The Daily Agenda: History repeats itself
CRT is the new MAS ... On skinny budgets and school spending caps ... And grease those poles Philly-style.
Republican lawmakers yesterday gave initial approval to one of the main priorities of new/old Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne: a bill barring teaching about race in certain ways.
It’s basically the same law he championed more than a decade ago that was declared unconstitutional because he and lawmakers approved it with “racial animus.”
Back when Horne was superintendent the first time, he was the chief proponent of outlawing the Mexican American Studies program in the Tucson Unified School District. The program was praised for raising engagement and grades among Latino kids, but in 2006, Horne caught wind that civil rights activist Dolores Huerta told a class that “Republicans hate Latinos.” Horne called that hate speech, demanded time to respond and sent his deputy to give a presentation about why she was a proud Republican Latina.
The students weren’t impressed. Horne’s deputy wouldn’t take questions, and a group of kids turned their backs on her presentation, duct taped their mouths and walked out. Horne declared the MAS teachers had taught the kids to cause trouble.
Horne then launched a multi-year war against TUSD’s MAS program and eventually drafted and lobbied for a bill aiming to outlaw the program by declaring it illegal to teach “racial resentment” or anything advocating the “overthrow of the U.S. government.” Then-Sen. Russell Pearce sponsored the first bill in 2008, declaring MAS “very anti-American.” A later version was eventually signed into law in 2010, the same year as SB1070.
TUSD students sued. The legal fight dragged on for nearly a decade. In 2017, a U.S. District Court invalidated it.
“Horne made several statements from which the Court infers that racial animus underlay his efforts to pass H.B. 2281,” U.S. District Court Judge A. Wallace Tashima wrote in 2017.
Now, Horne’s back and championing House Bill 2548 from Republican Rep. Beverly Pingerelli, which aims to outlaw “critical race theory” style teaching in classes. While the text is somewhat different, the tactics, goals and tone are the same as the original anti-MAS bill. Instead of making it illegal to “promote resentment toward a race or class of people,” as the 2010 bill did, the new bill would ban teaching “that an individual bears responsibility or blame for actions committed by other members of the same race or ethnic group.”
None of the lawmakers on the House Education Committee yesterday brought up the original anti-MAS bill that was tossed out by the courts, or why it was tossed out. Because of term limits, only a handful of current lawmakers were even around back then.
Instead, Democrats argued that there are already laws on the books to deal with this issue — pointing back to the anti-MAS statutes that the courts invalidated.
Mostly, Democrats argued that students could weaponize the law against teachers by filing frivolous complaints. Pingerelli, the bill’s sponsor, attempted to calm their fears by noting that the ultimate say in whether a complaint was frivolous would land with the state superintendent. Nobody verbally contemplated that the superintendent might weaponize the legislation against students, as he did back in 2010.
The MAS program never advocated overthrowing the government or taught racial resentment. But that didn’t matter to Horne or his successor, John Huppenthal,1 who wrote laws to outlaw what they thought MAS was teaching.
Their minds were made up before the bill even passed. And when it did pass, the two raced to take credit for declaring the program in violation of the law.2
“From the outset, Horne’s investigation into the MAS program drew tenuous conclusions that were based on admittedly thin and one-sided evidence,” the federal judge later ruled. “For instance, Horne candidly stated that he refused to visit a MAS classroom as part of his investigation because he ‘didn’t want to have [MAS teachers] go and put on a show for [him] and make it seem innocuous’ because if then asked ‘what [he] saw,’ he ‘would have to say it was innocuous.’”
Now, lawmakers are attempting to once again give Horne the power to sanction teachers and declare classes illegal.
No end in sight: As promised, Republican lawmakers are moving forward with a “skinny budget” that includes no new spending other than what’s legally required. Capitol Media Services’ Bob Christie has the details, including the big takeaway: Gov. Katie Hobbs has promised to veto it.
An end in sight?: Lawmakers on the House Education Committee approved a plan from Republican Rep. David Cook to lift the school spending cap this year. The bill needs a two-thirds vote in the House and Senate before March 1 in order to stave a $1.3 billion cut to schools funding in this school year, which would force widespread school closures. But the Freedom Caucus is still holding out its votes, saying they want serious education reform before they’ll sign off on spending that was approved last year, the Capitol Times’ Jakob Thorington notes. It’s unclear exactly how many members the holdout group has.
A sliver of hope: The Scottsdale Progress’ J. Garber breaks down the latest in the ongoing battle between Scottsdale, the Rio Verde Foothills area and state lawmakers, noting that Cook has a new solution he thinks stands a chance: The Gila River Indian Tribe could sell the area 100 acre-feet of water per year, and Scottsdale could treat the water and charge Rio Verde Foothills residents for it. Cook seemed optimistic the Scottsdale City Council would go for it after meeting with Mayor David Ortega.
“You can talk about the meeting in two different ways: how did it start and how did it end?” Cook said. “It started pretty rocky and rough but it ended in the exact place we need to be.”
Blame California: The New York Times explains how California’s refusal to sign off on yesterday’s water cut agreement between the other six Lower Basin states impacts Arizona as the second-thirstiest state of the group. And Bloomberg News dives into what the new water constraints mean for developers and growth in Arizona, where developers are increasingly buying out the water rights of farmland.
The threats were frequent and graphic: This American Life profiled a former Arizona principal of the year, Teresa Hill, as she faced harassment and threats from parents over school masking policies during COVID-19 in the Sahuarita Unified School District. Hill compiled the threats into a spreadsheet to keep track of them but eventually quit her job because of the constant stress and worry they caused.
Just make ‘em free: A bill to exempt diapers and feminine hygiene products is again on the docket this year after several years of attempts to exempt the products have failed, the Arizona Mirror reports. This year, though, the idea has support from Gov. Katie Hobbs, who included the exemptions in her budget proposal, and bipartisan sponsors, giving the plan a better chance of success.
Elections in turmoil: Secretary of State Adrian Fontes spoke to MSNBC about the resignations of election officials in Arizona, telling the host that Arizona has lost election directors in Yuma, Cochise, Pima, Yavapai, Santa Cruz and Pinal counties (twice in Pinal), as well as elected recorders in Pinal, Yavapai, Yuma and Santa Cruz counties. Fontes slammed the “New American MAGA fascists” who “want chaos,” saying we need to “stop pretending like their feelings matter.”
“We only have 15 counties in Arizona. This is an emergency,” Fontes said.
Lawyers for the people: Lee Enterprises, the parent company of the Arizona Daily Star in Tucson, launched a new series about the strains on public defense systems in the West, where “crushing caseloads, few resources, burnout, student debt and low pay” are pushing people out of the job.
Small-government types want more government: Republican lawmakers are once again returning to an old idea — splitting up Maricopa County into multiple counties — with two measures to divide it up. They argue that smaller government is better government, but breaking up the county would cause taxes to spike in three of the four new counties in order to provide the same level of services, Axios Phoenix’s Jeremy Duda notes. The idea became fashionable again after the 2020 election, in which Donald Trump lost Maricopa County.
They’re the stars of the party: New AZGOP chair Jeff DeWit spent his first full day as party leader at a rally with Kari Lake and Sen. Wendy Rogers as they spread bizarre election conspiracies at Lake’s rally Sunday, prompting criticism from former Maricopa County Attorney Rick Romley, who told 12News’ Joe Dana that it was “not a good start.”
Affordable and presumably profitable: Nogales is in desperate need of an affordable housing complex, and the city was in the process of rezoning a parcel of land to build one until City Council member John Doyle noted that the piece of land was actually owned by the city public works director, Alejandro Barcenas. Doyle complained that Barcenas didn’t disclose the conflict, the Nogales International’s Angela Gervasi reports. The city council is set to reconsider the issue today.
Left and right agree: Elvia Díaz, the left-leaning editorial page editor at the Republic, and conservative columnist Jon Gabriel both believe the state’s policy of busing migrants to the East Coast is a good policy, they said on KJZZ. Hobbs didn’t rescind the policy, but rather expanded it to include flights as well.
Listen to us: On KJZZ’s “The Show” yesterday morning, we talked about the aggregate expenditure limit, diving into its history and the current battle to remove it. If you haven’t had a chance to read our story on the spending limit from last week, this interview will get you up to speed.
Last year, lawmakers screwed up.
While fast-tracking a bill about signature requirements for candidates, lawmakers skimmed the bill and failed to read the fine print. Or technically speaking, they failed to read the normal-sized black print.
The bill made an initially unnoticed change to the way precinct committeemen get their jobs, saying because of a delay in redistricting, PCs would be appointed instead of elected last year. It turned into a debacle as outraged Republican PCs demanded the law be repealed. Democrats didn’t really care one way or another, but out of spite, wouldn’t provide Republicans with the necessary additional votes needed to undo the change. Eventually, a court stepped in and threw out the law, saving Republicans lawmakers from their angry activists.
Lawmakers didn’t catch the change because they didn’t read the whole bill — they only read the parts written in blue lettering and all capital letters, which typically denotes the changes in law.
But there’s also “session law,” a temporary law placed on the books for just one year. Session law changes, like the PC issue, do not come in all-caps and blue ink. They’re written in black ink with normal capitalization.
Republican Rep. Gail Griffin wants to make sure last year’s fiasco doesn’t happen again. Her House Bill 2214 would require that session law changes are also made in blue ink to ensure lawmakers don’t simply skim over them. The bill passed the House Government Committee and awaits a hearing in the Rules Committee before it can head to a vote from the full House.
The Super Bowl is coming to town, and Philadelphia Eagles fans have a bizarre habit of climbing light poles after big wins. No joke, Philly seems fun! While Philly has greased light poles before to prevent the climbing, there are “no plans to douse them in grease” in Phoenix or Glendale, at least not yet, Axios Phoenix’s Jessica Boehm reports.
Huppenthal actually provided most of the evidence for racial animus in passing the bill by his long, racist comments on a Tucson blog under a pseudonym that was later discovered to be him.
On his final day in office, Horne declared the program illegal even though the new law wasn’t actually in effect yet. Huppenthal, who sponsored the version of the bill that was ultimately signed into law before ascending to the Superintendent’s Office, put a delayed effective date on it so it wouldn’t take effect until he took office. Huppenthal then conducted his own investigation and also found the program violated the new law.
Vaguely-worded laws that could lead to prosecution of teachers is certainly not going to help the teacher retention problem. Teaching is hard enough without this.
re: HB2214, they are all now fully aware of the session law thing, but because they still can't be bothered to look at that text on their own, they need it to be big and blue? is there no budget for highlighters at the capitol?