The Daily Agenda: 2022 is gonna be a bad year, too
The Daily Agenda: 2022 is gonna be a bad year, too
An Emmy doesn't mean what it used to ... Doxxing parents and ducking the press ... And when when in doubt, read from the script.
Yesterday marked the first real milestone of the 2022 legislative session: The House and Senate hoppers opened, allowing lawmakers to pre-file bills ahead of the Jan. 10 opening day at the Capitol.
Lawmakers, lobbyists and politicos are expecting a session from hell.
It’s not just the personality conflicts — and, as we noted yesterday, there are a lot of those, including Republican Sens. Paul Boyer and Michelle Ugenti-Rita declaring war against Senate President Karen Fann — that have Capitol dwellers dreading January.
Let’s start with the budget, where a handful of court cases are mucking up lawmakers’ ability to even get started on a spending plan.
First, thanks to the Arizona Supreme Court ruling in the Battle of the BRBs, lawmakers can’t logroll unrelated policies into the budget. That’s how they’ve done it for more than a decade, and it’s become essential as GOP majorities have dwindled to hairline margins. Lawmakers are waiting for the actual opinion in that case, hoping that will provide them with a roadmap for what they actually can do when crafting a budget.
Second, lawmakers are awaiting a final word in the lawsuit against Prop. 208, the Invest in Education initiative. Basically, Republican lawmakers argued that the initiative is unconstitutional because it spends more money than is allowed under the education spending cap that voters approved back in 1980. Until that case is settled, nobody knows how much money schools will have.
Either way, lawmakers will need to increase that cap, which requires a two-thirds majority vote, or risk schools losing out on the ability to spend $1.2 billion in funding they already have. Most Republican lawmakers agree with Democrats that increasing the cap is essential, but they don’t want to do it before the court rules, which could undercut their case. Until those court cases fall into place, they can’t even begin putting together the budget puzzle pieces.
Finally, lawmakers have a lot of money to spend — $700 million in ongoing additional revenue and $1.7 billion in one-time monies, according to the legislature’s bean counters — and agreeing on more spending is always harder than agreeing on cuts to government programs.
Last year, lawmakers solved the surplus by enacting the largest tax cuts in state history. But it seems education groups will be successful in their attempt to refer at least part of that tax cut scheme to the ballot. Lawmakers can do an end-run around that referral — as they did back in 2013, when voters referred a massive election change bill to the ballot — by repealing the tax cut themselves then passing the same law (or a very similar one) again. But that’s a contentious and time-consuming proposition.
Which brings us to bills. Lawmakers set an all-time record for number of bills introduced last year, and Gov. Doug Ducey set a personal record for the number of bills signed. Still, lawmakers and lobbying groups saw a host of policies fall by the wayside last year that they’re determined to pass this year.
Besides the contentious stuff that was illegally logrolled into the budget, which lawmakers are sure to attempt to resurrect, there’s a lot of other topics we expect to be hot button issues next year, from election law to water policy. And don't forget: We’re still awaiting additional volumes of reports from the Cyber Ninjas.
Besides the actual 2022 elections injecting an extra dose of politics into policymaking, both Fann and House Speaker Rusty Bowers are not running again, meaning lawmakers are already jockeying for the positions of House speaker and Senate president. Oh, and the legislature has a dozen new faces.
Usually during an election year, lawmakers can’t wait to end the session and start the campaigns. But this year, all signs point to a long slog that’s just beginning.
We’ll be there watching the legislative session, even if it ruins our summer vacation. Get in now for $70 a year so you can stay up to date on all the nonsense.
For local TV journalists in the western United States, taking home a Rocky Mountain Emmy award can mark the pinnacle of their success.
So some reporters were surprised and upset to see Turning Point USA, an influential conservative youth organization with strong ties to Donald Trump, take home an Emmy at this month’s annual awards show.
Turning Point is not a detail-oriented fact-based organization trying to inform the public. The Arizona-based organization led by conservative provocateur Charlie Kirk is the propaganda arm of Trump’s Republican Party. (Yes, we know that technically, as a 501c3, the organization is nonpartisan — in practice, that’s bullshit.) It has doled out misinformation like Trump doles out praise of people named Trump.
The Turning Point documentary that won a Rocky Mountain Emmy focuses on the evils of socialism and how it has destroyed Native American communities — and it’s titled “A Long Walk in Socialism” a play on “the long walk,” which was the U.S. government’s death march of the Navajo people from Arizona to New Mexico in the 1860s.
Turning Point wasn’t the only non-news organization to win an Emmy, but as far as we can tell, it’s the only overtly partisan political operation to make the list of nominees. TPUSA Productions won the regional Emmy for cultural/topical documentary, beating out docs from 12News and Elevated Media Partners.
The documentary takes a simplistic approach to assigning blame for the Navajo and other indigenous people’s struggles that can essentially be boiled down to: Government handouts are the root of all evil. It only briefly mentions the event that served as the inspiration for the film’s title, let alone the numerous other factors that contribute to Native American poverty.
The Rocky Mountain Emmy rules state that content “aired for the purpose of raising money for parties, charities and other related causes” won’t be considered, but apparently that wasn’t enough to bar Turning Point’s documentary.
Mark Reda, an Arizona State University journalism professor who is in charge of the regional competition, told our reporter that he was unsure if any Native Americans were part of the team that judged the entries. He didn’t answer several questions about whether the entry raised any red flags within the Emmy organization.
It is, at long last, Infrastructure Week: President Joe Biden signed the much-anticipated infrastructure bill yesterday, sending a windfall of federal funds to Arizona. KTAR has a rundown of where the money will go — it’s mostly physical infrastructure like roads, bridges, transit, water and internet. This is the bill that U.S. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema helped broker, not the one she’s been withholding her support from (that one deals more with social infrastructure).
We would like to apply for one internet, please: Speaking of internet, Gov. Doug Ducey announced a plan to use $100 million from the American Rescue Plan Act to expand broadband access. Groups that want to expand internet access can apply for funds from the new program until Dec. 10 (which is a pretty fast turnaround), the Republic’s Stacey Barchenger reports.
Still no money for the discrimination: Talonya Adams, who sued the Arizona Senate for racial and sex discrimination, told 12News’ Brahm Resnik that Secretary of State and Democratic governor candidate Katie Hobbs was the one who fired her, despite Hobbs’ blaming of others for the issue. The story also points out that, despite two hefty jury awards, Adams hasn’t gotten any payout for her wins. Her most recent $2.75 million award will be capped by federal law at $300,000.
"This was Katie Hobbs' decision. I think she's always been very uncomfortable with minorities. She seems wholly disconnected from people of color. … I don't need her to be my ally. I need her not to discriminate against black people,” Adams told the TV station.
Arizona’s ‘I can’t breathe’ case: The Phoenix City Council will vote tomorrow on whether to spend $5 million to settle a lawsuit from Muhammad Muhaymin’s family. Muhaymin was killed by police in 2017; multiple officers held him down while he said “I can’t breathe,” former Republic reporter Uriel Garcia wrote last year.
You could just provide facts, rather than running away: Now former Scottsdale school board president Jann-Michael Greenburg was ousted from his position as president, but kept his job as school board member when he refused to resign saying people didn’t have all the facts yet. He didn’t directly address the allegations about his digital dossier, despite reporters’ best efforts to chase him down after the meeting.
More anime updates: U.S. House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy told U.S. Rep. Paul Gosar that he should take the anime video depicting violence against his colleagues off Twitter and make a statement that he doesn’t support violence. Gosar took the video down, but the issue isn’t going away — the House could still censure him, and Gosar is continually having to explain the video. When you’re having to explain your “jokes” this much, it’s because they aren’t funny.
Better put a Tesla on your Christmas list: Vehicle registration fees for cars that run on alternative fuels will increase in January, though people who already own one will be grandfathered in to the lower rates. The fee increases gradually until it equals the fee for regular cars, Capitol Media Services’ Howie Fischer reports.
Six figures ain’t bad: Abraham Hamadeh, who entered the GOP race for Arizona attorney general earlier this month, claims he has raised $100,000 in his first week as a candidate, the Republic’s Tara Kavaler writes.
A new job as heated as the weather: Arizona Senate Republicans have a new spokeswoman, replacing longtime spokesman Mike Philipsen, who left the position earlier this year. Kim Quintero will leave her job as meteorologist and reporter at AZFamily for the new role. She told the Republic’s Bill Goodykoontz she spent her journalism career away from being politically active so it wouldn’t affect her reporting, but now she’s realized she’s “not happy with the direction our society and country are headed in.”
Let’s audit this poll: A new poll says that a majority of Republicans still think there’s a reason to doubt Biden’s presidential victory, despite the Arizona audit saying otherwise, which Washington Post columnist Greg Sargent said was precisely the point of the audit. (This is something we wrote in our first week — the results didn’t matter so much as the underlying doubts raised about elections.)
Legalize it: The City of Tempe now bans discrimination based on hair, following Tucson as the second Arizona city to pass such an ordinance.
It’s the least wonderful time of the year! Arizona lawmakers can start pre-filing bills for next legislative session. The hoppers opened yesterday, though we don’t see any bills filed in either chamber yet. This is sure to change shortly, and we’ll let you know when we see some good ones drop. This link will take you to the Legislature’s bill tracking site, and once there are 2022 bills, you can select that year from the dropdown menu to see what’s filed.
We previously laughed at Republican U.S. Senate candidate Justin Olson for repeatedly dodging a yes or no question in a TV interview, and it seems Democratic gubernatorial candidate Marco Lopez is giving Olson a well-rehearsed run for his money. In an interview with 12News’ Brahm Resnik, Lopez appears to read from prepared statements in response to questions, sometimes completely ignoring the question posed to him in favor of canned remarks. Resnik asked Lopez several times what he thought Gov. Doug Ducey has done right, and Lopez instead told his personal story, name-dropped his former bosses, brought up the American dream and basically answered a bunch of questions that weren’t asked. After the third time Resnik asked, Lopez finally said “there are areas in our economy that have flourished” during Ducey’s tenure, which is the most nondescript pat-on-the-back possible.
The Sun City Republican Club will hear from three Republican candidates for Arizona attorney general — Tiffany Shedd, Lacy Cooper and Andrew Gould — at 7 p.m. tonight at the Sundial Recreation Center at 14801 N. 103rd Ave in Sun City.
The Save Our Schools Arizona Network will host a Facebook Live discussion at 5 p.m. today about indigenous education programs. Event details can be found here.