The Daily Agenda: We're never going to get out of here
The Daily Agenda: We're never going to get out of here
This session is a slog ... Farewell to TikTok and what little joy people get at work ... And the nominees for best local news headline.
The Venn diagram of what the Republican-led Legislature wants to become law and what Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs will tolerate is basically two distinct circles.
Now in the fourth month of a divided government, Hobbs has vetoed more bills than she’s signed. On Wednesday, she vetoed four more bills, bringing her total up to 29 so far.
Wednesday’s vetoes included bills that would have made exceptions to power line committee reviews, called for support of the electoral college, limited oversight of groundwater wells and gotten rid of those highway signs with clever messages that people either love or hate.
We want to make special note of the anti-highway sign bill because the Arizona Department of Transportation came through with the best response possible. The bill stemmed from messages run on dynamic signs over Arizona freeways during the COVID-19 pandemic, which some GOP lawmakers didn’t like. But ADOT has used the signs for all kinds of campaigns, both serious and funny, and has even run contests for people to submit their own sign ideas.
Typically, state agencies don’t support or oppose pending bills, and ADOT’s position on this one was no different. When the Republic’s Mary Jo Pitzl asked the department for comment on the bill, ADOT responded with a mock-up of a digital sign that said, “ADOT DOES NOT COMMENT ON PENDING LEGISLATION.”
It wasn’t all that unusual during the Ducey administration for the executive and Republican lawmakers to diverge on an issue — it just happened behind closed doors. Gov. Doug Ducey largely tried to avoid hot-button issues and tamp down his party’s worst ideas before a bill ever made it to his desk, and he was largely successful on that, making vetoes relatively rare.
Now, that gap in policy ideas is all happening publicly, with GOP lawmakers sending out press releases in advance of Hobbs’ actions on a bill to try to pressure her to sign it (or to boost their own agendas should she veto).
Some of the bills lawmakers have sent and will send to Hobbs are intended to provoke her.
A bill that would require a secretary of state to recuse themselves from overseeing an election they’re participating in could make it to Hobbs — that’s a direct response to her election win and the various conspiracies that claim she somehow rigged the election in her favor.
Others are just quite clearly out of step with the Democratic governor, and knowingly so for lawmakers. Criminalizing drag shows will never snag Hobbs’ signature, nor would allowing parents to bring guns on school campuses without repercussions.
There is so far a very small sliver of overlap between Republicans and the Hobbs administration. We’ve seen bills signed that give more money to people being evicted from mobile home parks and prevent homeowners associations from prohibiting the Betsy Ross flag.
Lawmakers and Hobbs have to find a way to widen that narrow center of the Venn diagram. We need a state budget, at very least. But Arizona faces so many other pressing issues — like the housing crisis, water scarcity or education woes — that deserve our leaders’ attention this year.
Passing bills out of the Legislature to meet certain veto may be good politics for both sides. But it’s a waste of time and energy that Arizona can’t afford.
Productivity soars: Gov. Katie Hobbs announced a ban on the TikTok app on state devices and personal devices used for state business yesterday, a move that mirrors decisions made by all kinds of government entities in recent weeks over potential security threats posed by the app. State agencies will have 30 days to comply with the new executive order. Attorney General Kris Mayes had announced her office would ban the app on office devices earlier in the day.
Details TBD: The American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona and the City of Phoenix came to a tentative agreement in a lawsuit the ACLU filed over the city’s cleanups of homeless people’s belongings, though the details of the proposed settlement aren’t yet clear, the Republic’s Juliette Rihl reports. Separately, conservative Substacker Robert Robb opines that lawsuits aren’t the way to resolve the city’s homelessness problems, which require more of a balance than can be found “through the clash of dueling lawyers in courtrooms.”
The Gallego domino effect: Arizona Sen. Raquel Terán said yesterday that she’s running for the U.S. House seat that U.S. Rep. Ruben Gallego will give up to run for the Senate. Terán, a longtime community organizer who was active in the fight against SB1070 more than a decade ago, has served in the statehouse since 2018. She was previously the chair of the Arizona Democratic Party and recently stepped down from her role as Senate Minority Leader as she explored the congressional run. As we noted yesterday, Phoenix Vice Mayor Yassamin Ansari also jumped into the race this week.
The era of cheap water is over: Phoenix could increase its water rates three times over the next two years, with the final and largest increase set for March 2025, Axios Phoenix’s Jessica Boehm reports. The city said the increases are needed as costs for electricity and chemicals increase and water resources dwindle in the West. Phoenix will also consider adding a $4 charge for using more water than a certain amount as a way to incentivize conservation. Meanwhile, after Douglas voters approved an active management area for water use there, proponents of the AMA say they want to work with the state and community to find ways to best regulate water, they wrote in a Republic op-ed.
Bon voyage: The Arizona Mirror’s Caitlin Sievers recaps this session’s elections committees, which didn’t really work on feasible election law changes but instead “used their time this year to cater to fringe right-wing conspiracy theorists and to approve a plethora of measures” that are sure to be vetoed by Hobbs. The House and Senate committees tasked with elections held their last meetings last week.
Big and fancy: Pinal County broke ground on a new $32 million building to house its elections operations, which the county hopes will be operational in time for the 2024 election, Pinal Central’s Mark Cowling reports. The county’s massive growth in the past two decades has led to cramped quarters for elections staff. Pinal has faced numerous problems with its elections recently, stemming in part from underfunding elections and staff turnover.
Liaising is lucrative: Republican Phoenix City Councilman Jim Waring is getting a second taxpayer-funded paycheck outside his council role, Fourth Estate 48’s Dillon Rosenblatt reports. Waring snagged a $115,000 contract from the Arizona Department of Education to “serve as liaison” between the department and other agencies.
If you build it: The Chino Valley Unified School District will build 400-square-foot tiny homes for teachers as a way to help recruit them to work after surveys found that the lack of affordable housing was a barrier to teaching there, the Republic’s Yana Kunichoff reports. The district is just the latest to build teacher housing, as several other districts around the state have built or planned to build “teacherages” for educators to live in.
Pony up, taxpayers: The Arizona Coyotes said it will seek more than $2 billion in financial damages from the City of Phoenix over the legal battle between Tempe and Phoenix related to the Coyotes arena and proposed district surrounding it, 12News’ Kevin Reagan reports. Phoenix sued Tempe over the development in late March over alleged violations of an airport flight path agreement. Phoenix said the team should instead direct its ire at Tempe.
In other Tempe news: Tempe is considering a prevailing wage ordinance similar to Phoenix’s, which would set a wage for city-funded construction projects, the Republic’s Sam Kmack reports. While such policies provide better salaries to workers and minimize exploitation, they also make construction projects more expensive, which can be a challenge for work that’s already over budget.
Get a hobby, lady: A woman who was banned from Pima County Board of Supervisors meetings for repeatedly making homophobic comments about Supervisor Matt Heinz will now be allowed back to meetings after the supervisors rescinded the ban, the Green Valley News reports. The decision to rescind the ban on Shirley Requard came after legal opinions that advised the ban was probably illegal.
Mohave shakeup: Arizona Senate Majority Leader Sonny Borrelli said he is exploring a run for the Mohave County Board of Supervisors next year, as he’ll be termed out of the Senate. If Borrelli commits to running, he’ll face incumbent Supervisor Buster Johnson in a GOP primary, the Kingman Daily Miner’s Dave Hawkins reports. In other supervisor news, Mohave County Supervisor Hildy Angius said she will be running as a Republican for the state House next year because incumbent Rep. Leo Biasiucci plans to run for Borrelli’s Senate seat, Bill McMillen reports in the Kingman Daily Miner.
Two headlines in local papers this week are so good, we can’t decide which we like more.
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