The Daily Agenda: It's a lightning round!

The⚡lightning round⚡gets emojis ... Welcome home, Doug ... And we're not laughing, we swear.

Welcome back to your regularly scheduled “Daily Agenda,” dear readers. 

A lot happened while we were busy launching the Tucson Agenda. (Thank you again for ensuring that launch was a major success!)

But don’t worry: We’ve been keeping tabs on all the major issues and minor scandals, shenanigans and chicanery in Arizona that you need to know about. So today, we’re bringing you up to speed with a ⚡special emoji-filled lightning round⚡edition.  Because why not? It feels like an emoji kinda day.

But first, one final reminder that you should sign up for the Tucson Agenda and come to our party in Tucson Friday night. Subscribe to Tucson Agenda now for the event details. 

📉Bad news for the budget: State revenues came in way below projections across multiple sectors last month, but most heavily in the personal income tax category. The budget gurus said they now expect General Fund revenues to be down by $175 million for the current fiscal year ending June 30. Lawmakers, meanwhile, aren’t helping to ease the state’s burden — their salaries and per diem payments will cost taxpayers around $3.8 million this year, and that’s not including mileage, the Capitol Times’ Camryn Sanchez reports. Still bruising from the round of news coverage on their per diem payments while they take a long vacation, Senate Republican leaders are asking their members to voluntarily forego per diem payments during the vacation. But Republican leaders in the state House say if lawmakers opt out, they have to do so for the remainder of their term, not just the vacation period, the Capitol Times’ Jakob Thorington and Sanchez write. And the Republic’s Laurie Roberts switches to ALL CAPS in her headline to express her outrage over HOW MUCH taxpayers are paying for lawmakers’ “recess grift.”

🍨No party for old ice cream CEOs: Former Gov. Doug Ducey announced his long-awaited second act: leading a PAC aimed at finding, registering and targeting “free enterprise” voters, Axios reports, ending any remaining speculation that he might run for office in today’s GOP. Ducey’s last PAC gig was leading the Republican Governors Association, which lost Arizona to a Democratic governor after his preferred candidate got walloped in a GOP primary by Kari Lake, who is continuing her U.S. tour.

🙈Don’t tell the boosters: Moody's Analytics is not as upbeat about Phoenix’s water supply as the politicians and chamber of commerce types who spent the last few weeks trying to assure the public and investors that Phoenix has plenty of water, the Daily Star’s Tony Davis reports. The financial risk analysis firm warned that all of Maricopa County will be under “water stress soon” as the cost of housing and all sorts of things could spike because of rising water prices. But academics roundly criticized Moody’s analysis.

"It's the desert. It depends on how you define water stress,” Jay Famiglietti, an Arizona State University water researcher, told Davis.

🔪🏠You’re killing the economy: Maricopa County puts up another $2 million to provide services to homeless people as Phoenix continues to clear out The Zone. Flagstaff is the latest city to consider a requirement that short-term rentals register with cities after lawmakers backed off their no-regulation stance on Airbnbs. And the Republic’s Catherine Reagor explains why you should care that lawmakers didn’t do anything to address affordable housing this year.

“This housing shortage is the biggest economic threat I have seen in the 53 years I have been an Arizona economist,” Elliott Pollack told Reagor. “Current policies are keeping supply artificially low, and if we stay on the road we are on, the economy will die.” 

🛣️Taxes fund roads: Maricopa isn’t the only county with a transportation sales tax problem, Pinal Central’s Mark Cowling reports. In Pinal County, they’re struggling with what to do with the money already collected via a sales tax for roads that was ruled unconstitutional last year. The sales tax should go back to the businesses, which technically paid it, but they don’t want it back because of the “bad optics” according to lawmakers. And truckers are the latest to weigh in on Prop 400, saying the bill that Gov. Katie Hobbs vetoed would have provided $90 million over 20 years for more trucker parking, and any future plan should include that too, the Republic’s Mary Jo Pitzl reports. Speaking of transportation-related vetoes, Hobbs also shot down a bill exempting out-of-state car buyers from paying sales tax on Arizona cars.

🛵Border biker business boom: Trade between Arizona and Mexico has recovered and is now higher than before the pandemic, AZPM’s Danyelle Khmara reports. Just in the first quarter of this year, trade reached $9.3 billion, up 7.5% compared to the same time last year, University of Arizona researchers found. A binational border biker club brought hundreds of bikers to Nogales over the weekend for its second annual ride, the Nogales International’s Angela Gervasi reports. And speaking of unruly gangs, “Booze, bikes, brides make June boon” in Scottsdale, Tom Scanlon writes in the Scottsdale Progress. And for good measure, here’s a special shout-out to Scanlon for continuing to have fun with word plays on road diets as the Scottsdale City Council battles about bike lanes.

🗳️Election (denials) have consequences: After spending years attacking early voting and losing elections, Republican leaders are rethinking the strategy, though it may be too late, the New York Times reports. Lake was the lead example of the retooled messaging, like “we’ve got to work in their rigged system.” Attorney General Kris Mayes announced her office is pursuing misdemeanor charges against one of the many people who have allegedly threatened outgoing Maricopa County Supervisor Bill Gates. The Republic finds more embarrassing texts in its “ongoing review” of Cyber Ninjas texts, including between top ninja Doug Logan and fake news reporter and actual licensed lawyer Christina Bobb, who was basically his freelance PR and legal advisor and biggest booster. And Republican Sen. Janae Shamp was in the thick of things at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, the Arizona Mirror’s Jerod MacDonald-Evoy reports.¹

“The Lower West Terrace of the Capitol was the location of some of the most vicious fighting between police and rioters. Shamp can be seen in footage at the Lower West Terrace at around 4 p.m. …By this time, Ashli Babbitt had already been shot inside the Capitol, the Capitol had already been breached at multiple points and police had already issued multiple requests asking crowds to disperse,” MacDonald-Evoy writes.

🏖️Endless summer for all: Arizona parents are literally quitting their jobs because it makes more economic sense than paying for child care, Axios Phoenix’s Jessica Boehm writes, based on a new report by the Annie E. Casey Foundation. KJZZ’s “The Show” spoke to Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry CEO Danny Seiden about what he wants policymakers to do about it. Lawmakers failed to pass a bill banning schools from suspending children for having absences that was inspired by reporting from the Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting, the center reports. And more school districts are adopting a year-round schedule, with two-week breaks in the fall, winter, and spring, instead of summer vacation, ABC15’s Elenee Dao reports. Gilbert schools made the change last year and Tempe schools are following suit, with classes starting back up next month.

🎓Higher education is so woke: ASU fired two employees after they hosted a “Health, Wealth, and Happiness” event featuring Charlie Kirk, one of the fired employees, Ann Atkinson, writes in the Wall Street Journal.

“ASU claims to value freedom of expression. But in the end the faculty mob always wins against institutional protections for free speech,” Atkinson writes.

🔨Prosecutors matter: The New York Times covers the Arizona man who was freed from death row after 28 years on charges that he had sexually assaulted and murdered his girlfriend’s 4-year-old daughter. The U.S. Supreme Court rejected his bid for relief, but Pima County Attorney Laura Conover said the evidence no longer supported that he “committed the fatal injury” to the girl and offered him a deal for time served. 

🙅‍♀️Thanks but no thanks: The Attorney General's Office issued an opinion supporting the city of Phoenix’s prevailing wage policy, which the city has since repealed because even it thought the policy violated state law, the Republic’s Taylor Seely writes. It doesn’t seem like the new council will reenact the same policy, though it may look at a new prevailing wage ordinance. 

⌚Sovereignty and cool watches: The U.S. Supreme Court shot down an attempt to challenge the Indian Child Welfare Act by a white couple upset that they faced restrictions in adopting a Navajo child. Native leaders hailed the decision as not only a win for Native children and an acknowledgment of the history of separation, but a win for tribal rights over states, the Associated Press reports. Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren told the Navajo Times’ Krista Allen that the ruling was “a victory for Indian Country” and that he wants to promote placing Diné children in Diné homes. Meanwhile, Native American leaders are urging Congress to strengthen the Indian Arts and Crafts Act, saying they want stronger punishments for Native American art counterfeiters, Blake Mullen writes for Cronkite News. And the New York Times notes in its fashion pages that custom Hopi and Navajo silver and turquoise watches are still hot, but they’re becoming harder to find in the smartwatch age. 

💪Oh she’s got bona fides alright: Capitol scribe Howie Fischer covers Arizona journalist Amy Silverman’s ongoing legal battle with the Department of Economic Security, which is refusing to turn over records about its investigation into complaints of abuse and neglect against vulnerable adults as part of an investigative project between KJZZ and the Arizona Daily Star. The case hinges on whether Silverman’s investigative journalistic efforts qualify as “bona fide research,” which is not defined in state law. 

We know we pick on Mark Finchem a lot for a guy who’s not even in elected office anymore. We’re trying to wean ourselves off the habit. 

So today, instead of a “what we’re laughing at section” we’re using the “something nice, for once” banner. 

The “something nice” in this case is just that this guy — who clearly has no idea how the legal system works — isn’t Arizona’s secretary of state.

1. We called that one.