Stacey Barchenger. The governor’s rebuke came on the same day that legislative Democrats launched a campaign to defend Mayes and Republicans in the state Senate passed a resolution to condemn Mayes and urge her to resign.
@arizonasenatedems Republicans need to cut the political theatre and distractions. Calling for Attorney General Kris Mayes to resign is just unacceptable. Le... See more
Not on a leash: Gina Swoboda, the former chair of the Arizona GOP who is running for the GOP nomination in Arizona’s Congressional District 1, told KTAR that President Donald Trump “lost the argument” on immigration after federal agents shot and killed two people in Minneapolis. But she’s not breaking with Trump’s overall approach to immigration. She says “public polling shows we love ICE” and Trump is de-escalating the conflict in Minneapolis by putting border czar Tom Homan in charge there.
Losing control: The former treasurer for Legislative District 12 Democrats, Mark Holodnak, resigned after video surfaced showing him yelling obscenities at two women who took selfies with ICE officers after the raids on Zipps locations in Ahwatukee Foothills, Ray Stern reports for the Republic. Holodnak also lost his job in real estate and he’s taking heat from conservatives on social media.
Surprise in Surprise: ICE bought a ginormous building in Surprise last week for $70 million, likely for immigration detention, Joe Dana reports for 12News. The building is in an industrial park and is about the size of seven football fields. Surprise officials said they didn’t know what the building would be used for, while Democratic state lawmakers said the purchase could be a sign that aggressive immigration enforcement is coming to Arizona.
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Close, but no cigar: The effort to recall Tolleson Union High School District Governing Boardmembers Leezah Sun and Steven Chapman fell short, per a news release from Maricopa County School Superintendent Shelli Boggs. The organizers of the recall needed to gather 8,711 valid signatures to get the recall on the ballot, but they were about 1,000 short. They wanted to remove Sun, who has a long history of outrageous behavior, and Chapman for loaning $25 million to the Isaac Elementary School District and for spending $7 million on a district office, among other complaints. The recall committee has 10 days to appeal.
In other, other news
Republican U.S. Rep. Andy Biggs is doubling down on his support of White House advisor Stephen Miller, even after federal agents shot and killed two observers in Minneapolis and Miller blatantly lied about the victims (Laura Gersony / Republic) … Community groups put together an interactive map that shows where ICE agents have been spotted in the Valley (Morgan Fischer / New Times) … More than 100 high school students marched to the Arizona Capitol to protest ICE, which prompted the Senate to lock its doors (Caitlin Sievers / Arizona Mirror) … Gov. Katie Hobbs’ plan for Prop 123 “has merit” and GOP lawmakers should give it serious thought, conservative columnist Robert Robb writes in his newsletter … And an Arizona Senate panel signed off on a ballot measure that would let voters decide whether trans students can use the bathrooms and pronouns of their choice (Peter Valencia / Arizona Family).
Check out this story from KJZZ’s Camryn Sanchez1 about a new bill that would fine people for feeding pigeons.
It doesn’t ban feeding birds — that’s specifically allowed under state law — just pigeons.
The bill’s sponsor, Republican Rep. Frank Carroll, said his constituents in Sun City complained about all the bird poop, so he swooped in to the rescue. Also, he knew a guy who died from raising pigeons.
Needless to say, pigeon enthusiasts are not thrilled.
“The pigeon was always the bird of peace. So it really has gone 180 degrees going from ‘bird of peace’ to ‘rat with wings’ today. … Pigeons have been terribly misrepresented,” pigeon lover Phillip Fry said.
We’re not sure how you would feed quail and ensure pigeons don’t get any of the food, but we trust our lawmakers, who are homed in on this important issue, will work that out.
1 We’d like to note that this is Sanchez’s second consecutive laugh slot. So congratulations. It’s an honor that many other politicos would love to have.