What’s next?  Before we can answer that, we need to take stock of what we had and did not have in place in 2024. 

We had the excitement!  We had a sense of shifting momentum in Arizona,  and we had significant funding focused on flipping the Legislature from a Republican majority to a Democratic majority.  

We had the message to the people of Arizona: “Our plans for affordability will give you the direct help you need.  Our economy needs a strong workforce and our workforce needs affordable housing, quality schools and a secure water future.”  

But we did not have quite enough votes to overturn six decades of a Republican majority.  

Credit must be given to the thousands of volunteers who helped Democratic candidates with outreach.  Thank you! Your work was tremendous!  Together,  we Arizona Dems got results that are still better than most other Democrats in the US. 

Nonetheless, Arizona Republicans retained their majority and even gained ground in the Legislature. As Democrats, we now face the critical task of working with this Republican majority to advance substantive and meaningful legislation that improves the lives of Arizonans. 

Looking ahead to the 2025 session, I hope we can work together on shared priorities like education reform, fiscal responsibility, and economic growth. 

We must address our education system, which continues to suffer from teacher shortages and chronic underfunding. While bipartisan efforts were made in the last session to tackle these glaring issues, too much time was wasted on senseless distractions.

It was a distraction to push to impose arbitrary cellphone restrictions in schools.  Restrictions might be a good idea, but that is an issue best left to local communities who can address the valid concerns from parents and teachers about access to devices during emergencies.

More troubling were the repeated attempts to push censorship in our schools and online spaces, continuing  proposals to ban the teaching of historically accurate lessons and banning books that tell the stories of vulnerable and marginalized communities. 

Instead of these distractions, we must focus on solutions for families struggling with the high price of everything and economic uncertainty.  

Fiscal development, for example, is an area where bipartisan collaboration has a good track record. The Innovation Economy in Arizona is thriving in part because of legislative and other leaders that collaborated to attract and retain great jobs here. We have good opportunities that promote economic stability and a highly-skilled workforce such as the Future48 Workforce Accelerator at GateWay Community College.   

A thriving economy depends on a high quality education system.  We must collaborate across the aisle to develop pragmatic solutions for our most important resource, our people. Let’s not waste time with legislative proposals destined to be vetoed by our sensible governor. Instead, we must work together to advance policies that make a difference in Arizonans’ daily lives. 

Democratic Sen. Mitzi Epstein represents Arizona’s 12th Legislative District and is the Senate Minority Leader.