This week turned out differently than what we had expected. The word on the street was that there would be very little normal activity because most of the time would be spent on hammering out a budget. What actually happened is that there was plenty of activity in rules committees, appropriation committees, committees of the whole, and third reading full chamber votes.
Still, the most notable events were the bills that did not make the cut. Here are some examples.
HB2899 – fuel; electric cars; hybrids; taxes CAMPBELL: Horrible bill. Huge fuel tax increase. Cleared the House Transportation committee 6-0-0. Three R’s were absent. The remaining two R’s joined the four D’s in voting for this bill. They were Campbell, LD1 and Thorpe, LD6. Both are term limited and will not be running for reelection, so they do not have to face the consequences of their vote. Fortunately, it appears that HB2899 did not get a vote of the whole chamber, so it appears to be dead for this session.
HCR2036 – sanctuary jurisdiction; prohibition; law enforcement SHOPE: This bill would have allowed voters to voter-protect the statute now prohibiting the establishment of sanctuary cities, counties, etc. from becoming sanctuary with respect to immigration laws. There was a similar bill in the senate. HCR2036 was held in the House Judiciary Committee, so it is dead for this session. But it is just as well, because this bill had been strike-all amended with language similar to that of 2019’s SB1217, which would have given illegal aliens discounted university tuition rates.
SCR1007 – restrictions prohibited; immigration laws; enforcement ALLEN, S.: This is the senate version of HCR2036. It made the news because of the near riotous behavior of LUCHA members during the hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee. We expect LUCHA people to behave that way, but we should not expect the governor to cave to this sort of behavior. But that is exactly what he did. He pulled the plug on this bill.
HCR2020 – lieutenant governor; joint candidacy – NUTT: If passed, this bill would have given AZ voters the opportunity to amend the AZ constitution to establish the office of Lieutenant Governor, and elect him/her on the same ticket. This makes a lot of sense for the sake of continuity in government when the chief executive does not finish his/her term. Why it did not get a vote of the full house is a source of amazement.
SCR1014 – lieutenant governor; joint ticket – MESNARD: This is the senate version of HCR2020, and it suffered the same fate.
Next week will be more typical in that there will be a fair amount of committee hearings. The bills to be heard in committee are those bills that survived in their chamber of origin. In other words, surviving House bills will go through the same process now in the senate. Likewise, Senate bills will now go through the process in the House.
The stars of the show will continue to be the same ones we have become accustomed to, namely education, elections, taxes, and border security. Tune in next week for results.
We now have a companion video outlet to compliment this Week in Review report, entitled AZ Bill Watch 2020. In this program we report and comment on legislative activity:
For information on all the bills we are tracking, check out our weekly calls to action and legislative report, found on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/AZRRT/
Folks who do not use Facebook can receive those alerts via e-mail by subscribing to our distribution list at joseb85@hotmail.com
For general information on the workings of our state legislature, go to our website at https://azpeopleslobbyist.com/
As usual, all the information found herein may be verified by going to the legislature website, found at https://www.azleg.gov/