The More Things Change...

The return of SB1070? ... A new lawmaker emerges ... And it's quite a coalition.

In many ways, Arizona is a completely different state than it was back in 2010, when lawmakers voted to approve the now infamous immigration law, SB1070. 

In other ways, it hasn’t really changed at all. 

Latino business owners and activists took to the Capitol lawn yesterday to denounce House Speaker Ben Toma’s HCR2060. Toma calls the legislation “one of the toughest immigration laws ever written.” The activists and business owners call it the second coming of SB1070. 

That got us thinking back to 2010.¹How has Arizona changed since then? How has it not? What lessons have we learned in the last 14 years, and what lessons have we forgotten from that era?

Our art intern, ChatGPT, wasn’t even born in 2010. But they still nailed the vibe of SB1070 protests at the Capitol.

Back then, Arizona was the land of “America’s toughest sheriff” Joe Arpaio, immigration sweeps, workplace raids, racial profiling and electrified fences for immigrants in Tent City. Russell Pearce, an anti-immigrant zealot, was the leader of the state Senate and sponsored SB1070 and muscled it into law.

Pearce was recalled immediately after SB1070, marking a new wave of Latino political activism and sparking a generation of engaged Latino youth who are now adults — they’re lawmakers, activists, business owners and voters. These days, Arpaio can’t even get elected to in his hometown of Fountain Hills. 

But Arizona is always a border state. And with that comes cycles of immigration challenges and political responses.

Just like in 2010, we’re in the depths of another cycle of angry populism, frustration with Washington DC’s inaction, and one-upmanship with other states to deal with the problem. The news cycle has again turned to “chaos at the border” and politicians are again looking to cash in. 

In 2010, Arizona’s immigrants were mostly Mexican migrants looking for jobs. A decade of tough-on-immigrants policies had restricted the usual circular migration between farms in Mexico and the US, trapping migrants in the U.S. When the economy tanked, politicians decried “illegals” stealing American jobs and urged policies that would make life here so bad for them, that migrants would “self-deport.”

These days, the majority of immigrants aren’t coming from Mexico — they’re coming through Mexico from dozens of other war-torn or economically collapsing countries around Latin America and the world. They’re not sneaking across the border to work — they’re often presenting themselves to federal agents to gain legal entry to the country to escape the horrors they fled. 

And although the problem is totally different, the political solutions, like Toma’s HCR2060, are yanked straight from the playbook of 2010. They’re tactics designed to fight the immigration of a generation ago, not the problems on Arizona’s southern border today. 

Still, there are a lot of reasons Toma’s HCR2060 is not the second coming of SB1070. 

First of all, SB1070 targeted individuals. It created a state crime for being in the country illegally and required local police to determine a person’s immigration status if police suspected the person could be in the country illegally. HCR2060 would target businesses, requiring police to investigate businesses accused of hiring undocumented migrants. (Though it would make failing to use the federal E-Verify program a felony offense for business owners, among other provisions.)

The difference is evident in opponents’ approach to fighting the two bills. Opponents decried SB1070 as a human rights violation. HCR2060 is a “job killer,” as Gov. Katie Hobbs put it. 

And just like when it came time to lobby against SB1070, the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry was nowhere to be seen yesterday. While the business community hated SB1070, leaders never stepped up to the plate to fight it — a decision many would live to regret. 

Arizona spent nearly a decade trying to repair its reputation after SB1070. Though the law was immediately tied up in lawsuits and never fully became active, it cost the state countless conventions, concerts and even family tourist trips. Despite some heavy lifting from Former Gov. Doug Ducey to fix Arizona’s brand for tourism and business, the economic and reputational consequences of what policymakers did in 2010 lingered for years. 

Arizona is no longer internationally known as the “SB1070 state.” But it’s worth remembering that in 2010, SB1070 was wildly popular among the electorate. 

But perhaps the biggest difference between SB1070 and HCR2060 is the latter would require a vote of the people on the 2024 ballot to become law, not just a vote from the politicians. Proposing a ballot referral allows lawmakers to skirt the governor’s veto stamp. But far more interesting, it puts the question to Arizona voters. 

So, in 2024, does Arizona still feel like the SB1070 state? Not really. 

But did Arizonans learn the lessons of the SB1070 era? We may be about to find out. 

Back to full power: Elda Luna-Nájera, the President of the Tolleson Union High School District Governing Board, is taking over for former Rep. Leezah Sun in Legislative District 22, the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors decided yesterday. A citizens’ panel nominated Luna-Nájera and two others for the position after the district’s precinct committeepeople took too long to do so. 

Make Arizona Great Again: Neo-Nazis and white nationalists, including a couple of Arizona residents, showed up at the Conservative Political Action Conference where attendees harassed journalists, spouted anti-Semitic conspiracy theories and openly used the N-word, the Arizona Mirror’s Jerod MacDonald-Evoy reports. Ryan Sanchez, who moved to Arizona last year, was seen on video giving a Nazi salute while harassing a journalist. 

Hurry up and wait: As Pima County runs out of federal funding to temporarily house asylum seekers, Tucson City Councilmembers suggested dropping them off at the Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, the local Border Patrol headquarters and busing the migrants to Phoenix, the Arizona Luminaria’s Kiara Adams reports. Without a new federal budget deal, Pima County is set to run out of shelter funds in late March. 

That’s 10,000 years of life: The Government Accountability Office reported more than 100 saguaros were destroyed during the construction of the border wall. Customs and Border Protection said it relocated at least 100 saguaros along a patrol road, but the report says at least half didn’t survive the move, per KJZZ’s Tori Gantz. 

“The vast majority of saguaros that were transplanted were already doomed to die the moment that they were moved from the places where they had been growing — in many cases for over a century,” said Laiken Jordahl, a conservation advocate with the Center for Biological Diversity. 

No rush: The University of Arizona is delaying its climate action plan that six working groups and two technical teams spent last fall crafting amid the university’s $177 million budget deficit, Grist reports. The plan included divesting from fossil fuels, which currently comprise about $75 million of the UA Foundation’s endowment. A previous Grist investigation put the UA on a list of universities that rely on fossil fuel production and mining to earn revenue from land taken from Indigenous people. 

Bills need a simple majority: House and Senate Republicans have been busy approving several election-altering bills, like a measure that would discount the result of bond elections that less than 60% of voters cast a ballot for and another banning artificial intelligence for signature verification and ballot tabulating, which elections official don’t currently use, the Arizona Mirror’s Caitlin Sievers reports. The bills are bound for Gov. Katie Hobbs’ veto stamp, especially Sen. Jake Hoffman’s SB1286, which would ban non-precinct-based voting centers and make public and charter schools close to students on Election Day. 

Creepy doctor alert: A Santa Cruz County doctor is still practicing after the county attorney’s office filed a criminal complaint against him for allegedly sexually abusing and assaulting patients in 2022 and 2018, per Nogales International’s Angela Gervasi. Marco Saucedo still has his medical license, and the Arizona Medical Board is requiring him to work with a woman chaperone in the room. Speaking of creepy doctors, two Phoenix women who are suing a Glendale plastic surgeon over claims he botched their procedures while drunk say they're concerned for their safety after being stalked and intimidating since filing the lawsuit, the Phoenix New Times’ TJ L'Heureux reports.  

Sen. Justine Wadsack has been posting quite a bit about being named “elected official of the year” by something called the “Arizona Coalition of School Board Members.”

Now, we know there are a lot of education groups in Arizona, but this one is new to us.

Turns out, it’s led by former AZGOP chair and fake elector Kelli Ward’s daughter, Katie Ward, in conjunction with former AZGOP Executive Director Pam Kirby, fake elector Nancy Cottle, former lawmaker Sylvia Allen, and EVIT board member and Sen. Jake Hoffman’s assistant Shelly Boggs.

Sounds about right.

1. Fun fact: Hank was an intern at the Capitol in 2010 and filmed the committee hearings for SB1070. Sorry about the shoddy camerawork!