The Arizona Legislature officially adjourned at sunrise earlier this month, which felt like an appropriate ending for a pretty exhausting session.
The biggest takeaway is undoubtedly the $18.3 billion budget Republican lawmakers and Gov. Katie Hobbs agreed to, and its massive tax cuts that will keep squeezing state revenues for years to come.
But between the infighting, endless voting and one-month-long vacation, lawmakers also gave us plenty of smaller, stupider moments worth remembering.
Here are our top five.
The wrath of the impugned
Last week, we told you about the sine die chaos and the secret, behind-the-scenes deal that played out overnight before lawmakers officially adjourned for the year.
Republicans tried to strike a last-minute deal to keep a citizen-led school voucher reform measure off the November ballot by passing weaker ESA guardrails into state law, in exchange for the Arizona Education Association, a teachers union, dropping its initiative.
The deal collapsed, and Republicans hit back with a ballot referral framed as protecting military families’ ESA accounts. But if that referral and the broader citizen-led voucher reform measure both pass, a poison pill buried inside the referral would stop the reforms from ever taking effect.
That last-minute maneuver really soured the mood on the last day of the legislative session.
After the Senate rejected the tamer voucher reforms and killed the deal, the House reconvened to pass leftover bills and a freshly expanded slate of GOP ballot referrals aimed at the teachers union.
House Democrats responded by weaponizing one of the few tools they had left: talking. A lot.
They launched into long, theatrical vote explanations to irritate Republicans.
“I mean, Democrats are using whatever procedural tools we have to, frankly, make it as painful as possible for the Republicans, because if they're going to attack everyday Arizonans, we're going to punch that,” Democratic House Minority Leader Oscar De Los Santos told us.
But the method pushed Republicans' patience past the breaking point during votes on the GOP's ballot referral to require voters to show government-issued ID before casting a ballot.
@azhousedems “Crybaby Carter” is at it again. Speaker Pro Tempore Neal Carter let his temper get the best of him after getting called out by House Demo... See more
House Speaker Steve Montenegro cut off voting before several Democrats had locked in their no votes, which De Los Santos called an “affront to democracy.”
Republican Rep. Neal Carter — who spent much of the night clutching his House rulebook — objected, citing the rule against debate during final votes.
De Los Santos kept going, arguing Montenegro cut off voting to silence Democrats. Carter objected again, saying De Los Santos was “impugning” Montenegro’s motives.
When De Los Santos chirped: “I thought we didn’t debate on third read,” Carter snapped.
“He’s impugning me now!” Carter yelled, before crossing the aisle to De Los Santos’ desk and staring him down from inches away as gasps broke out in the chamber. Several lawmakers quickly stepped in and escorted Carter back to his seat.
“I was horrified. I also wasn't surprised. I think it is a reflection of sort of the nasty turn that politics has taken,” De Los Santos said. “But above all, the number one thing on my mind was this isn't going to work, buddy. Like, you're not gonna scare me.”
Chickengate
Earlier this month, we confirmed Twitter allegations that a Democratic senator tried to get a lobbyist-funded Capitol catering order remade for free.
Emails show that after lobbying firm Cornerstone Public Affairs bought $1,500 worth of Gus’s World Famous Fried Chicken for a Capitol event, Democratic Sen. Kiana Sears complained to the restaurant that the chicken was “over cooked, dry and not enjoyed by most,” according to the restaurant’s general manager.
The manager said Sears asked to have the order remade on June 27, when the Legislature wouldn’t even be in session.
Legislative staff and Cornerstone quickly shut that down, and told Gus’s not to redo the order.
Sears declined to answer to the allegations, calling it a “distraction” from more important matters.
Trespassed, on paper
While Republican lawmakers didn’t get their pro-ICE legislation passed this year, one fight over those bills is still playing out in court.
During a February committee hearing on a bill that would criminalize alerting others to the whereabouts of ICE agents, activists shouted at lawmakers and raised fists in protest.
Immigrant rights activists, including members of Living United for Change in Arizona, or LUCHA, returned the day after the tense hearing to oppose a bill that would put ICE agents at polling places.
But when they tried to enter the Senate, some activists were handed slips of paper notifying them they had been “formally trespassed from the Senate building for the duration of this Legislative Session.”
The slips did not include basic identifying information, including names of the people being banned or the entity issuing the ban.
Republican Senate spokesperson Kim Quintero said at the time the trespass notices were not “directed at any organization or viewpoint,” but “based solely on documented conduct that violated established law and rules that apply equally to everyone in the Capitol.”
In April, LUCHA sued Republican House and Senate leaders to lift the bans and have them declared unconstitutional.
The lawsuit argues that Capitol officials retaliated against at least eight LUCHA members, all people of color, for opposing the ICE legislation, and that race played a role in the bans because white activists who attended Capitol events were not barred.
Sashay to committee
Another committee hearing protest this year didn’t end in a legal battle, but it was still deeply enjoyable to watch.
Several drag performers showed up to an early February committee hearing on a bill that would make it a felony for parents to take their kids to drag shows — and for drag performers to perform in front of children.
@azhousedems Our “Veto Queen” will be warming up her stamp for this one. HB2589, sashay away 💃
The legislation is part of the right's years-long effort to establish its narrative that drag shows amount to “grooming” children. And it never made it to Hobbs’ desk.
But the bill did make it to a House committee hearing, where bill sponsor and Republican Rep. Michael Way admitted he’s never been to a drag show, but still broadly categorized the performances as “adult entertainment” that parents shouldn’t be taking their kids to.
That made it especially entertaining when the performers opposing the bill brought the alleged danger of drag directly into lawmakers’ own committee room.
“If you haven't been to an all-ages show, I'd recommend it, so you can have a moment of shared laughter as you watch a drag queen do a crunchy cartwheel to ‘Let It Go’ from ‘Frozen,’” Anna Molly told lawmakers, wearing a wedding dress and a chainmail headpiece. “There are zero proven statistics showing that children are harmed from going to drag shows.”
Not safe for C-SPAN
At the start of the year, Republican Sen. Jake Hoffman — the leader of the far-right Freedom Caucus — finally seemed ready to support a Capitol monument honoring slain investigative journalist Don Bolles.
Hoffman has blocked the effort for years, but this time, he sponsored a Bolles monument bill himself. There was a catch: His bill would also create a Capitol monument honoring Charlie Kirk.
Bolles’ son told us the pairing was an insult to his father’s legacy.
The bill went nowhere, and the session adjourned with yet another failed Bolles monument effort.
But keeping a close eye on the bill’s committee hearing did clue us into Hoffman’s near-annual tradition of reading smut aloud to make a political point, producing what remains our favorite “What we’re laughing at” section of the year, which opened with this:
Republican Sen. Jake Hoffman paused briefly before speaking into his mic during yesterday’s Senate Government Committee.
“I put some lube on and got him on his knees and I began to slide into him from behind. I pulled out of him and kissed him while he masturbated. He asked me to turn over while he slipped a condom on himself,” Hoffman said gravely. “He got on top and slowly inserted. It was the worst pain I think I have ever felt in my life.”
Alright, Hoffman was reading from “All Boys Aren't Blue,” one of the most banned and challenged books in the United States in the last five years.
But we still never expected to hear him say all that.
All’s well that endorses well: President Donald Trump screamed at gubernatorial hopeful Andy Biggs and other Freedom Caucus congressmen during a 2023 call to scold the voting bloc for refusing to back Republican U.S. Rep. Kevin McCarthy for House Speaker, the Phoenix New Times’ Zach Buchanan reports, citing a new tell-all book from a McCarthy aide. Trump reportedly told Biggs in an expletive-laden call, “I’ll never support you if you don’t support Kevin!” Biggs ultimately voted present, helping McCarthy take the gavel, and secured the Trump endorsement he’s now touting in the governor’s race.
Forcing the issue: Reproductive Freedom for All is planning its biggest-ever midterm investment, including in Arizona, to target voters who support abortion access but don’t always vote Democratic, per Politico. While Arizona voters constitutionally protected abortion access in 2024, many still backed anti-abortion Republicans, suggesting that ballot-measure wins don’t automatically translate into Democratic turnout. Now, the group is trying to turn abortion into a liability for Trump-aligned candidates whose positions are out of step with those voters, which Arizona’s own GOP strategist Stan Barnes noted could be tricky for Republicans.
You’ve got mail: Arizona prisoners will now receive legal mail digitally, but advocates warn the policy could violate inmates’ rights to confidential communication and access to the courts, the Capitol Times’ Kiera Riley reports. The new policy requires legal mail to carry special barcodes and go through a screening process, but it also narrows what counts as legal mail to include correspondence from paralegals, private investigators and process servers, which could be routed through the prison system’s digital scanning process instead of treated as confidential legal mail. Prisoner rights advocates say that could especially hurt inmates representing themselves, while the state corrections department says the policy is legal and meant to keep drugs out of prisons.
The board’s baggage: The outrage over Deer Valley Unified School Board member Kim Fisher doing a full-on Nazi salute during a meeting last month is only the latest development in a long-running school district drama, the Republic’s Alexandra Hardle reports. School board officials say Fisher accused a longtime board member of faking cancer, secretly recorded a conversation discussing an executive session and spent years beefing with the district’s superintendent. Fisher’s résumé also includes a 2014 lawsuit alleging that a Glendale elementary school district failed to promote her because she was “not Hispanic enough.”
Dead meat: The first reviews are in after Gov. Katie Hobbs announced her decisions on a massive pile of legislation over the weekend, and Senate Republicans aren’t happy about her veto on a bill requiring companies seeking state contracts to disclose all recent payments to the governor’s campaign. It was prompted by allegations that Hobbs engaged in a pay-to-play scheme over a group home rate increase, but the governor called it a “political stunt” in her veto letter. Meanwhile, House Republicans are celebrating Hobbs’ signature on a bill requiring cultivated-cell meat to be labeled as such, which is a win for Arizona ranchers selling meat from dead animals, as God intended.
Subscribe to support locally sourced Arizona political reporting, made from 100% real political beef.
Housing lite: Lawmakers didn’t deliver the big housing affordability package many wanted this year, but they did pass a measure to let property owners create special taxing districts to pay for roads, sewer lines and other infrastructure needed for new housing projects, the Capitol Times’ Jakob Thorington reports. Meanwhile, counties are celebrating another new law that makes it easier to recoup cleanup costs from blighted properties, per the Capitol Times’ Jordan Gerard.
Over in the West Valley, one gas station in Goodyear was host to yet another strange spectacle of American capitalism yesterday when a Texas-based gas station chain — Buc-ee’s — opened its first store in Arizona.
What looks like hundreds of fans camped out overnight to wait in line for the convenience store doors to part. At the 8 a.m. ribbon-cutting ceremony, they were rewarded for their dedication with some awkward remarks from Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs — which she read off an iPad in her hand.
“As governor, I have attended countless ribbon cuttings, ground breakings, launch announcements, expansions, ground openings — and I don’t think that there has been any one that has had as much interest and enthusiasm as this one,” Hobbs said. “It is safe to say that nothing has put us on the map as much as this Buc-ee’s location.”
According to one right-wing Avondale City Council member who has worked for Turning Point USA, Hobbs was even booed, which she said was “epic”— but based on the video posted online, it seems that it was just a few boos mixed in with mostly cheers when she was introduced.
It might have been an odd speech, but we’ll give this to the governor’s team: Saying that Buc-ee’s would be another Arizona “landmark right up there with the Grand Canyon” was a smidge funny, and unfortunately, probably true.