March, 2025 | Arizona Capitol Times

Bill to ban ‘controversial’ flags on government property dropped ahead of veto

Katie Hobbs remains free to hang a gay pride flag from her office tower.

Rep. Nick Kupper said he has abandoned his bid to enact a measure which would have made it illegal to display any but a select list of flags from government buildings.

The Surprise Republican had managed to usher his HB2113 through the House. And he was attempting to get approval by the Senate Government Committee this past week when he concluded that it really didn’t matter: It was “clear that Hobbs will veto.”

Kupper told Capitol Media Services that there were probably things he could do to pick up more support for his measure – only two Democrats voted for it – but that it was too late to do further tinkering with the measure this year.

All that means the governor won’t get a chance to have the last word.

The legislation comes after Hobbs used her position to hang a gay pride and transgender rights flag – the governor’s press aide calls it a banner – from the balcony of her ninth floor office at the beginning of Gay Pride Month in June of 2023 and 2024. But Kupper insisted that action had nothing at all to do with that – at least not specifically.

“My bill also bans the Confederate, Nazi and Soviet flags,” he argued in a social media post.

What his measure would have done, Kupper said, is permit only the display of flags and banners on public property that were not controversial, something he said would “lower the extreme temperatures on either side of our (political) aisle.”

What that includes is the current American flag and any historical version. Other permissible flags range from the Arizona state flag to those honoring first responders as well as flags of cities, counties and public universities and community colleges.

But the ban in his bill on everything else on “public property” drew questions.

One dealt with what happens when people drive their vehicles into government parking lots or garages and it turns out there’s a flag on the window that’s not on the approved list.

Kupper sought to resolve that issue by adding language saying that nothing in his measure would “deny the civil and political liberties of any person as guaranteed by the United States Constitution and the Constitution of Arizona.

Then there was the question of teachers who might display an unpermitted flag on classroom walls, perhaps as part of a lesson. Here, too, Kupper agreed to exempt flags used in “any approved educational curricula.”

Foes were unconvinced.

But that still left the ultimate hurdle: getting Hobbs’ signature. And gubernatorial press aide Christian Slater said his boss had higher priorities, like housing costs and funding for public education, rather than regulating what banners are and are not appropriate

“Legislative Republicans should join her in that work instead of focusing on ridiculous and superfluous flag bans,” he said, saying it would meet with her veto stamp.

Kupper said he remains convinced that there is a version that could pass gubernatorial muster – given enough time – time he doesn’t have between now and the end of this year’s session.

“I’ll hold it for now so we can have the time to make it the best version we can,” he said.

Meanwhile, Slater told Capitol Media Services he cannot definitely say whether his boss will once again hang out a banner come this June 1.

He did say that if there is a banner, it won’t be the same one as last year.

And, no, it’s not a question of its design.

“It takes quite a beating,” Slater said, hanging in the sun and wind. He said if Hobbs intends to act this year it will be a new banner, one that is donated and not purchased with public funds.

Arizona’s solar policy is rigged against homeowners — it’s time for the ACC to fix it

Arizona should be a national leader in solar energy. With more than 300 days of sunshine per year, our state is primed to benefit from clean, affordable and decentralized power. But instead of making it easier for homeowners to adopt solar, the Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC) is actively working against them.

For years, the ACC has been slashing solar export rates under the Resource Comparison Proxy (RCP), allowing monopoly utilities like Tucson Electric Power (TEP) and APS to buy homeowners’ excess energy at artificially low prices and resell it at full market value. This practice discourages solar adoption, limits energy independence and forces more Arizonans to remain reliant on high-priced utility power.

Regulators should protect consumers, not utilities.

The ACC’s constitutional mandate is to regulate utilities in the public interest, yet its recent policies benefit corporate profits over Arizona homeowners. Every year, the ACC lowers the amount utilities are required to pay for customer-generated solar power, effectively allowing utilities to pocket the difference.

This isn’t about consumer protection; it’s about corporate favoritism. Why should homeowners be paid pennies per kilowatt-hour for the same electricity that utilities turn around and sell for a premium? If utilities claim to support a free market, they should be required to pay fair market value for the energy they purchase, not exploit homeowners who invested in solar.

What needs to change?

Arizona residents deserve better! The ACC must:

Restore fair solar compensation

Revaluate the RCP ensuring homeowners receive a just market rate for the power they generate. Utilities should not be allowed to profit off private solar production while underpaying customers.

End unnecessary fees and penalties on solar customers

Fix rate structures designed to make solar financially unviable. Arizona should make it easier, not harder, for working people to save money by producing energy.

Increase transparency

Require utilities to disclose how much solar energy they buy from customers and resell at a markup. The public has a right to know how much utilities are profiting from solar customers’ contributions.

Arizona has the natural resources and demand to be a clean energy leader, but if the ACC continues its anti-solar policies, working people will continue to pay too much for energy. The Commission should be working for Arizona consumers and local independent energy producers, not the huge corporations lobbying against them.

It’s time for action

Arizona’s energy future shouldn’t be dictated by utilities whose primary concern is maximizing shareholder profits. It should be shaped by policies that encourage energy independence, sustainability and fair treatment of consumers.

The ACC has the power to correct course, restore fair compensation, and ensure that Arizona remains at the forefront of the clean energy movement. But if they continue to prioritize monopoly utilities over homeowners, lawmakers and voters must step in to demand real accountability.

The choice is clear: Stand with solar customers, or continue letting corporations rig the system against them.

Sylvia French is an entrepreneur, advocate for sustainable energy, and founder of Sollara Carbon, an Arizona-based company developing carbon nanosheets from biochar for clean energy applications.

David Duncan: Behind the red tape of state-sanctioned death

Before his report was cut short by Gov. Katie Hobbs, David Duncan, a retired federal magistrate judge, poured over banker boxes of records, interviewed dozens of people at the many nexuses of state executions, and returned a conclusion that execution by lethal injection was untenable. As the state executes another death row inmate, Duncan heeds the call to share his findings.

Why take on the study of the death penalty?

When this idea came up. I was torn. On the one hand, nobody wants to study capital punishment, but on the other hand, the good lawyer knows that the more noxious a subject is, the more important it is that you step up to do it.

At the start of it all, it seemed completely that everybody was on the same page, the governor, the attorney general and me. They asked me to look at three things, and I was comfortable with looking at those three things. They wanted me to figure out what went wrong with the previous executions that people viewed as being botched. And the second question was, can it be done safely? And what that means is, can it be done humanely and overall safely? And the third thing is increased transparency.

What was your process?

I set about interviewing everybody that I could think of who was involved in the process. And those were the prosecutors, the defense lawyers, the family members of victims, doctors, university professors who had studied this subject. I mean virtually everybody, probably a total of around 50 people, and I also read every piece of paper that had been filed in the court of Arizona in the modern era … I read every piece of paper filed in court, and I read every piece of paper that the state of Arizona had in its files, because the governor’s executive order empowered me to do that and empowered me to interview everybody who worked for the Department of Corrections.

What did you notice over the course of your review?

Every state that has capital punishment has built a silo around its execution process. Nothing permeates it. There is no sharing of information. They don’t talk to one another, except in the rarest of instances, and there is no idea of best practices. It’s all awkward, cumbersome and uninformed. And I just continue to look at this. I think this is not the way that you develop anything that’s going to work well.

That’s one of the triad of big issues that dog lethal injection. The first being that there’s unavailability of the key drug. The second is the unavailability of anybody who is best suited to do it and the third problem, I already mentioned, is that there’s just no information exchange.

What raised red flags for you in studying lethal injection protocol?

They paid a million and a half for eight jars of pentobarbital, which is the source salt for making pentobarbital … these eight jars for a million and a half dollars, which probably should cost, you know, $100. I mean, it just seems ridiculous. I went to see those jars. They are in a locked safe, in a locked room with an alarm at the Florence prison. But these eight jars are in the refrigerator with no label at all, nothing, no marking at all. I don’t know if you took chemistry, but I know that my chemistry teacher, if I ever had anything in the chem lab that wasn’t marked, I would never be invited back to the chem lab. You just don’t do that. There’s no way to guarantee the provenance of the drug without having some label on it. As I jokingly said … it could have been my mother’s minestrone soup.

What about options beyond lethal injection?

I looked at alternatives. What else is there out there? And it seemed to me that the firing squad was a viable alternative … They have plenty of bullets, and they have plenty of people among the employees there who are good marksmen and markswomen. And also you can practice. You can practice over and over again and get very good at hitting a target from 20 feet away, from 12 feet away.

That was another issue that bothered me (with lethal injection). I saw endless records of practicing everything except what mattered. They were practicing where they would park the cars, where people would sit, how the letters would go out, inviting people to come. They spent more time deciding who would be the invited to watch an execution than they did rehearsing it. It just was nuts.

When did things take a turn?

I wanted to interview the team that had been hired for the upcoming execution because I wanted to make sure that their qualifications met the task. I wanted to understand as much as I possibly could about their qualifications. They offered to have me draft interrogatory questions and submit those and review the answers. I said, ‘No, I need to sit across from them and look in their faces … Why don’t they want to be interviewed by the independent review commissioner?’ And they said, the reason that we don’t, that they don’t want to, and we don’t want you to, is … because they are concerned that you will reveal their identities. And I said, That’s preposterous. I’m a retired federal judge. There is a statute that says I cannot reveal their identities. I’m not given to breaking laws.

The idea of starting this process out, seeking to promote transparency, and then shutting it down within a couple of weeks of it being published. It just created, I think in large part, this firestorm … I was totally independent, and came to a conclusion that I think the governor didn’t want to hear.

What are your biggest fears as we go toward this next execution?

If we choose to have a death penalty, we absolutely have to do it in a humane way, and we can’t just wound people and hope they just trail off on us.

How do you move forward now?

I can cite what I saw with my own eyes, and so I freely talk about that. And I have everybody who has asked me to talk about it. I have talked about it. If somebody, somebody has asked me to testify to the Legislature next week. I will do that. Somebody has asked me to appear as an expert witness. I will do that. I’m not a partisan. I’m just an observer of facts. I’ve come to certain conclusions, and I’m not shy about sharing those now.

Gov. Hobbs issues delay in humane treatment of laying hens over egg prices

A plan by Gov. Katie Hobbs to use her powers to make eggs more affordable might not be all it’s cracked up to be.

On Friday, the governor ordered the state Department of Agriculture to delay its rules mandating cage-free eggs until 2034. Press aide Christian Slater said that delays any cost to producers and, by extension, what they have to charge grocers — and customers who pay the ultimate tab.

But consumers counting on a big break in their breakfast budgets may be in for a disappointment.

The agency’s own estimates, prepared when the rules were first proposed, pegged the cost of converting from the current 67-square-inch crates to letting hens roam in a barn at anywhere from a penny to 3.25 cents per egg. So that means a savings of anywhere from 12 to 39 cents a dozen on prices that are now running close to $6.

And using an estimate of annual per capita consumption of slightly more than 270 eggs a year, that pencils out to somewhere between $2.71 and $8.79 a person.

Slater acknowledged the limited fiscal relief his boss could provide, given that egg prices have been driven up by the bird flu and the subsequent destruction of potentially infected laying hens. But he bristled at a question of exactly how much relief the governor’s move will provide to shoppers, calling it “insulting” to ask whether the governor should not “save every single penny” for Arizonans.

“People want their elected officials to take action on the issues that are affecting them every single day in their lives,” Slater said. “That is what the governor is doing.”

Hobbs, in a prepared statement, cited data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture which concluded that the spike in egg prices isn’t over yet. That agency said costs could rise another 20% this year.

But the governor’s action isn’t occurring in a vacuum.

It comes just days before the House Committee on Land, Agriculture, and Rural Affairs is set to consider Sen. Shawnna Bolick’s proposal to totally strip the Department of Agriculture of any power to regulate cage sizes. The Phoenix Republican said in a prepared statement that while the state can’t do anything about the bird flu, “we can pass a law for Arizonans to see some relief on their grocery bills.”

Her SB1721 was already approved by the Senate last month through a party-line vote.

Slater said the timing of Hobbs’ announcement on Friday has nothing to do with the upcoming hearing. But the governor’s new directive to delay the rules until 2034 could give her political cover if she were to veto Bolick’s legislation

None of this, however, deals with the underlying issue that led to the rule in the first place: the threat by the Humane Society of the United States to ask voters to prohibit the sale of eggs from caged hens — and do it in a way that neither lawmakers nor the governor could override.

That led the industry, including Glenn Hickman, president of the company that bears his family name, to ask lawmakers in 2020 to step in. The idea was to come up with something more palatable to egg producers, including giving them more time to comply than the initiative would have allowed, and avoiding the criminal penalties that had been proposed.

When lawmakers balked, the Department of Agriculture picked up the cause and, with the support of the egg producers, came up with a plan to phase in a requirement for cage-free eggs.

Those rules were supposed to be in effect now. But the state agency, reacting to egg prices, agreed to delays, first until 2026 and, currently, until 2027.

Hobbs now wants to add another seven years to that in the name of savings.

What that also means, however, is that in the interim Arizona will continue to allow laying hens to be kept all their lives in those 67-square-inch pens.

All this, however, could end up being legally moot.

The Goldwater Institute filed suit two years ago on behalf of Tucson restaurant owner Grant Krueger. He contends that the Department of Agriculture never had the legal authority in the first place to enact a rule about how much room laying hens have to have.

Krueger acknowledged that the department acted at the time with the blessing of the egg producers.

But he said that’s irrelevant, arguing the power to adopt such rules lies only with the Legislature. And when lawmakers refused to act in 2020, Krueger said, that ended the matter.

His lawsuit survived its first legal challenge last year when Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Scott Blaney rejected a bid by attorneys for the state to toss out the case based on claims that he lacked legal standing to sue.

Key to that is Kruegel’s claim he’s more affected than the average consumer.

He argued that his three restaurants — Union Public House, Reforma Modern Mexican Mezcal + Tequila, and Proof Artisanal Pizza and Pasta — purchased 578 cases of eggs in a recent 12-month period, or 104,040 eggs. And using that 3.25 cents per egg estimate, that translates out to $3,380 a year.

Blaney said that means he would “suffer quantifiable economic harm as a direct result of the rule.”

But that’s not the end of the matter. The judge said Krueger now will have to present evidence to support his claim.

No date has been set for a trial.

Evidence shows that OPCs are a key tool to reduce overdose deaths. Arizona lawmakers shouldn’t ban them.

Last month, the Arizona legislature proposed HB 2798 to prohibit local governments from developing overdose prevention centers, or OPCs, an effective and mainstream strategy that reduces fatal overdoses, links people who use drugs to treatment, and saves taxpayer dollars.

Although their utilization has been constrained in the U.S. due to a federal law, they have existed around the world since the 1980s. Each OPC is a little different in terms of the services they provide versus those that they refer out, but most include some combination of the following: a safe space where people can use their own illicit drugs under the watchful eye of a healthcare provider trained to treat overdoses, sinks, showers, counselors, harm reduction training and supplies, primary care and substance use treatment. Some even offer a warm meal. Although critics worry that OPCs enable drug use, they actually reduce it. When people who use drugs can go somewhere that actually offers the support they want and need, it’s easier to start the journey towards healing.

Myself an addiction physician, I know what a difference simply being indoors could make for my patients, many of whom have lost their homes and are living on the streets. Similarly, as many of my patients don’t have regular access to a working phone, having a doctor available at the site would also increase their access to the treatment they desperately need. The therapeutic relationships between participants and staff may also contribute to OPCs’ positive outcomes, as loneliness and isolation have been shown to increase illicit drug use.

Data from countless studies have shown that OPCs reduce HIV and hepatitis infections, public drug use, discarded syringes and 911 utilization while also increasing rates of addiction treatment. In Vancouver, 42% of an OPC’s participants entered into addiction treatment. OPCs could also benefit Arizona’s healthcare system as a whole, as OPCs reduce the need for ambulance calls, emergency department visits and hospital beds — something critically important during the worsening ED boarding crisis where patients are forced to wait hours or even days for a hospital bed. Because of their public health impact, OPCs save money: it is estimated that every dollar spent on an OPC results in over twice as many savings.

In December 2021, New York City opened the nation’s first sanctioned OPCs in Harlem and Washington Heights. Within a month of opening, the amount of improperly discarded syringes in the park near one of the OPCs dropped from 13,000 to 1,000. During their first year of operation, 2,841 individuals visited the centers 48,533 times, and staff intervened during 636 visits (1.3%) to prevent overdose-related injury and death. Staff only called emergency medical services 23 times, and no fatal overdoses occurred on site. Researchers believe that these OPCs diverted up to 39,000 instances of public drug use. And because of their accessibility and non-judgemental approach to care, they provided a critical access point into the health care system for participants who otherwise might avoid it due to prior negative experiences or other social barriers such as homelessness — 75% of their participants accessed other harm-reduction, social and medical services through the OPC. New York City has demonstrated that the operation of overdose prevention programs is possible.

Because of these overwhelming benefits, the American Medical Association has called OPCs a “a critical component of a comprehensive solution to addressing the harms of drug use.” Similarly, the American Society of Addiction Medicine recommends the creation of pilot OPC programs and state support. Of course, OPCs are not meant to be a tool used in isolation, but as a complement to other preventative and treatment modalities.

Unfortunately, the Arizona house passed HB 2798 and now the Senate is expected to do the same, placing a preemptive ban on what might otherwise be a useful tool in our communities. This isn’t being tough on fentanyl, it’s just being tough-headed.

Dr. Melody Glenn is an addiction and emergency physician at The University of Arizona. Her first book, Mother of Methadone, is forthcoming from Beacon Press this July.

Tensions rise between Arizona Corporation Commission and Legislature

Key Points

The ACC oversees regulation of state utility companies.
There has been unusual friction this session between commissioners and lawmakers.
Legislation imposed on ACC causing tensions.

Tensions are high between the Legislature and the Arizona Corporation Commission this session as lawmakers attempt to address issues like residential utility costs, energy reliability and wildfire mitigation through legislation.

The ACC, which oversees the regulation of the state’s public utility companies, has been the subject of many bills aimed at providing solutions or guardrails to ensure utility ratepayers are protected from extreme weather events, rising utility costs and power outages. However, commissioners say they haven’t been included in the drafting of some bills, many of which place additional burdens on them and their staff.

Those familiar with the ACC say the back-and-forth between the two entities is unusual — especially given that both are currently controlled by Republicans — but not unheard of.

The friction between the two was on display during an open staff meeting of the ACC on March 12. Commissioners expressed frustration with several Republican lawmakers and Arizona Public Service for attempting to push through legislation without giving the ACC enough time to provide feedback.

“I can’t stress how frustrating it has been to have such an incredible, complex piece of legislation like this that got introduced to the Legislature and APS never even shared a copy of that bill or the language with the commission in advance,” ACC Chairman Kevin Thompson said of one bill at the March 12 meeting. “Especially when we’re being asked to carry such a heavy load and responsibility.”

Thompson was referring to legislation introduced by Rep. Gail Griffin, R-Hereford, that would require utility companies to develop wildfire mitigation plans and submit them to the ACC for approval. That bill, and another introduced by Griffin, were written by APS without commissioners participating in the drafting process — or even being shown the bills — until they were filed.

The ACC sent letters to lawmakers regarding the wildfire mitigation bill and another bill related to securitization of utility assets detailing their concerns and lack of involvement. Commissioners also voted to formally oppose several bills during their March 12 meeting.

Rep. Justin Olson, R-Mesa, received the harshest criticism from members of the ACC for bills he is running this session. Olson served on the ACC before being elected to the House in 2024 and has brought his experience with the ACC to his legislation.

Olson introduced a bill to close the “revolving door” between utility companies and the commission. In its original form, the bill would have required commissioners or employees of the ACC to wait four years before working for a utility company and employees of a utility company to wait two years before working for the ACC.

During the ACC meeting on March 12, Thompson said the bill “was so poorly written and so ill-conceived that I thought surely (it) would never even make it to a hearing.”

“A high schooler could have probably done a better job in actually writing this if they would have just used A.I. and a little bit of Googling,” Thompson continued.

He also personally attacked Olson, saying the lawmaker had done nothing to improve working conditions at the ACC and had learned nothing during his four-year tenure as a commissioner.

Thompson told the Arizona Capitol Times that he has a lot of respect for Olson, but he “expected more from him” as a former commissioner. He said he is particularly frustrated with Olson’s bill because it targets ACC staff.

“I spoke with Representative Olson, and talked to him about … the impact that (the bill) would have on the commission, and the impact that it would have on the employees,” Thompson said. “And his response was, ‘Well, that wasn’t my intent,’ but yet he didn’t do anything to amend his bill. And that was, for me, the frustrating part, because we offered to provide amendments to make his legislation better, but it fell on deaf ears.”

Olson’s bill ultimately failed in the House on March 13. After the vote, Olson said he did not agree with commissioners’ characterization of the bill as poorly written.

“The bill accomplished what it was designed to accomplish, and that is to prevent regulatory capture,” Olson said. “Now I can appreciate that the commission may be opposed to having these additional guardrails placed upon them. That doesn’t mean that it’s not the right policy.”

On a motion for reconsideration on March 19, Olson proposed an amendment to the bill on the House floor that significantly scaled back the policy. Now the bill only requires commissioners to wait two years before being hired at a utility company and any mention of staff has been removed.

Andy Kvesic served as the ACC’s chief counsel and legal division director from 2017 to 2019 and said commissioners and lawmakers had a “good working relationship” during his time at the commission.

“There’s a natural tendency of the Legislature to want to get involved and want to influence certain policy decisions,” Kvesic said. “But it never crossed the line in my time where we were locking horns with the Legislature.”

Kvesic attributed the working relationship between the two bodies to members of the commission having experience in the Legislature as former lawmakers, where they developed good relationships with members of leadership and the Governor’s Office.

Sandy Bahr, a longtime lobbyist with the Sierra Club, said the ACC has not been pushing back on the Legislature in recent years and she was surprised to see it happening during this session, given that both entities are controlled by Republicans.

“I am a little bit surprised by that, because it seemed like they should be pretty close to being on the same page,” Bahr said.

She said she was also surprised that the ACC waited so long to take a stance on bills moving through the Legislature. By the time commissioners voted on their position, many bills had already moved out of their chamber of origin.

“These bills have been around for a while, starting in January and they’re just getting around to opposing some of Olson’s bills,” Bahr said. “Why didn’t they speak up sooner?”

Thompson said the ACC has been largely uninvolved in legislation during the two years he has been at the commission. He attributed this year’s involvement to the number of bills introduced this session related to the commission and the sectors it regulates. Thompson said commissioners have been made aware of at least 25 bills that deal with public utility companies, securities, business registration or the ACC itself.

“I think because (of) the number of bills that were written that were impactful, not only to the organization, but to the ratepayers as well, I think there was a feeling from all of the commissioners that we needed to do a better job of communicating our concerns, our issues with some of this legislation,” Thompson said.

He noted that not all interactions with lawmakers have been bad. Thompson said Griffin has been very open to meeting with the ACC and said Rep. Jeff Weninger, R-Chandler, collaborated with commissioners and staff on a bill extending funding for the ACC’s online filing system for businesses.

“What I would love to see is better coordination and communication with our counterparts at the Legislature,” Thompson said. “Consider us your experts on securities and your experts on energy-related matters. Our doors are always open.”

Arizona teen fights to ban ultra-processed foods in schools after losing 160 pounds

For millions of kids across America, ultra-processed food is more than just a school lunch staple — it’s a slow-acting poison. Cheap, addictive and everywhere. And for some of us, it’s deadly.

I was one of those kids.

At six years old, I was already hooked. Chips, crackers, muffins — what my mom, Helene, calls “food-shaped objects.” She packed me real lunches every day. And every day, I threw them in the trash. The school didn’t stop me. They let me buy whatever I wanted. By eighth grade, I weighed 320 pounds.

Clinically depressed. Anxious. A shadow of the person my mother knew me to be.

Ultra-processed foods hijacked my brain and body, and I wasn’t alone. Childhood obesity is skyrocketing. ADHD, anxiety, diabetes, heart disease — it’s all linked to the frankenfoods pumped into school cafeterias.

And nobody was stopping it.

So, I decided to.

The fight to ban ultra-processed food

This year, I stood before Arizona lawmakers, backing HB2164, a bill to ban ultra-processed foods from school lunches. I wasn’t just speaking for myself. I was speaking for millions of kids who don’t even realize what’s happening to them.

Because here’s the truth: this is a crisis.

We don’t let kids smoke cigarettes. We don’t let them buy alcohol. But somehow, we let them eat ultra-processed food every single day?

“We have to call it what it is,” my mom says. “A public health disaster.”

And she’s right. The science is there — processed foods are linked to obesity, diabetes, depression, even cognitive decline. Yet, we feed them to children. In schools. Funded by taxpayer dollars.

A movement bigger than me

HB2164 is just the beginning. A similar bill has already passed in California. Parents are waking up. Schools can’t keep feeding kids toxic food while pretending it’s normal.

For my mom, this fight is personal.

“No child should have to go through what my daughter did,” she says. “This isn’t a diet issue. It’s a life or death issue.”

I lost 160 pounds when I cut ultra-processed food out of my diet. I got my life back. My health. My future. But no kid should have to suffer just to figure this out.

We need real food in schools. Period.

This fight isn’t over. Not even close. But with the swipe of a pen, policymakers can end this nightmare. The question is — will they?

And for the kids still trapped in it, I’ll say this: if I can do it, so can you.

It’s time to take our health back.

Are you with me?

Penelope Popken is an Arizona teen and student.

House passes ‘Valor Act’ unanimously, but Senate committee blocks it

Key Points

“Valor Act” would criminalize impersonating a veteran.
The bill passed out of the House unanimously but is held in the Senate Judiciary and Elections Committee.
Republicans and Democrats in the House called on Sen. Wendy Rogers to stop blocking the bill.

A bipartisan group of lawmakers are calling on Arizona’s Senate president to advance legislation that would establish criminal offenses for people who impersonate an armed forces veteran.

The House passed HB2030, titled the “Master Sergeant Orlando Dona Valor Act,” on Feb. 11, 58-0.

But nearly a month after the bill was assigned to the Senate Judiciary and Elections Committee on Feb. 27, the bill has yet to receive a hearing.

Now, House legislators are accusing Sen. Wendy Rogers, R-Flagstaff, of using her position as chair of the committee to block the bill that passed unanimously out of the House.

“Silence in this is compliance in this,” said the sponsor of the bill, Rep. Walt Blackman, R-Snowflake, during a March 19 press conference with veterans and other lawmakers. “Those members who have not spoken up and said that this is wrong, you have veterans in your communities; in every single district in this state.”

Blackman, a U.S. Army veteran, said he believes the reason for Rogers’ inaction is personal. In 2024, Rogers and Blackman both ran in Legislative District 7, but Rogers, a veteran of the U.S. Air Force, was a staunch supporter of Blackman’s primary opponent Steve Slaton.

On his website, Slaton claimed that he worked as a crew chief and co-pilot on a Cobra helicopter, serving in Vietnam and Korea. But the DD-214, the official military record, does not mention Vietnam, and only that he was listed as a helicopter repairman in Korea.

Blackman and the Navajo County Republican Committee accused Slaton of altering his military records on the campaign trail to falsely claim service and military commendations from Vietnam. And although Slaton has repeatedly denied the accusation, Rogers continued to support him after many Republicans called for him to drop out of the race.

Blackman said he believes Rogers and Sen. Mark Finchem, R-Prescott, are protecting Slaton by attempting to kill his bill.

“This is a no-brainer bill,” Blackman said. “I am asking Senator Rogers and I am asking Senator Finchem to either get on board or get out of the way.”

Neither Rogers nor Finchem responded to requests for comment sent from the Arizona Capitol Times.

On the morning of March 19, Blackman and the House Government Committee passed a striker amendment on SB1424 that carried the same language as Blackman’s House bill. If that Senate bill passes out of the House, it would only need to return to the Senate for a full vote, allowing Blackman to bypass Rogers’ committee.

SB1424 is sponsored by Sen. Shawnna Bolick, R-Phoenix, who said she agreed to run the striker to keep the bill moving forward. Both of Bolick’s grandfathers served in the U.S. armed forces.

“We should not be putting personalities over good policy,” Bolick said.

Because of the criminal penalties that are associated with the bill, it was assigned to Rogers’ committee. Blackman said he doesn’t blame Senate President Warren Petersen for assigning it to Rogers, but called on him to either assign his bill to a different committee or put Bolick’s bill up for a vote when it returns to the Senate.

Petersen said in a text to the Arizona Capitol Times that he’s unwilling to circumvent his committee chairmen.

“As President, I have empowered my chairmen. If they hold a bill, it is dead, even if I like the bill. I think it is good for the institution when leadership respects their chairmen and does not go around them,” Petersen said.

Lawmakers negotiate funding in face of looming DCS budget shortfall

Lawmakers on the Joint Legislative Budget Committee approved a $16 million funding transfer within the Department of Child Safety on Thursday after Republicans sounded the alarm that funding for foster group homes would run out on March 24.

The final approval came amidst growing partisan frustration with Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs over state spending.

That meant Republicans and Democrats on the committee spent most of the meeting arguing over who was responsible for DCS’s funding issue after feuding erupted earlier in the week prompting a press event and ad hoc committee by the GOP on March 17 to address Hobbs’ management of the executive budget.

House Appropriations Chairman David Livingston, R-Peoria, said he received a letter from DCS on March 11 informing him that the department needed a line item transfer by March 24. The letter, dated March 5, was delayed in getting to Livingston because it was sent to the nonpartisan Joint Legislative Budget Committee staff rather than Livingston’s House office.

“This financial mismanagement threatens the most vulnerable children in our state and House Republicans will not let this stand,” said Speaker Steve Montenegro, R-Goodyear. “Once again, we are being told that we have to clean up Governor Hobbs’ mess.”

DCS initially proposed pulling $6.5 million from kinship care services and foster home placements to cover the shortfall in its letter, but Livingston said he was concerned that wouldn’t be enough to cover the rest of the fiscal year.

“The agency has already spent its fourth quarter allotment even though we’re in the fourth quarter,” said House Majority Leader Michael Carbone, R-Buckeye. “They tell us that even if we move funds for DCS today, congregate care will still go broke in April. Perhaps one of these problems alone would be excusable, but we’re seeing a pattern of financial malfeasance.”

When Livingston said he asked DCS to re-examine funding sources the department could pull from and to make sure the supplemental request would cover the rest of the fiscal year, the department came back with a proposal of transferring another $10 million from adoption services, out-of-home support services and in-home mitigation to cover the shortfall through June 30.

The request also includes a $2.2 million transfer to extended foster care from adoption services. JLBC approved the total transfer of $16.5 million during its March 20 meeting.

Hobbs’ spokesman Christian Slater said in a written response March 17 that the DCS funding request is a standard budget procedure that Republicans have known about since department staff attended a Jan. 29 House Appropriations Committee to discuss the state of the agency.

“The majority should do their jobs and pay attention in committee hearings rather than weaponize routine budgeting processes to hold Arizonans hostage for their own political gain,” Slater said.

Richard Stavneak, the director of JLBC’s staff, said while JLBC knew about DCS’ funding issue, his staff could not have known when exactly the department would run out of money.

“There are any number of different funding sources that exist with any large department so I think my perspective is, yes, there was going to be a problem,” Stavneak said. “Would it occur on March 24? That is something that only the agency is sufficient to be able to make that call.”

Republicans say their frustration stems from the executive branch’s management of the budget as a whole and what they view as miscommunication from the governor’s office and DCS. Livingston said he felt that the letter that DCS sent on March 5 was “unprofessional” and “politicized” when it mentioned that children would be removed from group home placements and likely be forced to sleep in DCS offices or runaway as a result of inaction.

“It is normal when (JLBC) meets and we do line item transfers,” Livingston said. “If (DCS) would have asked for these monies to be transferred in our December meeting, that would have been a normal process.”

Alex Ong, the deputy director of administration for DCS, said during the JLBC’s meeting that DCS knew about the shortfall that congregate care services would face since the current year’s budget was signed last legislative session, but waited until March to ask for the appropriations transfer to see how the department’s expenditures were shaping.

Ong said while the department didn’t make the specific request for a line item transfer in January, he felt the department had made the legislature aware that it would need a supplemental well before the March 5 letter was sent.

Although the legislature has addressed DCS’s funding issues, the governor’s office has been critical of Republicans choosing not to vote on a $122 million supplemental funding bill that would provide emergency funding for Arizonans with developmental disabilities.

House Democrats on March 18 attempted to bypass procedural rules and bring forward the supplemental bill that would provide supplemental funding to keep these services running, but Republican lawmakers and the governor’s office came to a standstill over how to resolve a budget crisis rapidly becoming political.

“The governor has made promises to them that she can’t keep. She hasn’t appropriated the money to pay them what she says she will pay them and then we’re left cleaning it up and being the adults in the room,” Livingston said.

House Republicans rejected the offer from Democrats to vote on HB2816 — the supplemental funding bill. Livingston said after Tuesday’s floor session that Republicans were unwilling to pass a supplemental funding bill on its own without “substantial” adjustment on disability policies. He said the governor’s office hasn’t been willing to discuss those policy adjustment ideas.

“It makes it very difficult to pass a supplemental when they won’t meet with us to talk about what we need in that, besides the money,” Livingston said. “There’s no way in hell that we’re passing a supplemental with just the money and no reforms because the mismanagement caused it.”

Slater said that Republicans have proposed cutting 25% to 50% of the DDD’s budget.

He also accused Republicans of not being willing to negotiate and lying about the budget process.

Line item budget transfers have historically been a common occurrence from various state departments during JLBC meetings; DCS itself has approved over 20 since September 2016 when former Republican Gov. Doug Ducey was in office. That fact was not missed by House Minority Leader Oscar De Los Santos, D-Laveen, who said that Republicans are only now speaking about it because a Democrat occupies the Ninth Floor.

“Now, suddenly, when it’s not (Empowerment Scholarship Accounts) asking for a supplemental request, and its children with disabilities asking for a supplemental request, suddenly it’s a problem. Outrageous,” De Los Santos said. “Stop the games. Pass the supplemental.”

In a March 5 letter to Livingston and Sen. John Kavanagh, R-Fountain Hills, Hobbs’ office informed the appropriations chairmen that the ESA program would need a $44.8 million supplemental to cover increased costs in the 2025 budget.

Both Livingston and House Assistant Minority Leader Nancy Gutierrez, D-Tucson, told the Arizona Capitol Times they’re confident DDD’s funding issue can be resolved by the end of April, but Republicans and the governor’s office have called on one another to step up to the negotiating table.

Arizona Capitol Times – March 21, 2025

Bill proposing new groundwater regulations for rural communities advances

A Republican-sponsored bill that would repeal the Willcox Active Management Area and establish groundwater conservation requirements in other designated rural areas is advancing through the Legislature.

SB1520 would allow the creation of Basin Management Areas that would impose a series of restrictions intended to preserve groundwater in Gila Bend, Hualapai Valley and the Willcox Groundwater Basin, which would be converted to the Willcox Basin Management Area.

A Basin Management Area could be initiated in those three basins if at least 10% of registered voters petition the director of the Arizona Department of Water Resources. It could also be initiated if the director finds an accelerated decline of groundwater levels, land loss due to groundwater withdrawal that endangers property or potential storage capacity, or other conditions in those basins, according to the bill.

The legislation, sponsored by Sen. Tim Dunn, R-Yuma, would establish councils for each Basin Management Area that would include representatives from the industrial and agricultural sectors, municipal water companies and an at-large member who resides in each basin.

The bill passed the Senate on March 13 and is scheduled to be heard by the House Natural Resources, Energy & Water Committee on March 25.

The Basin Management Area proposal is the latest attempt to create a new regulatory framework to address groundwater declines in designated rural areas and serve as an alternative to Active Management Areas and Irrigation Non-Expansion Areas. Those designations and their regulations have been around since the Groundwater Management Act of 1980, but now farmers and rural residents believe that law is too rigid and doesn’t allow enough local control.

Dunn isn’t the only legislator concerned with Arizona’s decades old groundwater policies, and another set of twin bills introduced earlier this session by Sen. Priya Sundareshan, D-Tucson, and Rep. Chris Mathis, D-Tucson, would’ve also enacted groundwater preservation measures in certain rural areas.

But the legislation, dubbed the Rural Groundwater Management Act, never received a hearing despite being touted as a bipartisan measure by Gov. Katie Hobbs and a group of Republican rural lawmakers during a press conference on Jan. 30.

Dunn’s current bill is similar to legislation that was introduced last year by then-Sen. Sine Kerr. That bill stalled in the House.

Kerr said farmers and representatives of irrigation districts in those basins approached him and requested some new regulations — within reason.

“Each basin has a little bit of different needs or suggestions. So that’s where we … came up with this bill,” Dunn said.

SB1520 is currently undergoing a stakeholder and negotiation process and could face potential amendments as Dunn looks to work with a number of groups, as well as Democrats and the Governor’s Office, to refine the legislation.

Supporters say the bill strikes a middle ground between maintaining conservation efforts, addressing the needs of the farming, ranching, industrial and mining industries, and preserving local control.

“It gives certainty and specificity to water rights for agriculture and other water users,” said John Boelts, president of the Arizona Farm Bureau. “It sets up the opportunity for a basin, a specific geographic area that all uses the same groundwater source to work together, to live within their means and chart their own future, rather than being dictated to about groundwater use by somebody in a different part of the state.”

The bill would also preserve those water rights for a wide variety of groundwater users, Boelts said.

“It offers some protections to people who have been farming, ranching, mining, running a water company for municipality rights to water, so that, unlike an (Irrigation Non-Expansion Areas) that just kind of fixes everything in place, it establishes a water right,” he said.

There are still questions from environmental groups on whether the bill does enough to preserve groundwater and protect aquifers.

The legislation calls for a 10% reduction — 1% each year — in annual groundwater use within 10 years of the formation of a Basin Management Area, which is inadequate, said Sandy Bahr, director of the Sierra Club’s Grand Canyon chapter.

“In some ways, I think it makes things worse, because it gives the impression that it’s doing something when it isn’t,” Bahr said.

Bahr also criticized the bill for not including more basins. The Rural Groundwater Management Act proposed by Sundareshan and Mathis included five basins: Gila Bend Basin, Hualapai Valley Basin, Ranegras Plain Basin and the San Simon Sub-basin. It would’ve also converted the Willcox Active Management Area to Rural Groundwater Management Areas.

Dunn’s bill would leave most of the state with no groundwater pumping protections, she said.

There’s a possibility that more areas could be designated as Basin Management Areas, but only if data supports designating those areas, Dunn said.

“So I’m open for conversations, but we need the data from the department and that’s part of our ongoing discussions,” he said.

Was Aaron Gunches execution a state-assisted suicide?

In between the setting of IV lines and the reading of his death warrant, Aaron Gunches uttered his — albeit unofficial — last words.

“What’s the hold up?”

He said the same in a letter to the attorney general’s office years before, after he had waived all his appeals.

“As you know, I’ve done my part, so why isn’t the AG doing his?” Gunches wrote. “What’s the hold up?”

As he wrote letters, as he filed for his own execution, as he lay on the gurney in the execution chamber Wednesday, Gunches was waiting to die. The will for his own death has led to his characterization as a “volunteer.” But his ultimate demise could be put another way — “state-assisted suicide.”

While courts have found death row inmates to be “competent” to maintain the right to expedite their own execution, some argue the legal bar to do so sits too low, especially amid a lack of information from the inmate himself.

Aaron Brian Gunches (Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation and Reentry via AP, File)

Gunches is one of more than 165 death row inmates to vie for their own deaths since 1972. According to an October 2024 analysis by the Death Penalty Information Center, the rate of inmates who seek their own executions, 137 per 100,000. That rate is ten times higher than the suicide rate of the general public, 14.2 per 100,000, and slightly higher than the suicide rate among death row inmates, 129.7 per 100,000.

DPIC defines a “volunteer” as “a prisoner who takes affirmative steps to hasten their execution, including waiving appeals, asking for an execution date, or instructing their attorneys not to file end-stage litigation.”

Krisanne Vaillancourt Murphy, executive director of Catholic Mobilizing Network, a Catholic anti-death penalty group, said she thinks it better to say “state-assisted suicide.”

“It’s more plain spoken. I think it’s more honest about what it is. It’s to aid in dying,” Vaillancourt Murphy said.

“We’ve eliminated any option for hope by the very practice of capital punishment… When someone’s offering them lethal drugs, they’re in a position where they’ve lost all hope. They forfeited their appeals, and they have expedited their own death. ”

Gunches waived all representation in his initial trial and his appeals in the aftermath. The state and the Arizona Supreme Court found him competent to waive counsel.

In all of Gunches’ legal proceedings, he offered no mitigating evidence to the jury — no information on any mental illness, substance abuse, history of neglect, abuse or trauma. An Arizona Supreme Court opinion after his second death sentence noted there was a concern that he “was not attempting to avoid the death penalty.”

Jeffrey Kirchmeier, a criminal law professor at City University of New York School of Law, death penalty researcher and former staff attorney for the Arizona Capital Representation Project, noted the lack of information in Gunches’ case.

“There’s no assessment of his background that might help explain someone who hadn’t been violent, or who had no record of violence up to this point … what may have led to this,” Kirchmeier said. “Not excusing anything he did, but helping explain it.”

Gunches filed a motion for his execution in November 2022. Former Attorney General Mark Brnovich initially joined him, but over a changing of the guards, incoming Attorney General Kris Mayes, joined by Gov. Katie Hobbs, pushed pause on capital punishment.

There was legal strife over whether the court could compel an execution on a withdrawn warrant, and later fights over which elected official could file a motion for a death warrant, but there was never any question over whether Gunches could, in a roundabout way, kill himself.

Gunches’ case stands in contrast to that of Robert Comer. Comer, convicted of the first degree murder, kidnapping, assault and sexual assault, moved to waive his appeals in 1998 and engaged in a years-long legal battle to see his sentence carried out.

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals refused the request at first, finding “grave concern that a mentally disabled man may be seeking this court’s assistance in ending his life.” Comer was then assessed for competence at the district court, where experts weighed his mental state and conditions of confinement.

Judge Rosyln Silver finally found Comer’s decision to waive his appeals to be a “rational one.”

Silver wrote. “What is most important to Mr. Comer is that he has the opportunity to choose. He has made a competent and free choice, which is merely an example of doing what you want to do, embodied in the word liberty. He should be afforded that choice.”

Comer’s case, coupled with existing case law allowing inmates found to be “competent” to waive appeals and seek their own warrant, allowed for Gunches to ultimately seek his own death.

When Gunches waived his appeals, two court appointed experts found him to be competent, or to have made the decision “knowingly, intelligently, and voluntarily.”

But Kirchmeier claims there still hasn’t been a true comprehensive review to back that up.

“This is just the state helping someone commit suicide.”

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