Wow, what a week. After four weeks of recess, legislators returned on Monday for a two-day legislative marathon involving 159 bills. Most of these bills involved routine tweaking of existing statutes, but some had great significance. Here are some examples:
Please note that readers may fact-check every statement made here by going directly to the source. Every bill number is a hyperlink to the AZLEG. Clicking on the bill number will take you to a pulldown menu with six options. Choose OVERVIEW to see a complete history of the bill. Choose DOCUMENTS to see the latest version of the bill, or official summaries thereof.
The following three bills are Strike-Everything bills essentially containing portions of failed Senate bill SB1117. This is a well-intended effort to alleviate the affordable housing shortage by increasing supply. However, this project has two major flaws. First, it entails pretty much taking away the ability of municipalities to control their own zoning and building codes in favor of central planning from the state. Second, it does nothing to curb demand. It is a well-known economic principle that increasing supply while keeping demand constant will lead to lower prices. However, as long as demand continues to increase, prices will continue to remain high or in some cases even increase.
HB2536 – (NOW: housing; zoning; regulation; preemption) Failed in the Senate when six Republicans voted against it.
SB1161 – (NOW: affordable housing; development standards; report) Cleared the COW, but did not get any further.
SB1163 – (NOW: municipal; zoning; housing assessment; report) Did not clear the COW, but was retained on the calendar, so it may be brought back again.
For all intents and purposes, this project appears dead.
We made huge progress with two very important voter-referral bills. The provisions of both HCR2039 and SCR1015 will be on the 2024 ballot. They are both constitutional amendments
HCR2039 – governor; state of emergency Currently, when a state of emergency is declared, as it was during the Covid thing, the governor has pretty much dictatorial powers. This measure, if approved by the voters, will establish a balance of power between the governor and the legislature.
SCR1015 – initiative; referendum; signatures; legislative districts Currently, ballot initiatives may be placed on the ballot by gathering enough signatures from the two major AZ population centers, Phoenix and Tucson. This leaves the rest of the state without a voice as to whether initiatives get on the ballot or not. SCR1015 corrects this by requiring that a certain percentage of the signatures must come from every county.
The extension of the sales tax for transportation (Proposition 400), via SB1246, may be the most controversial issue of this session. It did not have to be, but the Democrats, aided and abetted by the media, have managed to portray the Republicans as obstructionists that want to deprive citizens of their precious right to public transportation. Nothing could be further from the truth.
As an aside, it should be mentioned that this tax involves more than just a sales tax surcharge. It also includes a tax on jet fuel, and a tax on the use or consumption of electricity or natural gas.
SB1246 – election; transportation tax; Maricopa County This is a seven-page bill that may be read by going to the AZLEG website as described earlier on this article. The provisions of this Prop 400 extension bill are almost identical to those that the Democrats had demanded earlier. But now that the bill has passed and has been sent to the governor, there is talk of a veto. This is further proof that Democrats do not negotiate in good faith. One major stumbling block is the provision that light rail be voted on by citizens as a separate question. Democrats know that their pet boondoggle, light rail, will fail if voters get to vote on it separately. Here is a very good description of what is at stake, by Speaker Toma:
“Maricopa County voters deserve real choices in how their sales tax is continued and spent. The Republican-led “Transparent Prop 400 Expansion” gives voters that real choice and puts Arizona’s most critical infrastructure first. Rather than mixing vague and controversial projects with real improvements to freeways, major roads, and buses, SB 1246 moves $1 billion from undefined programs to actual road projects, and splits continuation of the half-cent sales tax into two questions that voters can consider separately. We ask the Governor to join us in putting voters first and choosing smart and responsible spending.”
The question remains as to whether Hobbs will veto this bill. Speaker Toma and President Petersen have placed Hobbs in a very difficult situation. There has been some talk about circumventing the legislature via the initiative process, but the odds of that succeeding are extremely low. Of the three choices Hobbs has, two are losers for her. If she signs the bill, Democrats will eat her alive. If she vetoes it, Prop 400 will die and something else will have to take its place if we want to have a tax surcharge for transportation in effect. Her only viable choice may be to let SB1246 become law without her signature.
There was bad news for some of the more important bills considered this week.
SB1312 – vehicle mileage; tracking; tax; prohibitions This is a “freedom to move” bill. It would have prohibited governments from impeding travel by tracking individual movements and/or restricting mode or time of transportation. SB1312 cleared the COW, but it did not make it to a third reading.
SB1138 – business; discrimination prohibition; social criteria This bill would have required that financial institutions determine credit worthiness or qualifications solely on the customers’ ability to pay and history of timely payments. It failed in the House when Biasiuccci and Cook joined Democrats and voted NO.
What is next? We do not know. The legislature has once more gone into inactive mode without adjourning. The leadership is obviously afraid of what Hobbs may do if she is left unsupervised, in much the same manner as a parent is afraid to leave a child unsupervised. But can they go on like this indefinitely? Can they continue to remain in session until January, when the next session begins?
We will eventually know the answers to these questions, so stay tuned.