The Legislature may start debating and voting on the FY22 budget as early as Tuesday after striking a deal with Republican holdouts that slows down the implementation of tax cuts and pays off more debt.
The deal, aimed at convincing GOP Sen. Paul Boyer and Rep. David Cook to support the spending plan, also increases funding for cities. House and Senate leaders were headed into additional meetings Monday afternoon to work out remaining details.
House Majority Leader Ben Toma, R-Peoria, said the chamber could start moving budget bills at least through the Committee of the Whole as soon as Tuesday if the votes are there.
One key change is upping state revenue shared with cities from 15% to 18%, a change demanded by the League of Arizona Cities and Towns. Twenty-one mayors signed a letter praising the updated budget plan on Monday, though the 13 mayors from Cook’s Legislative District 8 who have opposed the flat tax plan were not among them.
“We are pleased to see that the agreed upon budget reflects the priorities of cities and towns,” the mayors wrote. “Recent adjustments to the proposed budget will increase Urban Revenue Sharing to cities and towns to 18% beginning a year prior to cities feeling the effect of the income tax cut.”
Toma said he opposes this personally – he wants to set it at 17% — but is willing to compromise on it.
“I am willing to make that change because we still get where we need to get,” he said.
The mayors’ letter also refers to a revised income tax cut plan that will start at $1.3 billion and ramp up to $1.8 billion annually, slightly lower than the $1.9 billion in Gov. Doug Ducey’s original plan. GOP leaders were still finalizing details of how the tax cut will be phased in, but current plans would reach a single 2.5% tax rate (and a maximum of 4.5% for Arizonans making more than $250,000 who are subject to a 3.5% surcharge for education funding under last year’s Proposition 208) only if the state has the revenue in future years to handle the tax cut.
Boyer did not return a call or text today, but Cook said he had a handshake deal to support the new proposal while waiting to see details in ink.
A Senate Republican spokesman said Sen. Kelly Townsend, R-Mesa, the last remaining GOP holdout in the Senate, is on board, though Townsend did not return a call Monday afternoon.
Townsend’s opposition to the budget had less to do with the budget itself and more to do with keeping the Legislature from adjourning sine die before completing the Senate’s ongoing audit or ending the year-long state of emergency.
To court her, House Republicans scheduled a Tuesday hearing on a resolution calling for a convention of the states and on Monday afternoon passed her election policy omnibus bill along party lines.
Meanwhile, teachers stepped up their advocacy against the budget and tax plan, gathering in the Capitol Rose Garden Monday afternoon to protest the proposed tax cuts before setting up in the House gallery.
Kelley Fisher, a kindergarten teacher from the Deer Valley Unified School District, said a better use of the state’s surplus is more spending in education, including restoring funding for full-day kindergarten. Her district now offers full-day kindergarten, at a cost of about $4 million to the district that Fisher said could be spent on salaries, counselors and reducing class sizes, but many districts do not.
“Our state has a very real opportunity right now to give our kindergarten students everything they need to learn,” Fisher said. “Our governor and Republican legislators have chosen instead to give the wealthiest Arizona’s yet another tax cut.”
Arizona Education Association President Joe Thomas said there’s a “very strong chance” education groups seek to refer the tax cuts to the ballot if they end up passing. Doing so would require collecting more than 118,000 signatures from valid voters.
Shut down by appellate judges, Attorney General Mark Brnovich is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to let him defend a Trump-era rule designed to deny “green cards” to those at the bottom of the economic ladder.
In new filings, Brnovich accuses the Biden administration of colluding with others opposed to the Trump rule to deny the high court the chance to review its legality by simply rescinding it. That move effectively made it impossible for the justices to review the legality of what had been done under Trump’s leadership.
Brnovich does not dispute that Biden, as the incoming president, has the right to rescind policies enacted by Trump.
He said, though, that requires actually amending the rule, something that involves going through what can be a lengthy process under the federal Administrative Procedures Act. And that would have put the legal arguments about the validity of the Trump rule on hold but still kept the issue alive.
“Yet that is not what happened here,” Brnovich wrote.
“The United States did more than just cease to defend the rule,” he continued. Then, quoting a federal appellate judge who sided with him, Brnovich said, that the move “terminated the rules with extreme prejudice — ensuring not only that the rule was gone faster than toilet paper in a pandemic, but that it could effectively never, ever be resurrected, even by a future administration.”
So now he wants the U.S. Supreme Court to let him and other Republican attorneys general do what Biden will not — defend the rule.
The ability of immigrants to support themselves has always been a part of the consideration when determining if someone who enters this country legally should be granted permanent status. But the rules, going back to the Clinton administration, have been much more lax in determining whether someone can get what is formally known as a Permanent Resident Card.
In 2019, the Trump administration adopted a rule that allows the Department of Homeland Security to deny admission to anyone who is “likely to become a public charge.”
It said that would be based on the person’s age, health, family status, assets, resources, financial status, education and skills. And a separate section of the rule said that someone already in the country to be deported if, within five years, the person has become a public charge.
That led to a series of lawsuits across the nation, with several judges blocking the rule from taking effect. It was when appellate courts split on the issue — but before it went to the Supreme Court — that the Biden administration decided it no longer wanted the rule, effectively killing the litigation.
That led to Brnovich and other states moving to defend the rule in Biden’s absence. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals refused, leading to this new filing with the nation’s high court.
Brnovich said he and the other states have more than a passing interest in the issue.
He pointed out that the Trump-era rule estimated that it would save all the states more than $1 billion annually. Abolishing it, Brnovich said, means those costs remain with the states.
In an earlier interview with Capitol Media Services, the attorney general said this is not the right time to be putting money into more people getting things like Medicaid and public assistance benefits.
“I think that we need to take care of people that are here legally before we start giving benefits to people who just recently arrived here and don’t have legal status,” Brnovich said. “I’m trying to protect Arizona taxpayers.”
But the Trump-era rule would be based solely on the chances someone might need benefits at some point in the future, not whether anyone already here actually is receiving them.
One way of accomplishing that was to use income as a much stronger indicator of whether the applicant is likely to become a burden and, therefore, ineligible.
One section says that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services “will generally consider 250% of the federal poverty guidelines to be a heavily weighted positive factor in the totality of the circumstances.” In essence, that suggests anyone above that level — $66,250 for a family of four — would have little problem qualifying.
At the other end, it says the absolute minimum for even being considered will be in the neighborhood of half that much.
“More specifically, if the alien has an income below that level, it will generally be a heavily weighted negative factor in the totality of the circumstances,” the measure reads.
In refusing to allow the Trump rule to take effect, the 9th Circuit called it “inconsistent with any reasonable interpretation” of the law on immigration.
The judges said the law has always been interpreted to mean long-term dependence on government support and not to encompass the temporary need for non-cash benefits. They also said the change failed to consider the effect on public safety, health and nutrition as well as the burden placed on hospitals and the vaccination rates in the general public.
Then there’s the fact the Trump rule sought to introduce a lack of English proficiency into the decisions “despite the common American experience of children learning English in the public schools and teaching their elders in our urban immigrant communities.”
That would have sent the case to the U.S. Supreme Court, as other appellate courts have issued contrary rulings — but for the fact that the Biden administration decided not to defend the rule and effectively rescinded it. Brnovich wants to intervene “to offer a defense of the rule so that its validity can be resolved on the merits, rather than through strategic surrender.”
The move puts him at odds with Gov. Doug Ducey.
He criticized the Trump administration in 2019 when it proposed the rule, saying the federal government should focus more on criminal activity, drug cartels and human traffickers.
More to the point, in discussing the issue of who would be able to get permanent resident status under the new rules, the governor said this country needs more than those who already are financially sound.
“It’s not only people at the graduate level and the Ph.D level who we need,” Ducey said. “We also need entry-level workers and people who can work in the service economy.”
The governor said it’s about opportunity.
“I want to see people who will climb the economic ladder,” he said. “I think many of us have a family story similar to that.”
And that, said Ducey at the time, goes back to his preference for a more balanced approach to immigration than what Trump proposed.
“We have the ‘haves’ and the ‘soon-to-haves,’ ” he said. “And both of them a part of proper immigration reform.”
The court has not set a date to decide on whether to let Brnovich intercede.
He is not alone, with Republican attorneys general from Alabama, Arkansas, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, Oklahoma, Texas and West Virginia also signing on to his legal brief.
As budget negotiations remain stalled, House GOP leaders decided to grant one conservative holdout a late hearing on a bill to organize a national convention to combat federal policies perceived as threatening “constitutional and traditional rights.”
But Sen. Kelly Townsend, R-Mesa, said while she’s glad the House will take up her proposal for a new convention of the states in a special meeting on Tuesday, it doesn’t change her opposition to the budget deal. Townsend is adamant that the Legislature hold off on voting for a $1.9 billion tax cut package pushed by Gov. Doug Ducey until the Senate’s ongoing election audit is completed and she’s positive that a voter-approved tax hike on the wealthy – which Ducey’s plan aims to negate – really passed.
In the meantime, she supports passing a so-called “skinny budget,” with enough funding to keep the government running past the end of the fiscal year on June 30, and remaining in the legislative session long enough to complete the audit, end Ducey’s Covid state of emergency and pass any additional bills.
Townsend has not yet met with GOP leaders to discuss her concerns – they expect to sit down Monday – but in the meantime leaders are trying to appease her. Rep. John Kavanagh, the Fountain Hills Republican who chairs the House Government and Elections Committee, said House Speaker Rusty Bowers asked him to run the convention of the states bill through his committee for Townsend.
“We’re all team players, but she wanted this bill so we’re going to run it,” Kavanagh said.
The proposed amendment, in Kavanagh’s name, states that the federal government has recently endangered rights to religious freedom, ballot integrity, personal security and the rights to travel freely and be protected from “excessive and unconstitutional fiscal policies.”
While it does not name specific federal policies or actions, the language reflects conservative criticisms of various policies proposed by the Biden administration and Democrats in Congress, including HR 1, the sweeping voting rights law that progressives most want to pass. The right to travel freely appears to refer to talk of “vaccine passports” and the idea that people must provide proof of vaccination to travel or attend events in some states.
“We’ve had a big upheaval with elections and we had a big upheaval with people’s rights under the pandemic,” Townsend said.
She stressed that the proposed convention is not a constitutional convention, and no constitutional amendments will result from it. However, it’s something more than the annual gatherings of lawmakers at organizations like the nonpartisan National Conference of State Legislatures, the conservative American Legislative Exchange Council or the liberal State Innovation Exchange, as each state would have a delegation with legal authority to vote on behalf of the state.
In 2017, Townsend was one of the chief organizers of a similar convention in Phoenix, which brought together 19 states to recommend rules for a potential future constitutional convention. If at least 38 states agree to a convention, they can propose amendments to the constitution, though this has not happened in U.S. history.
Tempe Rep. Athena Salman, the ranking Democrat on the House government committee, said the decision to move this bill is completely reactionary – whether to Townsend’s budget threats or to the Arizonans who just left the state on a “Freedom Ride” to pressure Congress to pass federal voting rights laws.
With less than two weeks left to pass a budget, Republican leaders should be working with Democrats to pass a spending plan, not holding hearings on interstate conventions, she said.
“It’s not a good use of my time,” Salman said. “It’s not a good use of anyone’s time, but I think at this point Republicans are just so reactionary that they don’t know how to govern.”
Arizona Supreme Court Chief Justice Robert M. Brutinel, center, speaks during oral arguments, Tuesday, April 20, 2021, in Phoenix as Vice Chief Justice Ann A. Scott Timmer, left, and Justice Clint Bolick listen. Gov. Doug Ducey is considering seven applicants finalists to fill a seat vacated by former Justice Andrew Gould, who resigned to run for Attorney General. (AP Photo/Matt York)
A former Phoenix Suns ball boy, a musician, an immigrant from Canada and a mother of school-aged children all have one thing in common – they’re finalists to be on the Arizona Supreme Court.
Gov. Doug Ducey has until mid-July to choose his sixth Arizona Supreme Court justice from a list of seven submitted by the Commission on Appellate Court Appointments.
The new justice will fill the seat of previous Ducey appointee Andrew Gould, who retired from the bench earlier this year to run for attorney general.
Ducey’s shortlist has five women and two men on it – he has yet to appoint a woman to the state’s high court. No Democrats applied. The choices are:
Cynthia J. Bailey, a Republican Court of Appeals judge.
David J. Euchner, a Libertarian Pima County public defender.
Kathryn H. King, a Republican in private practice at BurnsBarton PLC.
Jennifer M. Perkins, a Republican Court of Appeals judge.
Adele G. Ponce, a Republican Maricopa County Superior Court judge.
Patricia A. Starr, an Independent Maricopa County Superior Court judge.
David D. Weinzweig, an Independent Court of Appeals judge.
Arizona Capitol Times took a closer look at three finalists last week– Bailey, Euchner and King –and now turns its attention to the other four.
Jennifer Perkins
Jennifer Perkins
Jennifer Perkins isn’t looking to check a box for her resume or put a cherry on top of her career on the way to retirement, she told the commission. She’s eager to sit on the high court, and she has time before mandatory age 70 retirement.
“I had a colleague say, ‘It’s like your fuse is lit,’” Perkins said. “My fuse is lit, I’m ready to serve, and I have a lot of years left to serve.”
While Perkins said she has enjoyed her time as a Court of Appeals judge – a position she has held since 2017 – she said the heavy docket can limit opportunity to dig as deeply as she would like into a particular issue. The state Supreme Court, she said, has more time to research a topic, craft opinions and give guidance that answers legal questions well.
“Those are all things that are a part of my job now but in such a smaller way just by virtue of the time that we are limited to, in terms of the significant number of cases that we have,” Perkins said.
Before sitting on the appellate court bench, Perkins was in the state Attorney General’s Office from 2015 to 2017 as assistant solicitor general, drafting, editing and managing attorney general opinions and serving as ethics counsel. There, she said she realized Arizona still has many legal questions that needed answering.
“We’re still a fairly young state in terms of the jurisprudence that’s out there,” Perkins said. “There are still holes in our law; there are still cases that come up with constitutional questions that we haven’t answered.”
If appointed, Perkins would be the second woman on the court. Vice Chief Justice Ann Scott Timmer, a Gov. Jan Brewer appointee, has been the lone woman on the bench since 2015. But Perkins said being a woman was a minor part of what she would bring to the state’s high court.
“I am a mother of school-aged children, and I think that’s an unusual perspective for a court of last resort,” Perkins said.
She added that she would bring a unique background in law – much of her career has focused on ethics work. She served as disciplinary counsel for the Arizona Commission on Judicial Conduct from 2009 to 2014.
“The Supreme Court of Arizona handles all professional responsibility cases at the end, all judicial ethics cases at the end of their life as a case,” she said. “That is a background that I think would really contribute a lot to the court.”
Adele Ponce
Adele Ponce
Managing a docket of more than 400 cases, Adele Ponce enjoys the fast-paced, boots-on-the-ground decision making of being a trial court judge. But her true passion, she said, is digging deeper.
“Something that I feel that I’ve been preparing for from the time that I was really young is to be in that, that higher level of court where you’re really looking at deciding those issues of statewide importance, really taking the time to look into an issue and analyze the law,” she told the commission during her interview.
Ponce has been a Maricopa County Superior Court judge since 2018. Before that, she was in the Attorney General’s Office as an assistant attorney general in the criminal appeals section from 2013 to 2018.
Her work in the Attorney General’s Office focused on reviewing the trial court record, researching and arguing why appellants’ convictions or sentences should be upheld. She also responded to petitions for the Writ of Habeas Corpus in the U.S. District Court for Arizona and helped other attorneys prepare for oral arguments in the state and federal appellate courts.
Ponce said that there are seven justices for a reason, and diversity, while not the qualifying factor, is important and that citizens want to see themselves reflected in the court.
She told the commission about when she was clerking for then-U.S. District Court Judge Mary Murguia in 2010. Ponce was pregnant with her third child. She said she remembered walking down the hall, looking at portraits of previous judges and not seeing even one mother.
“I remember being struck by that,” she said. “Of course, that was in the Sandra Day O’Connor Courthouse where we have a very nice statue of Sandra Day O’Connor that kind of contrasted the portraits.”
She also highlighted her experience as an immigrant – she came to the United States at 9 from Canada and spoke only French, picking up English at school while living in Des Moines, Iowa. She wrote in her application that she doesn’t take living in the United States for granted. She became a naturalized citizen in 1991.
“I felt, and still feel, profound gratitude for the opportunity America provides everyone fortunate enough to live here,” she wrote.
Patricia Starr
Patricia Starr
Patricia Starr said she believes she can make an immediate contribution to the state’s high court because of her background as both a trial and appellate attorney and judge.
“I have presided over trials, including medical malpractice, commercial, personal injury, and wrongful death matters, as well as all types of felony criminal matters,” she wrote in her application. “For three years, I handled lower court and administrative appeals, with issues as varied as a criminal defendant’s right to confrontation to the regulation of the insurance market in Arizona.”
Starr spent most of her career as a prosecutor in the Maricopa County Attorney’s and state Attorney General’s offices. She has been in the judiciary since 2011, when she became a commissioner in Maricopa County Superior Court. Gov. Jan Brewer appointed her to the bench in 2014, and she is now the presiding judge for the criminal department of Maricopa County Superior Court.
Starr said her administration experience as a presiding judge will come in handy, giving the example of the new obligations to determine whether an alternative business structure should be approved or whether a nonlawyer can be a partner in a law firm.
“I’ve had years of experience in administration in the middle of the pandemic that I feel really tested me and would make me a valuable addition to the court if I was lucky enough to be chosen,” she said.
For three years before she became a commissioner, she worked with the Arizona Death Penalty Judicial Assistance Project as a capital staff attorney. In that role, she helped trial judges across Arizona handle death penalty cases. She researched, drafted orders and jury instructions, sat in on hearings and trials, offered advice and doing trainings.
Starr said it was at that point she started considering a career in the judiciary.
“My career as a lawyer and judicial officer in Arizona has been rewarding and exciting, and allowed me to contribute to my community,” she wrote. “I am seeking this position to take on new challenges while continuing my career of public service.”
Outside of law, Starr studies piano, guitar, voice and music theory. She recently won first place in the adult contemporary and commercial music category at the auditions of the National Association of Teachers of Singing Valley of the Sun Chapter. She also enjoys martial arts.
David Weinzweig
David Weinzweig
Born and raised in Arizona, David Weinzweig called the state his lens, backdrop and narrative and wrote in his application that sitting on the state’s high court would be the pinnacle of his career.
“I love my current job and would be thrilled to remain and retire on the Arizona Court of Appeals, but, in many ways, the Arizona Supreme Court represents my finish line,” he wrote.
Weinzweig has been on the Court of Appeals bench since 2018.
From 2017 to 2018, Weinzweig represented clients in constitutional litigation and appeals in private practice. Before that, he was senior litigation counsel in the state Attorney General’s Office.
“Most frequently, I defend state statutes against constitutional challenges in state and federal court,” Weinzweig wrote. “I defended constitutional challenges against state criminal laws and capital punishment methods, election laws, education laws, free speech laws, tax laws, abortion laws, government spending laws, and more.”
Weinzweig told the commission he would be a good choice because of that experience and because of his decade of private practice work at Lewis and Roca LLC from 2002 to 2012. He referred to a quote: “Judgment is the product of experience.”
“You’re only able to assess the consequences of something under the law when you’ve seen that case before or you’ve done that before – It’s kind of like Michael Jordan, the more he played, he loved the game,” Weinzweig said. “I have experience.”
Weinzweig, whose mother survived the Holocaust, spoke about diversity in terms of life experiences. His father was murdered when he was 8, and his adoptive father died in a car accident when Weinzweig was in law school.
“I bring life experiences that are diverse, life’s challenges,” he said, adding that those experiences “engrained a sense of humility” in him.
Outside of law, Weinzweig said he’s passionate about his family, enjoys judicial biographies and plays tennis. He wrote in his application that the true pinnacle of his career came early when he was hired as an unpaid ball boy for the Phoenix Suns before he could even drive a car.
“While unpaid, that position still represents the pinnacle of my professional life and my all-time favorite job — meeting, watching, and retrieving errant basketballs for the likes of Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, Larry Nance, Walter Davis, Charles Barkley, Magic Johnson, and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar,” he wrote.
A bill moratorium and a budget stalemate meant the House and Senate weren’t conducting any real business before Gov. Doug Ducey called a special session – so why call one?
Ducey’s team insists that it’s simply to ensure everyone remains focused on the wildfires threatening the state. But as the governor spent the week feuding with universities over vaccination policies, cutting a ribbon in Nogales and soliciting praise for his stalled tax plan, some Capitol denizens questioned whether the special session was more about politics than policy.
Sen. Juan Mendez, a Tempe Democrat and the sole lawmaker to vote against a fire-funding bill in committee, said he believes the special session was called solely to make it look like the Legislature is working, and working in a bipartisan manner.
“I can’t see any other reason than political theater,” he said. “They’re embarrassed by the fact that they can’t get their caucus to agree on funding the government.”
Part of the issue, Mendez said, is that the special session wasn’t truly focused on fire. Lawmakers heard only a single bill appropriating $100 million, including spending for new positions that were already included in the budget proposal and money set aside to reimburse property owners who lost infrastructure to the fire – potentially including House Speaker Rusty Bowers, whose old family home burned down, and Rep. David Cook, R-Globe, who may have lost cattle.
Fellow Senate Democrat Sean Bowie of Phoenix said he saw parallels between the current fire special session and an opioid special session held during the second week of the 2018 legislative session. In both cases, the Legislature could have introduced bills, run them through committees and voted on them without needing to go through a daily ritual of gaveling in and out of regular and special sessions.
But running legislation through the regular process doesn’t entail as much attention as a special session, Bowie said in an email update for his constituents.
“Calling a special session is mostly about optics,” he wrote. “If we were to handle this with just a regular bill in a regular session, it wouldn’t receive as much press attention. But because it’s being introduced in a ‘special session,’ it gets more coverage.”
Ducey spokesman C.J. Karamargin dismissed Bowie’s theory that the fire special session is largely a matter of optics.
“The governor wants a laser-like focus on these fires. Period. End of story,” Karamargin said June 17.
Just hours before Karamargin spoke, Ducey issued an executive order aimed at stopping Arizona State University’s Covid vaccination policy. A short time later, the governor’s press team issued an alert that Ducey would spend the morning of June 18 in Nogales, cutting a ceremonial ribbon at a produce cooling facility and speaking about Arizona’s trade partnership with Mexico.
And after that ribbon-cutting, Ducey and his team went on the offensive for his tax plan, an ambitious proposal to cut roughly $1.9 billion in revenue annually by FY24 by shifting to a single tax rate. The plan still lacks the support to pass the House or Senate, with Democrats universally opposed to it as a massive cut for the wealthy and a small but powerful group of Republicans concerned about cuts to cities and towns and losing revenue that could have been used to pay down debt.
Longtime lobbyist Kevin DeMenna said the special session does create focus, but focus is synonymous with optics. One additional reason for choosing to go into a special session, especially this late in the year, is increasing per diem payments to lawmakers, he said.
After the 120th day of the Legislative session, daily subsistence payments drop from $60 for rural lawmakers and $35 for those who live in Maricopa County to $20 and $10, respectively. The 2021 session will reach the 160th day over the coming weekend.
It may have been a bigger deal when he worked on legislative staff before it was possible to vote remotely, DeMenna said, but the larger per diem payment helps to ensure distant lawmakers return to the capitol.
“I’ve been in meetings as a staff director where per diem was an extraordinary issue,” he said.
Gov. Doug Ducey greets Telegraph Fire evacuee Michael Davis at the Red Cross emergency shelter on June 10, 2021, at the High Desert Middle School in Globe. Ducey called a special session of the state Legislature, which passed a $100 million package to boost wildfire funding as two large wildfires continue to burn in south-central Arizona. (Mark Henle/The Arizona Republic via AP, Pool)
Arizona lawmakers ended a three-day special session by passing a $100 million bill on June 17 to help people affected by wildfires.
The bill – the House and Senate moved identical versions simultaneously — would put almost $17 million toward hiring inmate fire crew supervisors and filling some other positions and spending more on vehicle purchases, hazardous vegetation removal, fire suppression and mitigation costs and compensating the state and local governments and property owners for wildfire-related expenses.
Gov. Doug Ducey announced June 10 he was calling the special session in response to the Telegraph and Mescal fires, which burned 150,000 acres by June 16.
“We’re grateful to the governor for having responded so quickly,” said House Speaker Rusty Bowers, R-Mesa, who lost an old family cabin near Miami to the flames.
It passed with just two “no” votes in the House and two in the Senate, although many Democrats who voted for it expressed disappointment that the state isn’t doing more to address climate change, which they view as the root cause of the worsening wildfires devastating the Western United States.
“Fire is a natural process,” said Sen. Juan Mendez, D-Tempe, who cast the only “no” vote in committee and was one of two nays on the Senate floor. “What is unnatural is our irresponsible activities that only fuel fires to be worse than they would have been on their own.”
Rep. Aaron Lieberman, D-Phoenix, pointed to a comment by state Fire Management Officer John Truett, that firefighting helicopters that scoop up water can’t be sent into the state’s lakes and reservoirs because water levels are too low, as evidence of the seriousness of the problem.
“It was scary to hear there was a perception of a debate over whether climate change is real and whether it’s connected to causing fires,” Lieberman said. “There’s no debate among scientists. There might be a debate among maybe some politicians.”
Several Republicans rejected the climate change framing, saying that climates have changed historically and the Southwest has gone through cycles of drought before. Sen. T.J. Shope, R-Coolidge, asked why Democrats won’t discuss the role played by management on questions such as reduced grazing.
“Are those going to be acknowledged?” he asked. “My God, I would jump up and down if they were, but I rarely hear that acknowledged.”
Talk was swirling that Republicans were close to a deal on a budget that would include some changes to the GOP leadership’s tax cut proposal and more money to pay down the state’s debts, possibly resolving two key objections that Rep. David Cook, R-Globe, the lone House Republican holdout, had to the proposal. While there was initial speculation a vote could happen June 17, as of the Arizona Capitol Times deadline it didn’t seem likely there would be a budget vote that afternoon.
Bowers said lawmakers would keep talking. He also said the House wouldn’t be voting on a “skinny budget,” or the idea that was floated last week to keep spending at the same levels to avert a government shutdown if there isn’t a deal by July 1.
“We’re not thinking of that,” he said. “We’re (trying) to get something a little more robust.”
David Cook, R-Globe, chastises some of his House colleagues on June 17 for wasting time on proposals to amend a firefighting bill that don’t have the necessary votes. (Capitol Media Services photo from video)
In addition to Bowers, Cook has been affected personally by the fires – he owns a ranch in Globe that was close to the path of the fire and his neighbors were forced to evacuate.
The special session came at a time when lawmakers had been deadlocked on the budget for several weeks, with the Republican leadership pushing a $1.9 billion tax cut, including phasing in a flat income tax. The tax proposal is a non-starter for Democrats, and with a handful of Republican holdouts the budget couldn’t pass either chamber given the two-vote GOP majorities in each.
The wildfire bill, which Ducey is expected to sign, will put $75 million toward a mix of expenses, including fire suppression, up to $10 million for capital expenditures and equipment, mitigation projects, reimbursing state and local governments and up to $10 million to help landowners with emergency repairs and infrastructure damage. There is almost $17 million to hire 122 new employees, a mix of inmate fire crew supervisors, team leaders, foresters and forestry technicians. The House rejected on a party-line vote an amendment proposed by Rep. Andres Cano, D-Tucson, to set aside $5 million to help small businesses affected by wildfires.
“If we can’t step up and help small businesses through these times, with $5 million, who are we?” asked Rep. Charlene Fernandez, D-Yuma.
Cook said the proposed amendment was a waste of time and that lawmakers should focus on people like his neighbors who need help immediately.
“When the tax package hits the board that saves small businesses billions of dollars, I’m going to remember what I heard here,” Cook said, prompting a couple of his Republican colleagues to applaud what sounded like a supportive comment about their tax cut proposal.
People use a footbridge over University Avenue on the campus of Arizona State University on Tuesday, Sept. 1, 2020, in Tempe, Ariz. (AP Photo/Matt York)
Gov. Doug Ducey has forbade public universities and community colleges from requiring that students and staff wear masks and get tested regularly for Covid.
In an executive order Tuesday, the governor specifically lashed out at the policy announced by Arizona State University requiring that students be vaccinated before returning to class in the fall.
That policy is not absolute. But Ducey pointed out it says those who are not inoculated or choose not to share that information “will be subject to invasive restrictions such as daily health checks, twice weekly testing and mandated mask wearing.”
That, the governor said, is unacceptable.
“No person should be compelled to disclose to a governmental entity as a condition of attending classes, receiving services or participating in activities without a demonstrated compelling need,” he wrote in his executive order.
He acknowledged that Covid is “highly contagious.” But he said that it does not have the kind of transmission characteristics that would meet requirements for mandated vaccines.
And Ducey said while getting one of the vaccines that has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration under its Emergency Use Authorization is “strongly encouraged, it is not and will not be mandated by the state of Arizona.”
Ducey’s new order affects more than ASU.
The University of Arizona has had a virtually identical policy, allowing non-vaccinated students on campus but only if they wear masks and get tested once a week.
And Northern Arizona University has required that everyone on campus wear a mask and maintain at least six feet of physical distancing.
But none of the schools is planning to contest Ducey’s edict.
“We will comply with the governor’s executive order and continue to monitor our public health conditions to help ensure the health and well-being of our students, faculty and staff,” said Pam Scott, a UA vice president.
ASU also won’t fight the order despite comments earlier in the day by President Michael Crow defending the school’s policy as providing freedom of choice.
“So we expect vaccinations,” he said on KTAR radio before the governor’s edict. And for those who don’t, Crow said the school expects students to follow the guidelines laid out by the federal Centers for Disease Prevention and Control, “which are quite clear.”
The governor’s order also extends to all community colleges, overriding any mask mandates and testing requirements they have in place for non-vaccinated students. And he is working with Sen. T.J. Shope, R-Coolidge, who first raised alarm about the ASU policy, to codify the executive order into statute.
“The vaccine works, and we encourage Arizonans to take it,” Ducey said in prepared remarks. “But it is a choice and we need to keep it that way.”
In a separate Twitter post, the governor called the policies “social engineering at its worst.”
Health policy should be based on science, not virtue signaling,” the governor wrote, the practice of publicly expressing opinions to communicate the good character of the speaker.
That’s the same verbiage being used nationally by some elements of the Republican Party to eliminate any kinds of mask mandates. And it isn’t Ducey’s first foray into the battle.
In March, he barred local governments from imposing mask mandates except in public buildings and on mass transit.
In April, he lifted the mask mandate that had existed for public schools. But in that case, he left the decision to local school officials — something that his new executive order says s is not an option for colleges and universities.
“Public education is a public right, and taxpayers are paying for it,” the governor said in a prepared statement with his new order.
“We need to make our public universities available for students to return to learning,” he continued. “They have already missed out on too much learning.”
While none of the colleges actually mandates that students, staff or visitors be vaccinated, just the restrictions on those who are not inoculated was too much for not just the governor but for several legislators.
It was Shope, an ASU graduate himself, who first raised the issue on Monday.
He cited a note to new students for the fall semester from Joanne Vogel, vice president of student services. That laid out the requirement for unvaccinated students or those who don’t share inoculation information to get tested twice a week, submit a daily health check and wear face covers in all indoor and outdoor spaces on ASU campuses.
Shope told Capitol Media Services he realizes that nothing in this policy — or the ones at the other two universities — actually mandates that people get vaccinated. But he said the additional requirements imposed on those not vaccinated are improper.
“The twice-weekly testing, I feel that’s a bit onerous for folks that are going to school,” Shope said. “We need to get to a point here where we recognize, especially the student population that’s there, is probably the least susceptible to succumbing to this.”
Shope brushed aside questions of whether young people, even though they’re less likely to get seriously ill, can still be carriers who can spread the disease to those who are more vulnerable.
“I think the science is still out,” he said.
But ASU spokeswoman Katie Paquet said the idea of halting the spread — and not just among other students and staff — was precisely one of the reasons the university adopted the policy. She said there is a belief that the school needs to protect the community at large.
“We are living in a state where, what, about half the population is vaccinated, maybe not quite there yet?” Paquet said.
In fact, the most recent number is 48.1%. And in Maricopa County, where the campuses are located, it’s just 32.8%.
“We know that our students are not confined to the borders of ASU,” she continued. “They live and they go out into the broader community so we wanted to make sure that we’re taking steps to protect the unvaccinated.”
Holly Jensen defended the similar policy at the University of Arizona, saying it, too, closely tracks with the CDC recommendations.
It requires not just testing but also says that non-vaccinated individuals must wear face coverings in all classrooms and other group instructional settings. Masks also are requiring outdoor “where continuous physical distancing of at least six feet is difficult or impossible to maintain.”
Former state Health Director Will Humble said the governor should not have overridden policies at the universities.
“What it does is provide an incentive for those students that haven’t been vaccinated yet to do it,” said Humble, now executive director of the Arizona Public Health Association. “Because if they do get vaccinated, the fall semester will be less of a pain because they have certain things that they won’t have to comply with.”
And Humble said he does not view the policy as improper government coercion.
“Your stick is my carrot,” he responded. Humble said it also helps schools by having one set of rules to manage the risk among those who are vaccinated and separate rules for those who are not.
“It’s pure political posturing for a future Republican primary,” Humble said, referring to speculation that Ducey has his eye on national office after he is no longer governor.
Shope said he doesn’t see why there is a need for special treatment of students who won’t get vaccinated against Covid.
“We don’t test for many things that are contagious, especially in a dorm setting,” he said.
“I’m not sure where we draw the line at on this,” Shope continued. “And I think that’s what the concern is for me, especially on a twice-weekly (basis).”
There are exceptions in Ducey’s order.
Students who are participating in clinical studies at hospitals, nursing homes and similar facilities can be required to provide proof of vaccination and be subject to regular screening.
It also allows universities to require testing if there is a “significant” outbreak of the virus in student housing that poses a risk to students or staff. But even then, the school must first get approval from the Department of Health Services.
Other GOP legislators also have weighed in.
Sen. Warren Petersen, R-Gilbert, said that telling students to get vaccinated or wear a mask and get tested twice a week “is not really a choice.”
“Who would do that?” he told Capitol Media Services, calling it a “Hobson’s choice” between two unacceptable alternatives.
Rep. Travis Grantham, R-Gilbert, specifically called the ASU policy “blatantly discriminatory” and “troubling.”
“It’s important that this tyrannical policy must not prevent any Arizonan from accessing our state university system,” he said.
Wearing a face covering and sitting among socially-distanced plexiglass, Rep. Mark Finchem, R-Oro Valley, sits at his desk during the opening of the Arizona Legislature at...
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A trial judge has tossed out the remaining claims of foes seeking to void the voter-approved income tax surcharge to fund public education.
But that doesn’t mean the levy ultimately will be upheld, with the final word up to the Arizona Supreme Court.
In a ruling issued late Monday, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge John Hannah rejected claims that Arizona voters have no constitutional right to impose a tax on themselves. Challengers, including Republican legislative leaders, claimed only the legislature has that right.
Hannah brushed that aside, saying that is undermined by the plain language of the Arizona Constitution. He pointed out that the constitution specifically says any law that can be enacted by lawmakers “may be enacted by people under the initiative.”
“It could hardly be clearer that the people of Arizona reserved to themselves the authority to exercise all of the legislature’s powers including the power of taxation,” the judge wrote. “They have deployed that authority repeatedly through Arizona history.”
Hannah was no more sympathetic to the alternate claim that even if the people do have that power, taxes can be levied only by a two-thirds vote in the affirmative.
He acknowledged that voters did approve such a mandate in 1992 — for legislatively approved tax hikes. But Hannah was not buying the argument that, in enacting that measure, voters were trimming their own power to approve higher taxes.
In his ruling, Hannah also rejected claims that Proposition 208 was unconstitutional because it spelled out that the money raised must be used to supplement existing state funding. It barred lawmakers from using those dollars — an estimated $940 million a year — from replacing funds they already were sending to schools.
Hannah was unimpressed.
“The claim rests on the premise that the Arizona Constitution somehow places the legislature on a higher or more powerful plane than the people acting by initiative,” he wrote. “It doesn’t.”
Hanging in the balance is the future of the initiative which imposes a 3.5% surcharge on taxable incomes of individuals earning more than $250,000 a year, or $500,000 for married couples. It was approved by a margin of 51.7% despite objections from Republicans and business groups.
Half of the dollars raised are earmarked for grants to school districts and charter schools to hire teachers and classroom support personnel. Those dollars also can be used to raise teacher salaries.
Another 25% is for student support personnel, with 10% set aside to retain teachers in the classroom, 12% for career and technical education and the balance into a fund to help pay the college tuition of students who go into teaching.
Hannah had previously ruled that the initiative — and, specifically, the money it would raise — does not run afoul of a constitutional cap on how much can be spent each year on education.
That decision, however, is currently being reviewed by the Arizona Supreme Court. The justices have not said when they will rule on the existing challenge to the initiative. And tax opponents are likely to appeal Hannah’s latest ruling just in case the Supreme Court rejects the earlier challenge.
If the justices side with challengers, that could nullify Hannah’s latest rulings as moot.
The initiative has also become a flash point in the current efforts of state lawmakers to approve a new budget.
Plans by Gov. Doug Ducey and GOP legislative leaders seek to create a single 2.5% income tax rate for all wage earners. Current rates range from 2.59% to 4.5% for earnings over $318,000 a year for couples.
Lawmakers are constitutionally precluded from repealing the voter-approved 3.5% surcharge. So what Republicans are trying instead is an absolute 4.5% cap on all income taxes of any kind.
Under the plan, the state would still collect the 3.5% levy as mandated by voters. But the proposed cap means anyone in that category effectively would pay a tax rate of just 1% on all other earnings.
A cyclist crosses an intersection on the campus of Arizona State University on Tuesday, Sept. 1, 2020, in Tempe, Ariz. (AP Photo/Matt York)
Gov. Doug Ducey is moving to quash requirements by state universities that unvaccinated students must wear masks and get tested regularly for Covid.
In a series of Twitter posts, the governor specifically blasted the policy of Arizona State University which says that unvaccinated students must submit a daily health check, participate in weekly testing and wear face coverings indoor or outdoors unless otherwise directed.
“The vaccine works,” the governor said.
“But the vaccine is a choice,” calling the policy “social engineering at its worst,” he continued. “Health policy should be based on science, not virtue signaling.”
More to the point, Ducey said he will issue an executive order “that will ensure this excessive policy is never enforced.”
It isn’t just at ASU.
Holly Jensen at the University of Arizona said her school has a virtually identical policy, allowing non-vaccinated students on campus but only if they wear masks and get regularly tested.
And Northern Arizona University, while having no specific policy on vaccinations, requires that everyone on campus wear a mask and maintain at least six feet of physical distancing.
While none of the colleges actually mandates that students, staff or visitors be vaccinated, just the restrictions on those who are not was too much for not just the governor but for several legislators.
It was Sen. T.J. Shope, R-Coolidge, an ASU graduate himself, who first raised the issue on Monday, citing a note to new students for the fall semester from Joanne Vogel, vice president of student services. That laid out the requirement for unvaccinated students or those who don’t share inoculation information to get tested twice a week, submit a daily health check and wear face covers in all indoor and outdoor spaces on ASU campuses.
Shope told Capitol Media Services he realizes that nothing in this policy — or the ones at the other two universities — mandates that people get vaccinated. But he said the additional requirements imposed on those not vaccinated is improper.
“The twice-weekly testing, I feel that’s a bit onerous for folks that are going to school,” Shope said. “We need to get to a point here where we recognize, especially the student population that’s there, is probably the least susceptible to succumbing to this.”
Shope brushed aside questions of whether young people, even though they’re less likely to get seriously ill, can still be carriers who can spread the disease to those who are more vulnerable.
“I think the science is still out,” he said.
But ASU spokeswoman Katie Paquet said the idea of halting the spread — and not just among other students and staff — was precisely one of the reasons the university adopted the policy. She said there is a belief that the school needs to protect the community at large.
“We are living in a state where, what, about half the population is vaccinated, maybe not quite there yet?” Paquet said.
“We know that our students are not confined to the borders of ASU,” she continued. “They live and they go out into the broader community so we wanted to make sure that we’re taking steps to protect the unvaccinated.”
Jensen defended the similar policy at the University of Arizona, saying it closely tracks with the recommendations of the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control.
It requires not just testing but also says that non-vaccinated individuals must wear face coverings in all classrooms and other group instructional settings. Masks also are required outdoor “where continuous physical distancing of at least six feet is difficult or impossible to maintain.”
All this proved too much for Ducey.
“Public education is a public right, and taxpayers are paying for it,” he said in his series of Twitter posts.
“We need to make our public universities available for students to return to learning,” the governor continued. “In Arizona, we are going to have students in classrooms learning.”
The Telegraph Fire burns Thursday, June 10, 2021 in Globe, Ariz. Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey has called a special session of the Legislature to boost wildfire funding as two large wildfires burn in south-central Arizona. (AP Photo/Mark Henle, Pool)
Gov. Doug Ducey is making it official, calling lawmakers into special session to finance the costs of fighting the current crop of wildland fires and the flood mitigation that will have to follow.
And press aide C.J. Karamargin said his boss wants them to approve $100 million when the session formally convenes on Tuesday to accomplish those goals.
The call comes as the three major fires burning in Arizona — the Telegraph, Mescal and Slate blazes — have so far consumed more than 170,000 acres. And none are yet fully contained.
At the same time, a host of smaller blazes have erupted, including the Cornville Fire which had scorched 1,200 acres and the Pinnacle Fire which was approaching 10,000 acres.
“The goal is to treat these fires in an urgent, bipartisan manner,” said Karamargin.
Complicating matters is that all this is about more than tamping down the fires.
House Speaker Rusty Bowers, whose cabin was destroyed in the Telegraph Fire, said he was up on the property recently and was trying to water some of the trees that had survived.
“I let water under a tree and it just ran away,” the Mesa Republican told Capitol Media Services.
“There is a crust,” he explained. “It just runs off. It doesn’t even go in.”
That is a microcosm of what will occur when the summer rains finally come and the water and ash just runs off, potentially flooding homes and properties that are further down the mountain.
Karamargin acknowledged that coming up with an accurate cost of protecting against such flooding could prove a challenge.
“We’re going to rely on what experts say might be needed based on what has happened so far,” he said.
The call for the special session is occurring despite the fact that lawmakers already are at the Capitol, still struggling to reach a deal on a budget for the new fiscal year that begins in less than two weeks. But the governor and the leaders of both political parties say it makes sense to have some sort of separation between those controversial issues and what should be a fairly popular plan to finance fire and flood relief.
“It’s just focus,” said Bowers.
“Get it done,” he continued. “It should be quick and get out.”
House Minority Leader Reginald Bolding, D-Laveen, who has been involved in the bipartisan talks, said he believes the priority has to be the state budget.
“That will have profound impacts on our state agencies for the year,” he said. But Bolding said he concurs with creating a separate — and discrete — path for the issues of fire and flooding.
“During emergencies I think it’s important that we have one focus on how to provide support for those affected by the fire,” he said. “By having a concurrent session, what I think it allows us to do is have one singular focus.”
And everything else, Bolding said, can wait, including the debate over a Republican plan to create a single tax bracket and cut $1.9 billion in revenues.
“Flat tax and that conversation can get moved to the side while we focus on the statewide emergency,” he said.
But Bowers said there’s a more practical reason for separating out fire relief from everything else, including tax cuts and the $12.8 billion spending plan being advanced by Ducey and GOP leaders. He said it could limit the ability of lawmakers who want to hold the relief plan hostage.
“There will always be somebody saying, ‘I want this,’ ” Bowers said, complete with threats that if they don’t get what they want in the budget “I’m going to let the place burn down.”
The answer, he said, is to expose those who make such demands.
“We will illuminate those types of deals and, hopefully, people will come to repentance and change their ways,” he said.
There is another reason for a concurrent special session: It has a financial benefit for the lawmakers.
Under Arizona law, legislators collect full per diem allowance only for the first 120 days of the session. That came and went on May 10.
What happened after that is legislators who live in Maricopa County, who were getting $35 a day, saw their allowance cut to $10; out-county lawmakers get $20 a day, down from $60.
But a special session resets the calendar to Day 1, at least for the length of the session, restoring the full $35 and $60 allowances.
More than 166,000 Arizona motorists who are now renewing their vehicle registrations are being hit up for a $32 fee that the agency may not legally be entitled to collect.
Four years ago state lawmakers authorized the Department of Transportation to levy a “public safety fee” on every vehicle at the time of registration. The new fee — the size of which was left to ADOT officials for political reasons — was designed to have motorists pick up more of the cost of the state Highway Patrol.
Amid public outcry, the legislature voted in 2019 to scrap the fee. But with Gov. Doug Ducey having built his budget on it, they agreed to allow it to continue through the current fiscal year.
That’s June 30.
But here’s the thing.
ADOT is demanding that motorists whose registrations are good only through June 30 also pay that fee, even though the funds collected will be for renewed registrations that begin July 1. Spokesman Doug Pacey said his agency reads the statute as allowing for that.
That decision angered Michelle Ugenti-Rita, R-Scottsdale who led the fight to repeal the fee and came up with the language about exactly when it would finally expire. She told Capitol Media Services that assessing the fee on registrations that take effect in the new fiscal year was never her intent.
Michelle Ugenti-Rita
“I went through this thousands of times to make sure this was crystal clear,” she said. “I cannot even believe that’s their interpretation.”
More to the point, Ugenti-Rita said that, with the state now flush with cash, there’s no reason for ADOT to take another more than $5.3 million out of the pockets of the 166,793 vehicle owners who are now renewing their registrations that expire at the end of this month.
The fee was a method of raising more money, at least indirectly, for road construction and repair.
Those projects are supposed to be funded by gasoline taxes and vehicle registration fees. But lawmakers, in prior efforts to balance the budget, siphoned off some of what was raised to finance the Highway Patrol.
So Noel Campbell, then a Republican state representative, came up with a plan: finance the Highway Patrol with a separate “public safety fee” — with the amount determined by ADOT — added to other registration costs. That, in turn, freed up the existing revenues for roads.
But the $32 price tag ADOT put on it resulted in an outcry, not only from residents who saw it as a hidden tax hike but from lawmakers who were told it would not be anywhere near that much.
Ugenti-Rita pushed to rescind it immediately. But with Ducey’s budget dependent on the revenues, she had to settle for a delayed repeal.
The way she sees it, anyone with a renewal before June 30, the end of the fiscal year, would be obligated to pay the fee. But anyone whose registration is good through the end of the month was exempt.
“You’ve already paid through the 30th,” Ugenti-Rita said.
And she was not pleased when she learned that ADOT was collecting it for the registrations that were effective July 1.
“It’s like dealing with a snake-oil salesman,” she said of dealing with not just ADOT but other state agencies. “There’s no support for their very advantageous interpretation.”
Nor is Ugenti-Rita willing to simply let the issue slide.
“It’s a ton of money,” she said, both from the individual perspective of the Arizonans who she said were improperly charged the $32 as well as the cash that’s going into state coffers.
What’s next, Ugenti-Rita said, will be a call to ADOT to see if she can get the problem fixed.
If she does, that could put the agency in a difficult position as it already has started billing — and collecting — for the new registrations for the period that begins July 1.
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