The 2021 Legislative Session In Nutshell

July 21, 2021 Editorial Board
arizona capitol

Now that the dust has settled on the 2021 Arizona State Legislature’s Regular Session, it is time to take stock of the winners, losers, heroes, villains, highlights, and lowlights.

The narrow GOP majority resulted in more Democrat written bills making it through the process, even though most were relatively benign bills, but it is still good for politics when elected officials who agree on an issue make progress on it without scuttling it for partisan purposes.

Election integrity issues attracted a great deal of attention, with often simple measures attracting irresponsible and overheated rhetoric from opponents who were trying desperately to convince the public that every election integrity bill would legalize the disenfranchisement of millions of voters.  These bills were also the scene of quite a bit of gamesmanship and bad behavior, as a few Republican Senators – Michelle Ugenti-Rita, Kelly Townsend, and Paul Boyer specifically – taking turns killing bills related to improving Arizona’s elections, largely as retribution.

The Republican who killed more election integrity measures than any was Ugenti-Rita, who ironically was also running a number of related bills to position herself for her campaign for Secretary of State.  According to Townsend, Ugenti-Rita killed her reform bills out of personal animus.

Townsend herself returned fire, killing a high profile Ugenti-Rita bill, but only for a short while.  Townsend eventually voted Yes to pass it, after extracting additional concessions in return.

Eventually the Legislature passed several notable bills to deal with early balloting and other election integrity efforts.

School choice and ESA expansion was another combustible issue, as conservative groups attempting to expand school choice options to lower-income students were blocked by a trio of Republicans – Joanne Osborne, Michelle Udall, and Joel John.  While Osborne and Udall campaign as conservatives, they were the legislature’s most reliably liberal Republicans.  For his part, Joel John did not rank too far behind them, but some capitol observers gave him a partial pass because he represents a Democratic district.  “Udall and Osborne have solid red districts, which is why they campaign as conservatives even though they vote with the Democrats on the important bills.  But John campaigned as a moderate in a lean Democratic district, so him teaming up with Democrats to kill some priority Republican bills isn’t such a surprise.”

Tax cuts and the budget dominated the second half of the legislative session and were a big part of the reason the session ended up the third longest in state history.  Governor Ducey and some members were ready to push a historic tax cut and protect small business owners from the effects of 2020’s Prop 208, which increased Arizona’s income taxes to California levels for small business owners.  Again, with the narrowest of margins available to Republicans, numerous Republicans held out for changes they believed important, often taking public beatings from the Governor’s allies or outside groups.  Members from Senators Boyer, Ugenti-Rita, Townsend and others, as well as Representatives Cook, Hoffman, and others, tugged and pulled at the process to extract concessions on debt repayment, spending cuts, election integrity efforts, and more.

At the end of the day, a record setting budget passed, along with a record tax cut, and everyone from the Governor on down claimed victory on not just the tax cuts, but new funding for infrastructure, transportation, water, and more.

Executive Powers were also hotly debated, and while the 9th Floor defended the Governor’s ability to take on a number of powers during times of emergency, the Governor did ultimately agree to end emergency declarations made during the pandemic.