The Arizona State Legislature will be convening on January 11 to begin the first regular session of the 55th legislature. As usual there will be the usual jockeying for position among leaders and potential leaders. We are also seeing a more or less typical number of legislative bills being introduced in “prefiled” fashion, meaning that they are being introduced before the official opening of the session. Astute observers tend to agree that these are the bills most important to the legislators that introduce them. But this is where the business-as-usual character of this session ends.
This session will be shrouded in a uniquely dark cloud of citizen mistrust as the result of several factors. One is the strong suspicion that there was foul play in connection with the general election, which up to now has been largely ignored by the state leadership. Another is the overreach of officials in their response to the COVID-19 issue, which has left the state’s economy in shambles and an inordinate number of families broke.
As is customary, there are several special interest organizations and groups of concerned citizens that are gearing up to pay attention to what happens at the capitol and attempt to influence legislation.
One such group of concerned citizens is the Arizona People’s Lobbyist, founded and led by Jose Borrajero of Phoenix. They have attracted our attention because they are unique among similar organizations. According to Borrajero:
“Most activist groups in Arizona are single issue oriented. Those issues include, but are not limited to, family matters, second amendment, education, and the economy. By contrast, we deal with all those issues, and more, but limit our activity to bills that are controversial and/or have great impact on people’s lives. We are also different in that we do not use boiler plate language when contacting legislators, as many other organizations do. Instead, we encourage the writing of comments in the senders’ own words. It doesn’t take long for legislative assistants to spot comments that were not written by the citizens that sent them. This tends to devalue the effectiveness of those messages. Even though we encourage our subscribers to use their brains when expressing opinions, we make the process very easy when using the tools available in our website.”
These citizen lobbyists are also unique in that they are all volunteers and they do not represent anyone other than themselves. This requires a lot of effort and behind-the-scenes preparation. Borrajero continues with a description of his operation:
“Our activity consists of several stages. First, we have to decide what bills to track and what positions to take. This is accomplished by a select group of our subscribers, who go to the legislature’s website and look through the bills that have been introduced. They pick the ones that are likely to have a significant effect on people’s lives and be controversial. They read those bills and formulate opinions that they share with me. Based on this, we take a position pro or con. Second, we send out to our subscribers a weekly email alerting them about upcoming actions and recommending that they contact legislators to express their opinion. They do so by using emails, telephone calls, and/or the Request to Speak system. When votes are taken, we keep track of how legislators voted and compile an end-of-session report. This report could be useful in validating or debunking campaign rhetoric at election time.”
When asked about what the general public can do to assist, Borrajero responded that the weekly calls to action are posted on Facebook, at https://www.facebook.com/AZRRT Anyone who wishes to participate can get all the information they need by going there. He also mentioned that his website contains a wealth of information useful to those who would like to get involved in the political process. The link to that website is azpeopleslobbyist.com These two tools make it very easy for both newcomers and seasoned veterans to participate in their government.