Arizona Capitol Times Your Inside Source for Arizona Government, Politics and Business

Arizona voters sent a clear message to our elected representatives when they overwhelmingly passed Proposition 126. The will of the voters should be respected.

We look forward to the Arizona Legislature continuing our state’s proud tradition of water stewardship. Arizona’s residents, our way of life and economy need the Legislature to approve DCP as soon as possible to protect our water future.

There is room for continuous improvement and a better criminal justice system. Prosecutors often lead the way. But let us take our cues from our own history, facts and experiences. And from the testimony of our own people. And from our own blessed landscapes. We have more than enough resources to get us where we need to go on the journey of innovation in criminal justice.

If Arizona is going to continue to allocate $1.5 billion per year to charter schools to educate 17 percent of the state’s public school students, then our Legislature should approve legislation and invest the resources to ensure they operate with sufficient financial oversight and transparency.

Nobody likes lawsuit abuse. But Arizonans benefit when vigilant taxpayers challenge potentially unlawful government actions in court. Our laws should ensure that frivolous cases are penalized, but conscientious taxpayers are not.

Marijuana is a dangerous, mind-altering drug. In today’s highly potent forms, it poses risks to adults and children, but the risks are far greater for teens. Let’s no longer let the pot profiteers fill our children’s brains with dangerous messages. It’s time to make sure the truth is told, so the next youth survey doesn’t give us even more to be alarmed about.

The handy defeat of Proposition 305 and the election of Kathy Hoffman as superintendent of public instruction should spell out the electorate’s support for teachers, students, and well-funded public education. It should make obvious that a wide consensus exists in Arizona for increasing revenues for public education — which our legislature funds at abysmal levels, putting us at 48th in the nation — and that realizing those increases ought to be high on the agenda for the new Legislature.

Today’s kids, educated in different kinds of schools — with or without uniforms, religion, second languages, music, or whatever else — will bring to tomorrow’s positions of leadership not monotony or sameness but a deeply diverse and crucially varied set of experiences. What better way to promote that diversity than to celebrate National School Choice Week — and the diversity of education it inspires?

We have a lot of work to do to prevent sexual abuse of our most vulnerable. Only with greater awareness and resources can these heartbreaking incidents be stopped. The time to act is now.

In a recent guest opinion, Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery peddles a grab bag of outdated and weak measures – some over 40 years old – to claim that Arizona leads in criminal justice reform. If only.