The Daily Agenda: How lawmakers spent their summer vacations

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Arizona lawmakers will return to the state Capitol Monday after a monthlong summer vacation in which they were ostensibly working on some must-finish business that they didn’t finish before the budget deal that usually signifies the end of the annual legislative session. 

We’re big believers that — just like children need time to be children — lawmakers need time to just be lawmakers. It’s summer! They should be out on international junkets with lobbyists and doing shady land deals, collecting their per diem payments and having fun!

Rep. David Cook gets it. He was spotted in Rome alongside one-time Democratic congressional hopeful Billy Kovacs and a couple of defense industry lobbyists doing something we’re sure¹ is vitally important to his work as an Arizona lawmaker.

Democratic Sen. Brian Fernandez and Rep. Nancy Gutierrez both posted about their trips to Washington D.C. — Fernandez got a selfie with Congressman Greg Stanton, while Gutierrez posted about her adventures at a three-day activist summit there. 

Republican Sen. Wendy Rogers spent some more time outside of her district, egging on the Mohave County Board of Supervisors as they voted to explore a plan to conduct a full hand recount of 2024 election results there.

But Republican Rep. Leo Biasiucci may have gone too far while living his best summer life. 

He used his title, position and state letterhead to try to woo a development company into buying a bunch of land he owns along Route 66 to build a controversial “storage rental facility, RV park and concert venue” near a residential neighborhood, Bill McMillen reports for River City Newspapers. After residents accused county supervisors of corruption for facilitating Biasiucci’s land deal against the unanimous advice of the County’s Planning and Zoning Commission, supervisors reversed course this week and re-re-zoned the land, effectively killing Biasiucci’s deal. 

Yet even after their summer break, the powers that be appear no closer to an agreement on the biggest item on the to-do list: Sending an extension of Prop 400, the longstanding Maricopa County sales tax to fund transportation to the ballot. 

Negotiations have stalled, we hear, and lawmakers now plan to keep the session open until at least the first week of August in case they are eventually able to strike up a deal. 

Instead, watch for lawmakers to take up another top priority upon their return: The House Ethics Committee is expected to deliver its report on Democratic Rep. Stephanie Stahl Hamilton’s Bible-hiding episode so that the full House can decide her fate next week. 

There may even be a deal on the horizon for a negotiated compromise on an affordable housing package with a few of the more modest provisions from the initially ambitious plan that Republican Sen. Steve Kaiser started the year with. 

Lawmakers’ return should be mercifully short, at least. They plan to gavel in for Monday and Tuesday to pass some bills, then go on recess again until early August. 

But August could turn into October if Senate President Warren Petersen has his way. Petersen has been pushing his House counterpart Ben Toma to just keep the session open perpetually until fall, which would allow lawmakers to respond to anything Gov. Katie Hobbs might do without having to garner a two-thirds majority to call themselves back into session. Toma isn’t keen on the idea, and is currently holding to August.

Even keeping the session open until August would mean that the laws approved this year can’t go into effect until November. But if lawmakers wait until the fall, the bills approved this year wouldn’t go into effect until next year, creating a “nightmare scenario” for Legislative Council, the lawyers tasked with drafting new bills and upkeeping the state’s laws, its executive director told us.

There’s no good reason for lawmakers to delay “sine die” any longer. If lawmakers can reach a deal on extending Prop 400 that Hobbs will actually sign, she can always call them into a special session.

Slippery slope: Pima County supervisors voted 3-2 on Tuesday to limit their call-to-the-public to one hour after a coordinated campaign from mainly GOP residents have dragged out the call-to-the-public for hours in recent months, Nicole Ludden reports for the Arizona Daily Star. Still, it’s never wise for elected officials to restrict public comment, as Gilbert Town Council members found out this week when they were sued recently for removing three residents, who were holding signs reading “Stop Lying,” from a council meeting last year. 

Business leaders are freaking out: The news that the Arizona Department of Water Resources would stop approving some new Valley housing developments that depend on groundwater is still reverberating through the business community, Jeremy Duda reports for Axios Phoenix. Greater Phoenix Economic Council chief Chris Camacho said he’s spoken to 200 people in the business community since last week’s announcement. 

Machines just do it better: Mohave County supervisors voted to create a plan to hand-count votes, instead of using vote-tabulating machines, in the 2024 presidential election. Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes urged them not to try it, saying counties don’t have the legal authority to “unilaterally substitute” a hand count for a machine count and the process is “incredibly prone to human error,” Votebeat’s Jen Fifield reports. 

Big bucks for shelters: Arizona cities and counties are splitting $20 million in state funds for emergency housing, Capitol scribe Howie Fischer reports. The City of Tucson is buying a 67-room hotel, Scottsdale is extending a contract for a hotel, and Tempe is upgrading a shelter it already runs, among other local initiatives. Another $40 million will be available later this year. 

Big bucks for border keep getting bigger: The Biden administration set a record with a $29.8 billion budget for the two main border agencies, Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and is on pace to offer more border enforcement contracts than any previous administration, Todd Miller reports for The Border Chronicle. 

“In the wake of Donald Trump, everything on the border has officially changed, yet nothing has really changed,” Miller writes. 

Not sure if they’ve seen the border budget: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis  visited the border and Sierra Vista as he runs for president, José Ignacio Castañeda Perez reports for the Republic. And Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. visited Yuma as he gets started on his presidential run, Mara Knaub reports for the Yuma Sun.

“First of all, the border just needs to be shut down. (We) need to be telling people ‘you’re not coming illegally. You’re not doing a bogus asylum claim,’ you know, ‘you’re not going to be able to cross the border,’” DeSantis said.

Temper tantrum on the House floor: U.S. Reps. Andy Biggs and Eli Crane helped grind Congress to a halt for several hours on Tuesday as they protested the debt ceiling deal, the New York Times reported. 

Budgets are hard: The Mohave County Board of Supervisors can’t agree on how to deal with an expected $18 million budget deficit, the Miner’s Brandon Messick reports. And in the Tucson Sentinel, Blake Morlock breaks down what’s in Tucson’s $2.2 billion budget proposal.

Monorail!: U.S. Rep. Greg Stanton is trying hard to get Phoenix hooked into the Amtrak system. He’s aimed at corralling some of the $716 million in federal funds for Amtrak in the 2022 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law for the Sunset Limited line, Tara Kavaler reports for the Republic.

Lightning round: Gov. Katie Hobbs’ nominee to lead the Department of Corrections, Ryan Thornell, got the green light from a Senate panel after he said he’s OK with resuming executions. He’s one of many nominees that still need final Senate approval. Secretary of State Adrian Fontes is pushing back against Democrats who want to remove the No Labels Party from the ballot. A bunch of fences are going up around Capitol parking lots, and you’re paying for them. Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne spent $600,000 of taxpayer money in the past two weeks to promote private school vouchers. And the San Juan Southern Paiute Tribe could finally get its own land from the Navajo Reservation if a bill makes it into law. 

When delivering a national response to the news (which he broke himself) that he became the first president in history to face a criminal indictment for conspiracy to obstruct, willful retention of documents and false statements, among other things, former President Donald Trump chose this painting, including an unidentified man² twirling his mustache like a cartoon scoundrel, to stand in front of. 

1. He didn’t return our call yesterday, though his ringtone did that weird double-ring it does when you’re calling someone who is out of the country.

2. If you know who the mustache man is, leave us a comment! We spent far too long trying to figure it out.