Key Points:

• Senator Janae Shamp’s bill would direct state health department to study the syndrome
• Shamp insists “Trump Derangement Syndrome” is a real mental health condition
• Critics argue the proposed study has no scientific merit or diagnostic code.

There is no actual psychological or medical diagnosis, but a Republican state lawmaker is insisting that “Trump Derangement Syndrome” is a real mental health condition. And, more to the point, she wants the Legislature to order the state health department to study it — with taxpayer dollars — and find a way to prevent it.

The far-reaching proposal by Sen. Janae Shamp, R-Surprise, directs the agency to study the “origins, manifestations and long-term effects on individuals, communities and the public discourse.” That specifically includes an analysis of “contributing factors,” including media exposure.

But that’s just part of what is in her Senate Bill 1070. Shamp also wants the report to explore “potential interventions or strategies to mitigate or prevent Trump Derangement Syndrome.”

The idea is not entirely new. In fact, some provisions of Shamp’s legislation appear to be lifted, word-for-word, from a proposal by Warren Davidson, a Republican congressman from Ohio. He wants a similar study conducted by the director of the National Institutes of Health on TDS, as defined in his House Resolution 3432 as “a behavioral or psychological phenomenon involving intense emotional or cognitive reactions to Donald J. Trump, his actions, or his public presence.” And Shamp, like Davidson, said the problem dates back to 2016 when Trump ran for president for the first time.

Shamp did not return repeated messages seeking comment about her measure.

Davidson, however, made his own intentions clear in a press release.

“TDS has divided families, the country, and led to nationwide violence,” the Ohio Republican said in his statement, including two assassination attempts against Trump. He said his measure would require the federal agency to “study this toxic state of mind, so we can understand the root causes and identify solutions.”

Anyway, Davidson said, it makes more sense than giving NIH federal dollars to spend on “ludicrous studies such as giving methamphetamine to cats or teaching monkeys to gamble for their drinking water.”

Shamp’s legislation, like its federal counterpart, also contains no new funding. Instead, it simply gives the health director a year after her measure becomes law — assuming that happens — to issue its report.

But her SB1070 is more than just a directive for a study. It also would put into law a laundry list of what she says are Trump’s accomplishments as president, ranging from lower corporate tax rates, negotiating peace treaties, enhanced border security, more jobs through tariffs, and “affirming biological truth in federal policy to protect family values.”

And the measure even includes a legislative finding — even before there’s actually any study — that selective media reporting and amplification of unverified claims about President Trump’s conduct have fueled TDS, intensifying polarized public reactions and deepening societal division.”

Trump himself used the phrase just recently after the slaying of actor and director Rob Reiner and his wife, Michele Singer Reiner, in their home.

Their son, Nick Reiner, has been arrested in the deaths. But the president, in a social media post, said the activist actor and critic of Trump died due to “the anger he caused others through … a mind crippling disease known as TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME.”

If the measure is approved, the obligation to study would fall on Debbie Johnston, who Gov. Katie Hobbs appointed to head the health department last month. An aide said that Johnston, who still has to be confirmed by the Republican-controlled Senate, would not comment on pending legislation.

And Christian Slater, press aide to the Democratic governor, also refused to weigh in.

But Will Humble, who served as health director under Republican Gov. Jan Brewer from 2009 until early 2015, said the idea has no scientific merit.

“There’s no diagnostic code,” he said, referring to the system to classify medical conditions, including mental health.

“This is a statement bill,” he said. “It’s a bureaucracy bill in the end to get the health department to create a worthless report.”

It remains to be seen whether Shamp will have any better luck than Davidson in advancing her measure.

His HR 3432 was assigned to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce the day it was introduced in May. And it hasn’t advanced at all from there.

Shamp’s bill has yet to be assigned to a committee.

But she also no longer has the political sway she once had to ensure that her proposals get a hearing.

At the beginning of the last session, she was the majority leader, a position she had been elected to by her Republican colleagues. But she was voted out by those same GOP lawmakers in June after she refused to go along with a bipartisan budget negotiated by Senate Republican leaders with Hobbs.