Since before the Legislative Session began in early January, Governor Doug Ducey let Republicans in the State Legislature have hope that a Special Session would be called to address election reforms in time for the 2022 primary in August. Now, he is planning on calling a Special Session next week, but its only focus is a tax cut for Arizona’s wealthiest residents.
His plan may run into trouble though, as Sen. Kelly Townsend and others are demanding election reform be a part of his Special Session agenda.
“The most pressing issues needing attention in the Legislative session right now are election integrity and fighting back against unconstitutional mandates,” said Townsend. “We had the Arizona School Board Association (ASBA) sue the state and overturn good laws based on a technicality, and those laws must now be reinstated. In particular, any new legislation to be in effect in time to implement for the primary election in August must be completed 90 days prior, which is before April. We traditionally finish our work late into April and recently as late as the end of June. It is imperative, then, that we have a special session to fix these issues now. Tax credits are a thin percentage of the many things needing to be addressed, so I cannot support doing any other work until the aforementioned issues are resolved.”
Under Arizona law, “The governor may call a special session, whenever in his judgment it is advisable. In calling a special session, the governor shall specify the subjects to be considered, and at such special session no laws shall be enacted except such as relate to the subjects mentioned in the call.”
If the governor calls a Special Session and does not include election reform bills, his effort could be futile. He will need every Republican vote for his tax cuts in order to undercut a referendum on the November ballot that would raise taxes. His plan is to get out ahead of any taxes increases that might occur if the voters approve a referendum pushed by the teachers’ union designed to raise taxes.
“Governor Ducey’s team will claim that Republicans holding out for election integrity measures are jeopardizing tax cuts, but the Governor is in the driver’s seat and has a Legislature willing to strike a good deal for him that would allow him to claim a win on both taxes and election integrity.” said one Capitol observer, adding “It absolutely blows my mind that he would risk the tax cuts so he could also fail to claim victory on election integrity, which is a much more important issue to GOP voters than taxes right now.”
As Townsend noted, the need to pass certain election reforms in a Special Session is because laws passed in Special Session are enacted before the 2020 primaries.
The Arizona School Board Association (ASBA) successfully sued the Legislature, killing several laws passed last session that were tucked into budget bill. Under Arizona law, laws passed must be confined to a single subject. The budget bills passed last year included everything from prohibitions of mask mandates to how to define a newspaper.
Lawmakers like Townsend hope to revise those laws and pass them individually this legislative session or during a special session like the one being proposed by Ducey.