The legislative prologue

Cue the 2026 culture wars … Kyrsten is a Kennedy at heart … And CoOl StOrY, jAkE.

Arizona’s lawmakers have a lot to get done next year.

Incoming federal funding cuts mean there are millions of dollars in lost funding to figure out, plus a major K-12 funding source and significant water cuts to deal with.

Legislators have already been busy — they’ve prefiled 26 bills and eight memorials and resolutions.

Instead of handling education funding and plugging budget holes, the legislation so far has ranged from remodeling Arizona’s elections to making Ivermectin available for over-the-counter sale.

Remember: 2026 is an election year, so brace yourself for months of political posturing and hundreds of bills that signal ideological alignments, not genuine policy.

The prefiled bills don’t contain the full story of the session, but they do set the tone for the kinds of fights lawmakers want to have next year.

And we’re tracking all the bills that matter via our legislative intelligence service, Skywolf. If you’re a policy pro, sign up for a tour of the system.

Here’s a look at those early priorities.

This is the House “hopper” where bills get filed. The frog ribbits with each new bill. (Photo credit: Former journalist / current House Democratic flack / aspiring Agenda photo intern Robbie Sherwood.)

School vouchers and Marxist librarians

Republican Sen. John Kavanagh wants to make sure Arizona’s school voucher families can still tap into public school resources.

His SB1004 would require school districts to let students using Empowerment Scholarship Account money to join public school activities, and bars districts from charging ESA families more than they charge enrolled students. Kavanagh ran a nearly identical bill this year, but it stalled in the House.

Right now, districts have to let homeschooled students participate in extracurriculars, but they don’t have to extend the same access to ESA students. Some districts, like Mesa Public Schools, are cashing in on that gap: The district doesn’t charge its own students to play high school sports, but it bills ESA students about $2,000 per season, per ABC15.

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Of course, the librarians have also made an early appearance. Republican Rep. Nick Kupper’s HB2008, the “Library Freedom Act,” bans public school libraries from spending tax dollars on groups that support libraries or IT services, such as paying dues to professional library associations.

Similar bills have advanced in other states. They’re meant to target library-based membership groups like the American Library Association, which opponents accuse of pushing a “Marxist agenda.”

Meanwhile, Republican Rep. Rachel Keshel wants to ensure that disruptive students aren’t charged with felonies.

Right now, the crime of disrupting an educational institution is defined as “threatening to cause physical injury to any employee or student” or “threatening to cause damage to any educational institution.”

But Keshel’s HB2020 would knock that crime down to a misdemeanor instead of a felony if the perpetrator is under the age of 18.

Ballot battles

Election reform made an early entrance into the 2026 legislative priority list, and Republican Secretary of State candidate Rep. Alexander Kolodin is leading the charge.

Kolodin also pushed the “Florida style” voting changes last year, when he chaired an ad hoc committee to workshop them. The stakes are higher as Kolodin vies for the state’s top elections officer, although the reforms would make it harder to vote.

Two of the first prefiled bills this year — Kolodin’s HCR2001 and Republican Sen. Shawnna Bolick’s SCR1001 — ask voters to ban early voting after the Friday before the election. The mirror bills also get rid of the active early voting list. The idea is that results would come out faster.

Meanwhile, Kolodin’s HB2022 changes Arizona’s election dates to meet federal deadlines, which was a big deal last year amid concerns the state would miss the deadline for certifying presidential election results. Gov. Katie Hobbs ended up signing a bill to move up the primary election date, and Kolodin’s bill makes that fix permanent by rescheduling Arizona’s primaries from the first Tuesday in August to the last Tuesday in July.

The bill also lets political parties send observers to ballot replacement locations. That topic caused a huge uproar during November’s elections after some GOP officials said the Pima County Recorder wouldn’t let their observers into replacement centers, which she’s not required to do.

Republican Rep. Selina Bliss’s HB2001 also imposes the Friday cutoff for ballot drop-offs while making schools serve as polling places even if there’s a concern for students’ safety or not enough space. The bill gets rid of county board of supervisors’ ability to set up emergency voting centers.

Cutting taxes, increasing fees

Lawmakers may finally be willing to address the gaping pothole in the way Arizona funds road construction and maintenance.

Arizona funds roads through taxes on gasoline. The problem is, fewer cars run on gas these days.

And anyway, the gas tax hasn’t increased in more than three decades — it’s buying us a lot fewer roads than it did in 1990.

Kupper’s HB2012 looks to make up for that by increasing the vehicle registration fee for electric cars, alternative fuel vehicles and hybrids.

Teslas and other electric/alt-fuel vehicles would have to pay $85 annually to register, compared to $8 for a normal gas vehicle. Your Prius or other hybrid would be $40. (That math means electric vehicle owners would essentially pay the regular $0.18 cent gas tax for about 500 gallons of gas every year.)

It’s not exactly a new idea — former Republican Rep. David Cook ran something similar in 2024 (with a higher fee), but that bill failed to get the two-thirds vote that any tax or fee increase needs to pass.

Still, Kupper is hopeful that as lawmakers look to trim the budget this year, they’ll realize that roads are critical infrastructure. and that his bill is about fairness for gas drivers, who are subsidizing roads for electric cars.

“I don’t like running tax bills, but it’s about parity,” he told us. “And in a year when we’re tightening our belt, it’s a good year to run a bill like this.”

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Meanwhile, most Republican lawmakers are looking for new ways to cut taxes.

And Keshel has a novel idea for how to do that: Don’t charge married couples under 25 years old any individual income taxes, regardless of how much money they make.

If signed into law, her HB2019 would go into effect for tax year 2027.

Gillette’s farewell tour

Republican Rep. John Gillette is again doubling down on his anti-Muslim crusade, this time through legislation.

He introduced two memorials — which basically entail the Legislature sending a strongly worded letter — to designate the Muslim Brotherhood and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) as foreign terrorist organizations.

Gillette made a series of Islamophobic comments on social media this year, then called Muslims “fucking savages” when the Arizona Mirror’s Jerod MacDonald-Evoy called to ask about the rhetoric.

But Gillette isn’t seeking reelection, and Republican House Ethics Committee Chair Lupe Diaz rejected an ethics complaint that Democrats lodged against Gilllette for racist comments.

Still, Gillette wants to leave with the satisfaction that he transferred his rhetoric to legislative letterhead.

His HCM2002 “urges” Congress to formally review whether CAIR, a Muslim advocacy organization, meets the criteria for being designated as a foreign terrorist organization. Part of Gillette’s social media tirade was pointing out that Hobbs met with CAIR’s executive director in 2023, a group he called “a front group for the Muslim Brotherhood.”

Gillette’s other memorial, HCM2001, urges a federal terrorism designation for the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist sociopolitical movement. The bill also asks the Arizona Attorney General to “identify, monitor and report” any Muslim Brotherhood-linked groups in the state.

CAIR denies any connection to the Muslim Brotherhood, but the narrative has persisted in far-right circles. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott recently designated both groups as foreign terrorist organizations.

What a visionary: Former Sen. Kyrsten Sinema is heaping praise on Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr’s “Make America Healthy Again,” the New Times’ Zach Buchanan reports. That “tongue-bathing,” as Buchanan puts it, includes saying “MAHA is amazing” and wondering “how is this controversial?” She conveniently left out that RFK Jr routinely undermines the value of vaccines, even as Arizona goes through one of the worst measles outbreaks in decades.

Looks like it’s working out: Two years after the “Zone” debacle, Phoenix’s Safe Outdoor Space is running smoothly, KJZZ’s Katherine Davis-Young reports. Unsheltered people can camp on artificial turf under a huge awning, or they can go inside an air-conditioned, warehouse-like building nearby. They also have access to all the services that regular shelters provide, like bathrooms and laundry. The dark cloud on the horizon is that the Phoenix City Council approved the site for three years, which means there is only one year left, and homelessness continues to rise in Phoenix.

Shhhhhh!: The Scottsdale City Council is considering whether to curtail public comment at council meetings, but not as much as their counterparts in Fountain Hills did, the Republic’s Taylor Seely and Shawn Raymundo report. Scottsdale officials plan to cap speakers at eight, instead of 10, and cut speaking time from three minutes to two. Over in Fountain Hills, the council ended public comment late last month, saying speakers were performing political theater that got in the way of town business.

Familiar face: Barry Aarons has been around the Capitol for a long time, from working as a page 55 years ago to being one of the most recognizable lobbyists in Arizona. The Capitol Times’ Jakob Thorington did a Q&A with Aarons, who acknowledged that “nobody says ‘I want to be a lobbyist’ when I grow up,” while pointing to a long line of accomplishments, not least of which was deciding to wear a bow tie, his signature piece of apparel. For more words of lobbyist wisdom from Aarons, check out his pamphlet titled “So You Want to Be a Lobbyist.”

Help us make it to 55 years at the Capitol, too.

What are they really stopping?: What started as a mission to prevent human trafficking in Pinal County has turned into an immigration dragnet along a popular stretch of the I-10, Richard Ruelas reports for the Republic. Pinal County Sheriff’s deputies have been lying in wait along a stretch of I-10 to look for traffic infractions as a pretext to conduct immigration stops. Pinal County Attorney Brad Miller said the county doesn’t want to disrupt the travel of people on the freeway, but the actions are worth it if it means stopping the trafficking of drugs or humans.

“That person with a taillight out,” Miller said, “are they just a person with a taillight out or are they a known cartel member?”

There’s a lot to make fun of in this tweet from Republican Sen. Jake Hoffman, who is beefing with some online content creator about a video trashing the $1.5 million that Hoffman’s company has made from Turning Point USA contracts.

But for the sake of brevity, we’ll just stick to mocking the first sentence — with the most juvenile response possible:

“Oh YaH, JaKe, DoEs It SuCk WhEn SoMe DiPsHiTs DeLiBeRaTeLy SpReAd MiS/dIsInFoRmAtIoN?”