Who would have thought that final action on legislative bills would be taking place on the same day as mail-in ballots were being sent to the voters? There were two reasons for this anomaly. First, the legislators engaged in one of the longest sessions on record, partially caused by some Republican legislators’ appetite for joining Democrats in their mission to create mischief. Second, the governor, not to be outdone, waited until the very last minute to act on some of the more controversial bills sent to him.
During this session we had over 1,700 bills introduced, which is high, even by AZ standards. Of those, 392 were sent to the governor, and a few went to the secretary of state to be placed on the November ballot for voters to decide. A full report may be viewed by going to the AZLEG website at:
https://apps.azleg.gov/BillStatus/SearchChapteredTransmittedTo
We, at AZ Peoples Lobbyists considered 290 bills and ended up tracking and requesting action on 175 bills. We have just completed a final report on those 175 bills, which include facts, links to primary materials, and some comments that reflect our opinions of those bills. You may check out our report at:
https://azpeopleslobbyist.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/2022-REPORT.pdf
We will not engage in a long dissertation about these bills because that would be outside the scope of this piece, and those readers who wish more information may obtain it by clicking on the aforementioned links. We will comment on two of the more controversial bills that were finalized by the governor’s recent actions.
HB2853 – Arizona empowerment scholarship accounts; appropriation
This is a huge deal. This bill is a giant step toward wrestling school choice away from government entities and restoring that control to parents, where it belongs.
Most people are not aware that the concept of monopolistic control of education by government schools is one of the ten pillars of an ideal Communist society, as stated proudly by Karl Marx in his Communist Manifesto.
For the longest time this fact was mostly irrelevant, because by and large public schools had as their main goal the teaching of skills necessary for students to earn a living and become productive members of society. For example, when this writer was going through high school, teachers did not wear their political and/or religious biases on their sleeves while teaching; reciting of a prayer and the pledge of allegiance were not considered crimes against humanity; teachers did not encourage students to question whether they were boys or girls and deviant behavior like homosexuality was to be tolerated, but not celebrated. All that has changed, leading to the high demand for school choice.
HB2156 – tax credits; motion picture credits
This bill is so bad that the governor did not want his name on it, and allowed it to become law without his signature.
This is a typical example of corporate welfare. We had a large budget surplus and we chose to give it to special interests, including the Leftist Hollywood movie industry, instead of returning it to those who earned it, namely the rank-and-file tax payers.
Hopefully, voters will remember this when they cast their votes in August and November.
We cannot conclude this review without mentioning the awful news about one ballot initiative. The free-for-all election initiative, deceptively named “Free and Fair Elections” has gathered enough signatures to make it almost 100% sure that it will be on the November ballot.
Beyond that, there are a handful of ballot measures, both good and bad, that we will be addressing once their inclusion on the ballot is finalized. In the meantime, those readers that wish to learn all there is to learn about the status of these ballot measures, may do so by going to the Secretary of State website at:
https://apps.arizona.vote/info/irr/2022-general-election/33/0