We’re in the thick of election season — control of the Legislature hangs in the balance, Arizona’s top offices are up for grabs and voters face a slew of consequential ballot measures.
But here in Agendaland, we’ve been wondering: Who’s going to fill the Warren Petersen-sized hole in the state Senate?
Petersen, the outgoing Republican Senate president, has held the chamber’s top job for the past four years — a position whose powers include deciding whether lawmakers’ bills ever see a vote, hiring and firing staff and negotiating billions of dollars in state spending.
Now, with Petersen eyeing the Attorney General’s Office, a cowboy-hat-wearing senator is poised to take his place.
Republican Sen. TJ Shope says he’s already got the votes.
Even Shope’s campaign logo is wearing a cowboy hat.
In the interest of not getting ahead of ourselves, there’s a real chance Democrats could take control of or tie the Senate this year for the first time in more than three decades.
But the status quo is stubborn, so we’re looking at what next year’s Senate might look like if Republicans hold on. And since lawmakers are already divvying up leadership positions before voters have their say, we figured we’d get ahead of the game, too.
Shope, a Coolidge-based Republican, began his legislative career in the state House in 2013. For the past four years, he’s served as Senate president pro tempore, which means “for the time being” in Latin, and mostly entails filling in for the Senate president when he’s away.
So Shope has plenty of experience behind the dais.
And according to Shope himself, he has “more than enough” votes from fellow Republican senators to secure the Senate presidency.
Here’s how the process of electing leaders works:
Lawmakers start jockeying for leadership votes well before Election Day, feeling out colleagues and sometimes promising committee chairmanships or other legislative perks in exchange for support.
Just days after Election Day, the majority party in each chamber meets behind closed doors to pick its leadership team. In the Senate, that includes the president, majority leader (who helps set caucus priorities and keep colleagues in line) and majority whip (who’s responsible for “whipping” up votes for the party’s priorities).
There’s often some last-minute tomfoolery, including insurgent challengers and letting candidates who haven’t actually won their elections vote on leadership.
Come January, the full Senate formally elects its president, traditionally with a unanimous voice vote, in a show of bipartisan kumbaya. And even if Democrats object, they don’t have the votes to stop Republicans’ pick.
Shope still has to win reelection in November. He faces a Democratic challenger in Legislative District 16, a competitive but Republican-leaning district where he won comfortably two years ago.
If he succeeds, next year will mark the start of his final term before hitting the Senate’s eight-year term limit. He has no plans to return to the House or seek another elected office, at least for now, and sees the Senate presidency as a fitting way to go out on top.
Shope said he’s had his eye on the presidency since Petersen launched his attorney general campaign. But he had to walk a fine line between lining up support and getting ahead of his boss, in case Petersen resigned early to focus on his campaign.
“I wasn’t sure what Petersen’s plan was,” Shope said. “How do you respectfully prepare just in case he decides to devote his full time to his campaign ... and not try to get too far out in front of anything? I think I definitely tried to strike a balance there, and I think the caucus respected it.”
Word is, Republican Sen. John Kavanagh also threw his name in for the presidency, but dropped out to back Shope instead.
Kavanagh was uncharacteristically tight-lipped when we asked him about it, but he did confirm that while he “considered” the presidency, he’s now angling to hold on to his role as majority leader and backing Shope for president instead.
Politically, the arrangement makes plenty of sense for Shope.
Legislative leaders are often rewarded or punished based on how their caucus’s seats fare after the election, and since Petersen is still in charge, Shope could avoid the blame if Republicans lose too much ground.
Plus, Shope comes with a convenient two-year expiration date, which gives Republicans a chance to acclimate to a post-Petersen Senate before Shope’s term limits force him out in 2029 and leadership gets reshuffled.
But ideologically, Shope is a more moderate flavor of Republican than Petersen.
Shope was one of the nine “legis-traitors” who voted to expand the state’s Medicaid program in 2013. And in 2024, he voted with Democrats to repeal the 1864 abortion ban.
Despite taking heat from the party’s right flank over the years, Shope has tried to rise above the intraparty beef.
“I think if there’s anything about me — and I would hope that this would be a part of my reputation that’s out there — is that I’m not extremely close to any particular person, and I’m not standoffish to anyone either,” he said. “I try to get in there and do the job and move on.”
But like any Republican legislative leader, Shope will have to contend with Sen. Jake Hoffman, head of the far-right Freedom Caucus and frequent antagonist to those he deems establishment Republicans.
Hoffman has shown little hesitation to challenge his own party’s leaders. But he’s had it pretty good in Petersen’s Senate, including control of the Director Nominations Committee — allowing him to fulfill his dream of becoming “Katie Hobbs’ worst nightmare” — and the Senate Government Committee.
We didn’t hear back from Hoffman when we asked if he supports Shope’s potential presidency. But when it comes to next year’s potential committee appointments, Shope said, “I’ve made no guarantees.”
In fact, Shope said he plans to spread around some of the considerable power the Senate presidency affords by giving lawmakers more say.
“My view is very much in continuing almost a devolution of power from the president’s office to our individual chairmen, to our members, to make sure that they feel as important as they are,” he said. “The times that I feel like it’s been most dysfunctional in the Legislature have been when too much power was held behind the closed doors of the president’s office.”
Over in the House, Speaker Steve Montenegro faces a different leadership calculation. Unlike Shope, he’s on the hook for how Republicans fare on Election Day, and his chances of keeping the speakership could depend on how many seats they hold onto.
Of course, all this assumes Republicans keep control of the Legislature.
Stay tuned for tomorrow’s edition, when we’ll look at what happens if Democrats finally manage to take the majority.
Horrific: Bernadette Greene-Placentia, the Democratic candidate challenging Republican U.S. Rep. Abe Hamadeh in CD8, was sexually assaulted by two men while repairing campaign signs, the New Times’ Morgan Fischer reports. In a harrowing account, Greene-Placentia describes fragmented memories of the assault and believes she suffered a concussion during it. After initially fearing revictimization, she reported the assault to the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office two weeks later, and the investigation remains ongoing.
Thanks a million: Democratic Sen. Brian Fernandez lists his residence as a Yuma home owned by an Arizona Western College executive, the Republic’s Laura Gersony reports. Fernandez wouldn’t answer questions about whether he actually lives there or if he disclosed that conflict of interest while he was helping secure $15 million worth of state funding for the college in 2024. There’s something of a pattern here, as earlier this year, we broke the story that Fernandez had steered state funding to a hospital system that employed him. The story also reminded us of a joke Republican Rep. Justin Wilmeth made while roasting his colleagues on the House floor ahead of the annual lawmakers vs. lobbyists softball game in April:
“Sen. Brian Fernandez is told to run home, and he does… to Scottsdale, I mean, Yuma!”
Shampaign finance: Two alleged sham Green Party candidates — Risa Lombardo for governor and Duwayne Collier for secretary of state — are dodging subpoenas for records tied to an investigation into whether they falsified $5 donations to qualify for Clean Elections funding, the Arizona Mirror’s Caitlin Sievers reports. Their conservative attorney, Tim La Sota, told the Clean Elections Commission its demands were “overly burdensome and harassing.” On Tuesday, the candidates also lost their appeal seeking to block the commission from investigating at all.
Should have called his references: Frank Strada, the recently resigned head of Tennessee’s corrections agency who presided over the failed execution of Christa Pike, also oversaw a string of botched executions in Arizona, the New York Times reports. Strada ran three Arizona executions in 2022 in which teams struggled to insert IVs into prisoners’ arms — which led Arizona to pause executions for about two years. Tennessee’s governor nevertheless recruited him in 2023 to restart executions there after Tennessee had paused its execution program because the state had failed to follow its lethal injection rules.
Board games: The Tolleson Union school board race is turning into a referendum on years of dysfunction inside the district, the Republic’s Alexandra Hardle reports. Three of the four candidates are tangled in legal controversies: Democratic Rep. Elda Luna-Nájera faces sexual harassment allegations from Superintendent Jeremy Calles, who says she later retaliated against him with a poor performance review. David Del Palacio’s business is being sued for copyright infringement. And Diann Amaro is suing the district for banning her from board meetings after cursing, “shoving district furniture around” and “attempting to incite the audience,” per the district.
Inside the Issues is a nonpartisan series from the Arizona Citizens Clean Elections Commission about the issues shaping Arizona’s future — the ones that are complex, consequential, and easy to overlook.
Each episode brings voters into the conversation with experts, public officials, and community leaders who explain what’s actually at stake and what decisions are ahead. No pundits, no party line — just the context you need to walk into the voting booth informed instead of guessing.
Over the years, our reporting has been cited in many a campaign mailer, and even an occasional TV ad.
But we’re pretty sure this is the first roadside sign leaning on our reportage.
And there are actually two versions of the sign.
Unfortunately, voters may not be able to see those signs as they zoom through Republican Rep. Matt Gress’ Phoenix/Scottsdale/Paradise Valley district.