Petersen: GOP ran ‘most conservative Legislature in Arizona history’ as he prepares to leave the Senate presidency

Senate President Warren Petersen led Republicans through a long legislative session bookended by a bill-signing freeze from Gov. Katie Hobbs and a final-week showdown over Arizona’s ESA program and the state budget. 

Though he’s now running for Attorney General, Petersen says his focus this year stayed on the day-to-day work of the legislature – and he calls this budget process the smoothest he’s ever seen, even with weeks of stalled talks and a bill moratorium that left dozens of GOP priorities in limbo. 

In a conversation with the Cap Times, Petersen discussed how he thinks the session went, whether lawmakers moved the needle on affordability, what progress he believes the Legislature needs to make next year and who might take over as Senate president – or minority leader – depending on the midterm elections.

“You had your bill moratorium, you had that period where the governor walked away from signing bills. I think that was unprecedented. I don’t remember ever in Arizona history where the governor walks away from budget negotiations and vetoes bills,” he said. “She left you in between a rock and a hard place.”

Petersen said the budget still came together more smoothly than in past years and that the last-minute fight over ESA changes on the final days of session overshadowed much of the rest of the work lawmakers did.

Questions and answers have been lightly edited for style and clarity. 

How do you look back on your tenure as Senate president?

I don’t have any regrets. It is definitely a challenge to lead under divided government. When I was first elected Senate president, I thought that I’d have a Republican governor. A few days later, I found out I was working with Katie Hobbs. I wondered, “How are we going to make this work?” I’m just really proud that we’ve delivered such a conservative agenda for the four years that I’ve been here. 

I feel like we came in and delivered conservative agendas and conservative budgets while I’ve been the Senate president, and I don’t have complete control of the situation, but the control that I did have, I feel good about how I handled those situations, and I think we delivered a lot of wins, and I got to give it to my caucus. It matters that I have had, I think, the most conservative Legislature. The media said this was the most conservative Legislature in Arizona history. I’m working with great people. Had I had some really bad defectors or something, or if we don’t have the majority working on stuff these last four years could have looked very, very different.

What’s your biggest accomplishment for your final session?

I think obviously the biggest accomplishment was delivering the Trump tax cuts to the citizens. 

I do think we’ve met a lot with the Trump Administration to talk about water. There is no deal yet, but I do think we have engaged in a way the Legislature never has before. I think normally you count on the governor to make those negotiations, so I think that the Legislature has been very heavily involved in water negotiations. It looks like we’re going to be probably looking at a special session at some point if we can reach an agreement with the seven basin states here, even though it is highly contested. 

What was the biggest loss?

Personally, something I’ve been wanting to see is some headway on AI disclosure. I feel like people are getting deceived, the public is being deceived by AI. People don’t even know if what they’re seeing or hearing is real. 

I think people have a right to watch media or see something and know whether it’s real or whether it’s not real, because they may base important decisions off of what that tells them. So I’m disappointed that we didn’t make any kind of real progress on things that would require disclaimers or accountability for deception through AI, and then kind of tied with that, defamation used to be in the newspaper, now you got defamation on the internet. There was a defamation bill moving, and I think that would have modernized our defamation statutes, and it’s another thing where I think politics especially, is more toxic than ever. I think those are two areas where we could have made some progress. Missed opportunities on both of those. 

You’re running for AG. Who are the most likely options to take over as Senate president next year, if Republicans hold the Legislature?

Well, that’s an interesting question. We are going to hold the Legislature. I think if the election was today, I think really the only person that I know that’s really actively running for it, and has a lot of support, is the Pro Tem (Sen. T.J. Shope). Obviously, you’re going to have your elections in the fall, and that may change things, but I feel confident of whoever takes the reins that they’ll continue to deliver good results for Arizona.

Republicans relied on tax conformity as their affordability platform this year. Did we move the needle on affordability?

When it comes to government and affordability, the biggest tool that you have is tax relief. We just delivered the biggest tax cut in Arizona history. We definitely moved the needle on affordability. The one area where we could have done better is the red tape on home construction – speeding up the process, increasing the supply. That is the real solution to lowering the cost of homes. You have to have more supply of homes, and that is an area where we just couldn’t. Every year, we’ve done something, but we haven’t done major things, because we haven’t been able to land a consensus with the other side from this session.

What do you hope legislators will make serious progress on next year?

I think every elected official always has the same overwhelming responsibility that we all share, that is to defend the Constitution and protect individual rights of the citizens, so I hope that that’s everybody’s priority, no matter what they’re doing. 

I do think we need to deliver on housing affordability, housing supply. We need to deliver on our water solutions, we need to figure out how to get the augmentation, the 2.5 million acre feet that we need in the Colorado River. We need to work with the seven basin states and get a solution on that. And then I think just the innovation, the tech, AI. We need to be able to modernize our laws to protect people from scams that can come from AI.

Would you want to come back to the Legislature at some point? 

I don’t know. The reason I do this is because I feel like I’m really good at getting to the root of problems. I don’t like to mess with the outside, I like to go to the root, and policy is how you do that, and so it really boils down to me protecting individual rights, liberty, and freedom. I enjoy that. This is one way that I have been able to really do that. If I’m at a point later on where I feel like this is the best way to do that, maybe, I don’t have plans for that right now. I’m not termed out and I’m ready to hand it over. I’m ready to hand over the reins right now. I really don’t have any plans to return. 

As America turns 250, what is the one piece of unfinished work we must finish by its 300th — and what part of it is your state’s to take on, from where you sit?

Here’s how I look at it. I think our founding fathers were some of the most brilliant minds to ever walk this earth, and they put forward a blueprint that was designed to protect individual rights. Part of their goals early on was to eradicate slavery. They did that. They accomplished that. I think that our society, as we continue to become more technologically advanced, I think that we will find ways to help people become just more and more prosperous.

We live better than kings lived. The average person lives better than a king with electricity and water and access to food and just opportunity and all these things, so I think that’s just going to continue, but I think we can improve on crime. There should never be human trafficking. There should never be the rape of a child. There should never be these heinous crimes that we’re seeing, and as society becomes more and more sophisticated, and as we advance as a culture and society.