The Daily Agenda: We can't resist the circus
But the real election fights aren't at the Capitol ... It's a budget, but on a diet ... And we're still the most conservative purple state.
Republican lawmakers yesterday voted to cancel your voter registration every decade, force you to vote in your home precinct rather than anywhere in the county and start a new hand recount of ballots in Maricopa County, this time for the 2022 election.
In other words, it was a regular Monday in Sen. Wendy Rogers’ Senate Elections Committee.
We’re not paying much attention to the most controversial election bills this year, since they stand no chance of being signed into law. But it’s hard not to watch Rogers’ circus, partly because creating laws doesn’t really seem to be the point. The committee seems to exist simply to boost Rogers’ profile, air election conspiracies and dig up “evidence” for Kari Lake’s court case.
To be sure, a couple of not-terrible ideas have cleared Rogers’ committee this year, like tabulating early ballots on-site, requiring government buildings to host more voting locations and requiring more disclosure of elected officials using taxpayer money to promote themselves (except lawmakers). But for the most part, the committee has served, as the Los Angeles Times columnist Mark Barabak recently put it, as a “showcase of fakery and tinfoil-hat testimony about alleged fraud.”
But just as Republican lawmakers have little power to change election law ahead of the 2024 election, Gov. Katie Hobbs, who ran on a platform of defending elections, has little authority or ability to actually defend elections. Her first big action on that front was an executive order creating a bipartisan task force to ensure “consistent, secure, and accessible election administration and voter registration practices,” among other goals.
Task forces rarely lead to new laws, but this one seems particularly perfunctory. Hobbs’ office only reached out to give Secretary of State Adrian Fontes a heads-up moments before appointing him to the gig, records show1. And last week, legislative Republicans announced they won’t appoint any county recorders to the task force, as Hobbs had requested.
That’s not to say it’s all status quo for the 2024 election.
Instead of at the Capitol, the action leading up to the next presidential election will happen on the Seventh Floor, where the secretary of state is charged with drafting a new Election Procedures Manual, Arizona’s “elections bible,” this autumn. The manual fills in the blanks between the laws, deciding how, exactly, local officials should conduct their elections.
Though the secretary of state is charged with drafting the manual, the governor and AG have to sign off on it. In the past that has created problems, as former AG Mark Brnovich refused to sign off on Hobbs’ 2021 manual, leaving the state using a 2019 version. And during Secretary of State Michele Reagan’s tenure, the state went without a new manual for years because of legal fights between Brnovich and Reagan.
Now that Democrats hold all three top offices, the manual is their best shot at progressing their election agenda in the face of a hostile Legislature.
For Republicans, the action will be in the counties, where local supervisors showed last year they are all too ready to toss out the will of their voters to throw the election into doubt. As Votebeat’s Jen Fifield notes, Cochise County Supervisors are scheduled tomorrow to move the duties formerly under Elections Director Lisa Marra, who fought the board on an illegal hand count, to Recorder David Stevens, an election denier who pals around with Mark Finchem.
The threats to Arizona’s elections remain just as strong as ever. But for now at least, they’re not coming from the Capitol.
16, 31 and none: After stumbling last week when Republican Rep. Liz Harris broke with her caucus, Arizona House Republicans yesterday approved the “skinny budget” package keeping current year spending in place and sent it to Gov. Katie Hobbs, who has already pledged to veto it.
“So Arizonans gotta ask her, if she vetoes this, why would she shut down the state of Arizona? Why would she do that?” Republican Rep. Leo Biasiucci said.
Brave of her: Hobbs struggled through a tough interview Sunday with Fox News’ Shannon Bream that started off friendly enough with questions about the Super Bowl, but quickly turned to harder questions about the border and school vouchers. Hobbs said she put a more “humane spin” on the migrant bussing program that her predecessor started. And the governor defended her unlikely plan to get lawmakers to eliminate the universal voucher plan, saying although she went to private school, her parents paid for it even though she wanted to attend public school.
It didn’t help his case: Pima County Supervisor and former lawmaker Matt Heinz has been a lightning rod for negative attention since joining the board two years ago. And while the “speedo incident” doesn’t merit the kind of blowback he’s receiving, his penchant for attending board meetings online and arguing with constituents during the call to the audience have earned him scorn from his colleagues, the Arizona Daily Star’s Tim Steller writes.
Free space to make your case: The Daily Star’s editorial page boss Curt Prendergast calls lawmakers’ new rules to destroy their communications after 90 days a “ridiculous policy that disrespects the public’s right to know” and laments that Republican lawmakers didn’t even bother to explain their rationale. He invited them to defend their position in guest opinions to the paper.
He’s so hot right now: Freshman Republican U.S. Rep. Juan Ciscomani is joining a delegation led by U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy to the U.S.-Mexico border in Arizona this week, further stoking speculation he’s being drafted to run for the U.S. Senate. Ciscomani is hot off his critically acclaimed Spanish rebuttal to the State of the Union address last week, which many observers contrasted against the English GOP response from Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders. The Cook Political Report’s Amy Walter contrasted the two GOP responses as “American Carnage vs. American Dream,” while the Tucson Sentinel’s Blake Morlock declared that the GOP would be in a better place if Ciscomani’s speech was delivered in English instead, and Sanders’ speech “were only delivered in its original German.”
First lady last to leave: After watching the Super Bowl, First Lady Jill Biden spent the day gladhanding local business-types, politicians and do-gooders, including a stop Mesa Community College to highlight its Promise program that grants community college scholarships to local high school students.
Taking the circus with her: Unable to convince Arizonans to hire her as governor, Kari Lake is taking her show on the road, swinging through D.C., Mar-a-Lago and Iowa on her election denial and fundraising tour, the Republic’s Stacey Barchenger reports. But her future in Arizona politics is less certain. Meanwhile, the Washington Post’s Meryl Kornfield found Lake “defiant” as ever while following her around Iowa, near the town where she attended high school.
Just do it in somebody’s else’s backyard: Although Arizona desperately needs more affordable housing, NIMBYism, rising costs and bureaucratic burdens haven’t made it easy. While lawmakers are attempting to fix parts of the problem, the few bills that are moving face blowback from advocates who say it doesn’t do enough to solve the problem and are pushing for policies Republicans are sure to reject, like rent control, the Republic’s Catherine Reagor writes. Arizona needs more than a quarter-million more homes.
Courts move slow: Though the 2022 election is long over, the courts are still considering what to do in the case of the ballot drop box watchers that garnered international attention last year, the Republic’s Sasha Hupka writes. While a judge temporarily put new rules on them during the election, the case continues and could help define the line between freedom of speech and voter intimidation.
Tourists > parachute reporters: As Arizona prepared to host its first Super Bowl with legalized sports gambling, the New York Times looked at what states’ legalized sports gambling has done to Native American tribes which have had near-exclusive rights in most states to legalized gambling since a 1987 U.S. Supreme Court decision. Elsewhere in the Times, James C. McKinley Jr. visits Phoenix and declares the city is attempting to reshape its national image as a soulless strip mall of a city with public art. But locals dragged McKinley for his claim that the city was trying “to persuade” the 700 residents of “the Zone” near the Capitol to move to shelters.
“Tribes that had relied on gambling are now scrounging for scraps; the leader of one tribe said he might have to ration food and water for its impoverished residents,” the Times writes.
Where’s your report, UA?: The family of murdered University of Arizona professor Tom Meixner wrote a letter to university officials saying they appreciated the report that a faculty committee wrote detailing the school’s failings leading up to the murder and that they were “disgusted” with the university’s response to it, which included accusing its drafters of dishonesty, the Daily Star’s Kathryn Palmer writes. The university has hired a consultant to investigate the incident, but it hasn’t released that report publicly, though it was due weeks ago.
The pet industry is shady: Arizona has become a prime destination for puppy mills, the Daily Star’s Carol Ann Alaimo writes, after lawmakers protected the puppy mill industry at the behest of a pet store operator Frank Mineo, who was later accused of breaking what little regulations the state has on the industry. Now, Republican Rep. John Kavanagh, who is tough on crime but has a soft spot for animals, suggested lawmakers may have to reconsider the law they passed at Mineo’s urging.
Out with the old: Attorney General Kris Mayes is pulling Arizona out of a multistate investigation into “woke banks” that started under her predecessor. KTAR reports that Mayes doesn’t want anything to do with fighting environmental, social and governance investing like Mark Brnovich did, calling his decision to join the investigation “politicized.”
Let him dream: A 37-year-old rich guy who’s popular on right-wing media is testing the waters for a presidential run on a platform of anti-wokeness, and he wants Doug Ducey in his cabinet in some capacity, Politico reports. Vivek Ramaswamy, a biotech investor and author, thinks he has a real shot at winning the GOP nomination as an outsider attempting to shake up the system, à la Donald Trump in 2016. No word yet if the former governor is considering teaming up with the very longshot candidate.
“You know, maybe all of this is ill-advised and I’ll fall flat on my face,” Ramaswamy told Politico. “I don’t think that’s gonna happen.”
Before it was MAGA country, it was their country: Native American dancers who were performing before the Super Bowl in Scottsdale last week want Gilbert Ortega Jr., the owner of the world-famous Scottsdale-based jewelry shop that traffics in Native American wares, to be charged with hate crimes after he cursed them out, yelled “this is MAGA country” at them and allegedly had to be restrained when he charged at them. The performers have asked the FBI, U.S. Justice Department and Arizona Attorney General’s Office to investigate the alleged crime, the Associated Press reports.
Rachel will not spend her birthday there: In honor of Statehood Day/Valentines Day/Rachel’s Birthday, the original Arizona Constitution will be on display in the Old Capitol. Hobbs and Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes will be there starting at 11:30 a.m.
As the federal government shifts away from funding car-heavy projects like the I-10 expansion, the Legislature is considering a bill that would decimate funding for bus and light rail transportation.
Senate Bill 1122, sponsored by Republican Sen. David Farnsworth, would allow Maricopa County to ask voters to extend a transportation tax. Gov. Doug Ducey vetoed a bill aiming to extend Prop 400 last year in a surprise move. The measure expires in 2025.
But Farnsworth’s version of the extension comes with significant strings attached that make it a dealbreaker for the Phoenix metro, the Republic’s Mary Jo Pitzl reports. Valley cities and towns, and the Maricopa Association Of Governments, all oppose the bill. (Farnsworth’s primary opponent, former House Speaker Rusty Bowers, voted in favor of the tax extension election last year.)
Farnsworth’s plan would heavily favor freeways and roads over mass transit, preserving just 5% of money collected for dial-a-ride or bus line expansion. One part of the bill prohibits any of the tax money collected from being spent on “commuter rail, light rail, street cars or trollies.”
Even if the bill does pass, Mesa Mayor John Giles told Pitzl, “the county would not call an election on this.”
SB1122 was discussed in last week’s Senate Transportation and Technology Committee, but not voted on. It was up again on Monday’s calendar, where it failed on a 3-4 vote.
Proponents of a transportation tax extension may try another bill that more purely extends the tax, like Republican Sen. Frank Carroll’s SB1505, or go for a ballot measure that gets rid of the requirement for legislative support for this kind of tax.
We’re pouring one out for the conservative lawmakers who care about the state rankings from the Conservative Political Action Conference’s Center for Legislative Accountability.
Arizona is falling lower and lower on the center’s ratings for most conservative states, KJZZ reports, though the Legislature is still dominated by Republicans who score highly on individual ratings.
Alabama takes the top spot as most conservative.
Our favorite record in that batch is a text from Fontes to Hobbs to ask if he could lead the task force once he found out about it. But he hadn’t seen the executive order, which names Hobbs the chair.
Hey, Hank and Rachel. I was wondering if you could tell me where you got the stat that Arizona needs more than a quarter million new homes. I know Tom Simplot wrote in an op-ed last year that the state is short by 280,000 homes, but after a lot of searching I've never been able to find any report, source, or methodology for how he came to that number. Everything else I've seen indicates that 280,000 is an extreme overestimate. Thanks
Happy birthday Rachel! I would sing happy birthday to you - but my singing would not be in keeping with celebrating your day. I hope you have fun plans, certainly more than watching our legislators at work.