Key Points:

• The Arizona Civil Rights Advisory Board was dissolved on July 1

• A bipartisan extension bill died in the Senate despite clearing the House

• Attorney General Kris Mayes will continue the board’s work informally

On July 1, the Arizona Civil Rights Advisory Board was quietly shuttered, more than six decades after the Legislature established it to track civil rights in the Grand Canyon State. 

The Republican-controlled Legislature failed to send a bill to Gov. Katie Hobbs’ desk during the legislative session extending the board’s statutory life, effectively killing it. 

The abrupt end of a decades-old, oft-forgotten advisory board was largely overshadowed by the larger political battles of the 2026 session. But Attorney General Kris Mayes vowed on July 2 to continue the board as an informal council within her office.

“This work is too important to let it go unfinished,” Mayes said in a statement. “For nearly 60 years, Arizonans with different political beliefs and from different backgrounds have volunteered to work collaboratively with their government on civil rights — and my office is committed to making sure that legacy continues, regardless of the decision made by the Legislature this year.”

The board was created in 1965 as the Arizona Civil Rights Commission, before being renamed and restructured as an advisory board in 1972 when the Legislature turned the commission into a civil rights division in the Attorney General’s office. 

Its original purpose was to investigate civil rights complaints. But since the 1970s, the board has served as the public outreach and research arm of the civil rights division. 

Some question the Legislature’s decision. 

“The message it sends out is that the input from the community on civil rights is not important,” said Enrique Davis-Mazlum, a board member and state director for the Latino civil rights advocacy group Unidos US. 

According to a fiscal year 2027 budget request from Mayes’ office,  the number of civil rights cases assigned to investigators doubled between 2020 and 2025. 

The board, commonly referred to as ACRAB, does not investigate those complaints. Rather, it helps the civil rights division conduct outreach and research civil rights violations related to race, gender, sexuality, disability and related issues. 

When the board came to the Legislature for its regularly scheduled sunset review this session, Republican lawmakers pushed behind the scenes to repeal it, according to Rep. Stacey Travers, D-Phoenix, and the governor’s office. 

But doing so would have jeopardized the civil rights division, which enforces civil rights laws and arbitrates disputes, as the two were inextricably linked in state statute. 

“It was one of the few statutes that had a division actually contingent on the board, and there were some concerns that we would lose some federal funding if the division no longer continued to exist,” said Rep. Stacey Travers, D-Phoenix, who sponsored a bill to extend the board’s statutory life. 

Travers worked with Republican colleagues in the House to craft an amendment to her bill that bifurcated ACRAB and the civil rights division, ensuring the division would continue to exist even if the board did not. 

Her bill would have allowed ACRAB to continue its work for four more years. But it was never granted a hearing in the Senate, despite clearing the House with bipartisan support. 

Travers said she heard Senate leadership had asked House leadership not to send the bill over, but never got an explanation as to why the bill was never heard. 

“I don’t know why the Arizona State Senate and the President of the Senate would want to slow-walk it in the House and why he wouldn’t hear it in the Senate,” Travers said. 

Senate President Warren Petersen, who is currently seeking the Republican nomination for attorney general, did not respond to a request for comment on the bill. Two spokespeople for Senate Republicans and House Republicans did not respond to a request for comment.

The budget package passed by the Legislature and signed by Gov. Katie Hobbs, who appoints ACRAB members, ultimately preserved the civil rights division. Eliminating the board did not save the state any money, as its eight members are unpaid and its executive director also serves as the division’s chief counsel. 

Hobbs did not have many answers as to why the board no longer formally exists, blaming it on Republican lawmakers’ dissatisfaction with Mayes. 

“We’ve seen a lot of attacks on civil rights and political attacks on the attorney general’s office, given people in the Legislature’s political ambitions, and that is just very unfortunate because Arizonans are who get caught up in the aftermath,” Hobbs said at a press conference on July 10.

The Legislature has set its sights on Mayes’ office this year, pushing three bills aimed at undermining her use of public nuisance litigation and consumer fraud actions. Lawmakers also attempted to attach a provision to a Department of Public Safety appropriations bill that would have allowed the department to retain outside counsel rather than rely on Mayes’ office for legal matters.

Republicans in the Legislature have also attempted to indiscriminately eliminate state boards and commissions in the wake of President Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency initiatives. Davis-Mazlum said lawmakers did not reach out to ACRAB members to better understand their work before shutting it down.

“When you feel that something is not working, the best thing to do is invite those that are working directly on it to try to identify what work is being done and what things could be changed to make things better,” Davis-Mazlum said. “It’s more work, and you have to actually think of how to do things better. … The easy way out is to say ‘let’s get rid of it.’”

Before ACRAB ceased to exist on July 1, Davis-Mazlum said the board and other community members were organizing a town hall on housing discrimination in Arizona, with the hope of presenting any findings to the Legislature to help guide policymaking decisions.

“The work will continue,” Davis-Mazlum said. “Those of us that were part of the board, we all work in different fields and are very passionate about civil rights, so our input is still going to be there.”

Mayes’ office has not informed current board members whether they will be kept on as part of her new Community Civil Rights Advisory Council. Davis-Mazlum said she has an opportunity to use the council more effectively as a sounding board for the civil rights division because it will not be subject to open-meeting laws as ACRAB was. 

“It’s an opportunity for the AG to actually build a council that could be meeting with her team like once a month to discuss the different issues that affect civil rights,” Davis-Mazlum said. “Without having also the rules of open meeting laws, it’s going to give [them] an opportunity to talk more freely and not wait for a formal meeting to discuss it.” 

Eventually, though, he hopes the board will regain its statutory authority and that lawmakers will come to the table to discuss how it can effectively serve Arizonans.

“Hopefully they revisit this in the next session and work bipartisanly to have something better that works for everyone,” Davis-Mazlum said.