A House panel voted Monday to ask voters to bar cities from cutting funding for police and sheriffs or risk losing state aid.  Rep. Walt Blackman, R-Snowflake, said the move is designed to blunt – and outright prohibit – calls ...

We cannot afford to let the Biden Administration turn Phoenix, now the country’s fifth-largest city, into San Francisco, where defecating on the sidewalk is commonplace and where groups of criminals routinely rob retail stores in plain sight because the police are defunded, and prosecutors are too weak on crime to enforce the law.

I urge my Republican colleagues in the Legislature to stand with me in upholding the basic Republican principals of law, order, and public safety, and oppose this misguided attempt to defund local police and fire services.

This year affords us the opportunity to create a public safety system that meets the needs of our community and keeps our most vulnerable safe.