As Senate Rules Committee attorney, Joni Hoffman reviews hundreds of bills each session. She advises the committee on whether, in her opinion, the bills on its calendar are constitutional. It’s a job Hoffman has held for a decade. She started working for the Legislature even earlier than that. She hired on in 1985, shortly after getting her law degree at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln. In the years since, Hoffman has worked with the Arizona Legislature in some form without interruption, including two years as a lobbyist. Her second-floor office is furnished with limited-edition prints of song lyrics written by John Lennon. And there’s an old couch that she recently had reupholstered. Her office is also conveniently located. It’s just across the hall from the Senate floor, where she is sometimes summoned to answer parliamentary questions.
You mentioned you moved to Arizona right after law school. What brought you here?
Like so many other people, the weather. That last year in Lincoln was brutal. That last winter, my husband and I said, ‘Let’s move to Arizona for a little while.’ And now it’s been 25 years.
Is your husband a lawyer?
No, thank goodness. My daughter is, but not him. He’s an engineer for the Salt River Project. He’s been there for quite some time, too.
What brought you to the Arizona Legislature?
I applied for a job. Back then the Internet wasn’t around, and I went to the law school at ASU just looking for work. And this was posted on the bulletin board at the law school.
What job was that?
It’s called the title clerk. It’s not a position anymore. Back then the titles of bills used to be much more descriptive. And it described everything that was in the bill in much more detail. They don’t do that anymore. And my job was to make sure as bills were amended that the descriptive title still reflected what was in the bill.
But that was a session-only position. So that lasted throughout the 1985 session and that’s when I was picked up by Legislative Council to draft bills. I drafted in the criminal code area, and I think in the insurance law area. And then I left there to go lobby for Blue Cross Blue Shield.
When you first came here, what did you know about the legislative process?
I didn’t know anything. And it was one of those things that happened in life where the first day I stepped in to begin my job, I knew this was where I wanted to be. I loved it.
What’s the purpose of the Rules Committee?
The committee’s function is to review all the bills that the chairman schedules for a hearing, bills that have passed through their standing committee. The Rules Committee, pretty much its sole function, is to review those for constitutionality.
The Rules Committee doesn’t deal with a subject — like transportation, education, welfare.
It’s constitutionality. That’s the subject matter.
What’s your role?
I read every single bill that passes out of the standing committee, in case the chairman wants to schedule any of those bills for Rules Committee. The chairman sets the agenda, and from that agenda, I prepare to go into committee and advise the members, if I believe there are any constitutional issues with any of those bills on the agenda.
Does a bill have to go through rules to get to the floor?
Yes, the Senate rules require every bill have Rules Committee review.
Are there common potential constitutional conflicts you look for?
Absolutely. We see things, such as the First Amendment, of course. Separation of powers. Equal protection. And then there are some things that are kind of unique to the legislative process. You can’t pass special legislation. Then we have Prop. 105, the voter protection act [requiring three-fourths vote to amend a voter-passed initiative], Prop. 108, the two-thirds vote to raise taxes. So there are things that are more common than others.
Special legislation. Is that a tough call?
We have case law on it. We just have to look at the case law that we have. Basically, the Legislature can’t pass a law that just affects one group, one business, one person. But, again, it’s more complicated than that. There’s a list in there of what you can’t do. What special legislation you can’t have.
At some point, politics must enter the process. How does that play into
your job?
I have been a nonpartisan staffer since I began at the Legislature, which I really like.
You don’t work for the majority party?
I work for everybody. I don’t even work for the chairman. I staff the committee, which means, like any other committee, I work closely with the chairman. But if he has a bill that I believe is unconstitutional, that will come out, just like anybody else’s bill.
Do members of the committee sometimes disregard your judgment?
I am an adviser. I tell the committee what my opinion is based on my experience, the research that I have done in a particular bill. I give them the best opinion I can, but I don’t vote. They vote. They can disagree with my opinion. That’s their job. I’m just there to help them to decide whether a bill is constitutional. That’s what I tell them, that you don’t have to agree with my opinion.
If I’m in a committee meeting and I say I really think this bill’s unconstitutional, and they vote it out anyway, I certainly don’t take it personally. I hope I have a thick skin.
Politically, the Rules Committee can be a dead end for bills. The members on the committee might just not like a bill, regardless of its constitutionality.
If the chairman doesn’t like a bill, or if the leadership doesn’t like a bill, they might ask the chairman not to hear it. People don’t realize how powerful the chairman of Rules is sometimes, if he chooses to be.
How many bills do you read a session?
Well, I mean, all the Senate and House bills that pass out of the standing committees, and I never actually kept track. It’s a lot. It keeps me quite busy.
You must read stacks of bills.
Yeah, I have these. These are usually just full of bills that are ready for the Rules Committee on a weekly basis. As you know, when it gets to be the transition period, when it’s the last week to hear Senate bills, or it’s the last week to hear House bills, the committees are just cranking out work.
The very last week of session. That’s peak workload as well?
That last week, you know, the president and the speaker say, “We’re not hearing any more Senate bills, we’re not hearing any more House bills.” That’s when it gets crazy. Just because of the volume. There are just so many bills that get passed out of standing committee that it’s just a lot of reading to do.
They’re on a deadline.
As you know, this place is deadline driven. And the staff, all the staff, we have no control over those deadlines. I don’t have that luxury of telling them no. I have to get it done.
Do you work with your counterpart in the House?
Oh, absolutely. Jim Drake is just a great rules attorney. He’s smart and he’s energetic, and he’s young. And we bounce th
ings off of each other all the time.
Your job, you say, entails more than advising the Rules Committee.
Well, the two other things that I’m responsible for are — one is parliamentary expertise. I’m expected to know Senate rules. We have a publication called Nathan’s Rule of Legislative Procedure. So if an issue comes up on the floor or in a committee as to how to do a motion, whether a motion’s proper, I will be asked to give an opinion on that.
When things get wacky, usually I’m called out there. I try to keep them on track, if I’m asked to. I try not to interject myself. If the president calls me out there or the secretary of the Senate calls me out there, then I will go out and try to help.
You mentioned that senators will sometimes ask you about procedures or motions that could ruffle some feathers.
A member might come to me and say, “I want to do a motion on the floor. It’s going to upset things out there, and the president doesn’t even know I’m going to do it.” It’s my job to help that member, even if I know it’s going to get, you know, a little crazy out there on the floor.
Some senators must know the rules better than others.
With term limits, it’s an ongoing education process.
You have a interim committee hearing on TV right now. Do you read bills and watch committee hearings on TV during session?
I try to. Usually, there are two meetings going on at the same time. Like Jude [Judiciary] will be going on at the same time as Health — I try to watch them. Or they will e-mail me from committee and ask a question. Or I’ll just simply go down there, behind the scenes. I’m always behind the scenes, helping them sort out any parliamentary issues they might have.
So you’re reading bills and watching two committee hearings …And?
And, you know, lobbyists will be dropping by and asking questions and they will come and suggest that certain bills aren’t constitutional or tell me why they think a bill might be constitutional in light of something I had written to the contrary or said at a committee meeting.
What’s the other part of your job?
I help keep the members in compliance with ethics issues. We have a conflict-of-interest rule. We have a statute — the lobbyist statute, I’m asked a lot of questions. “Is this event OK for me to attend? Am I allowed to accept these tickets?” I give them advice on that, and also advice on the open-meeting law.