A legislative to-do list

Let’s get organized … Bring back the ninjas … And who’s the biggest baby.

As Arizona’s 90 new and returning legislators pour into the state Capitol on Monday, they’ll be staring down a long to-do list packed with problems that last year’s set of lawmakers left on the table for them.

Hundreds of millions of dollars worth of education funding is set to lapse this year unless lawmakers ask voters to extend a tax, while Gov. Katie Hobbs still has an entire set of state department heads to appoint and Arizona’s water wars are in full swing.

Arizonans want serious reforms on things like water, housing and immigration policy. But the House and Senate hoppers are largely brimming with pet projects and culture-war bills so far.

So before we get lost in the hundreds of bills that Arizona’s 57th Legislature will throw our way, we’ve made them a to-do list to remind them of some of the more pressing issues they should resolve this year.

Reauthorize Prop 123

The most pressing threat that education advocates are eyeing this year is whether public schools will continue receiving an annual distribution of about $300 million from Prop 123, which voters approved in 2016.

Prop 123 authorized an additional draw of money out of the state land trust to fund public education, and it was offered as a way to settle a longstanding lawsuit that schools brought against the state for cutting voter-approved funds during the recession.

But Prop 123 expires in June. And while lawmakers knew that last year, and made suggestions for keeping the funds flowing, they didn’t actually approve a plan to do so.

We don’t have a land trust to draw money from, but we trust our loyal subscribers to keep us afloat.

Last year, a group of Republican lawmakers proposed a continuation plan that would use all the money to increase teacher pay. About a month later, Hobbs proposed an extension to draw more dollars out of the state land trust and break it up into different funding buckets like general school funding and capital improvements. At one point, the state treasurer, Kimberly Yee, came up with her own third option about how to spend the money.

In lieu of a compromise, lawmakers kicked the can down the road. And now the deadline is approaching.

To keep Prop 123 from expiring, legislators would have to call a special election this spring. Or they can backfill the funds schools get until the next scheduled election. Or they can do nothing and have taxpayers shoulder the cost permanently.

Pass a (balanced) bipartisan budget

If lawmakers had an actual, legally binding to-do list, then passing the budget would be one of the only things on it.

Usually, those budget negotiations happen toward the end of the session behind closed doors. Even most legislators won’t have time to fully digest the budget before they vote on it.

So it’s no surprise that sometimes lawmakers overspend.

When the state had a surplus in 2023, lawmakers gave themselves slush funds of up to $30 million each to spend on things like new roads and local rodeos. But each year's budget is predicated on the last year, and in 2023, lawmakers blew a giant hole in their budget.

That overspending, and a bunch of other confounding factors, left the state with a $2 billion anticipated budget shortfall over two years. To fix it, lawmakers made cuts across the board last year — roads, infrastructure, universities and water programs all lost money.

Those whiplash-inducing budget cuts may have worked, as the most recent numbers suggest Arizona has a $660 million surplus. But forecasting revenues isn’t an exact science. Hobbs is set to release her budget proposal on Jan. 17, and if she follows the same path as last year, it will be full of nonstarters for the Republican legislative majority.

This year, legislators need to balance Arizona’s finances without putting future budgets in disarray. And Arizonans have a lot more priorities to fund than rodeos.

Hire some agency directors

Unlike last year, Hobbs can no longer skate by with unconfirmed “executive deputy directors” running government agencies. Republicans won a lawsuit over the summer forcing her to return to the formal nomination process, which was full of contentious hearings and invasive questions hurled at Hobbs’ nominees in 2023.

Republican Sen. Jake Hoffman led the Committee on Director Nominations at the time, and he’s been appointed to the same position this year.

Hoffman announced the news of his re-appointment on Twitter with the precursor: “Katie Hobbs worst nightmare is playing out in slow motion right in front of her…” He blamed the death of a child in the custody of the Department of Child Safety and fraud in the state Medicare system on Hobbs’ subversion of the Senate confirmation process.

Legally, Hobbs has to get her department heads confirmed this year. But if Hoffman’s statement is any indication, it won’t be an easy process.

Speed up our elections

As the state exits the mayhem of a November election season, election reform seems to be top of mind for Republicans.

Republican Sen. J.D. Mesnard made good on his promise to introduce legislation to speed up the time it takes Arizona to report its election results, which is currently a frustratingly slow process.

His SB1001 would cut off early voting at 7 p.m. on the Friday before the election. Voters could still drop off their ballots in person on Election Day, but they’d have to wait in line and show an ID instead of having the signature on their ballot verified days after.

Mesnard’s Republican counterparts, like Senate President Warren Petersen, have called for similar reforms to get night-of election results. But Hobbs has made it clear she prioritizes accuracy over speed. She vetoed a similar bill in 2023 and indicated she’d do it again if the bill makes it to her desk this year.

But as her bid for reelection heats up, the governor might be willing to make compromises she wasn’t willing to before.

Protect our water

How to manage Arizona’s dwindling groundwater supply is one big issue, among many, that legislators can’t seem to agree on.

Attorney General Kris Mayes has sued Saudi megafarm Fondomente, and says Minnesota megadairy Riverview is next, in an attempt to protect local aquifers while the Legislature remains gridlocked over regulatory reforms. Pro-corporate agriculture lawmakers tried to impeach her last year.

Longtime Republican Rep. Gail Griffin has been the gatekeeper on any meaningful groundwater reform legislation at the Legislature.

But Mayes and Hobbs have been flexing their legal and executive authority, including by having the Department of Water Resources designate the Willcox Basin as an “Active Management Area,” which limits groundwater pumping there.

Republican lawmakers have said they’ll attempt to reverse the designation, while Hobbs has reaffirmed her commitment to keeping it in place.

But the resulting tug-of-war may force Griffin and other anti-AMA lawmakers to put water reform on the governor’s desk that can actually pass, rather than succumb to Hobbs’ ability to designate water-pumping rules herself.

Speaking of to-do lists, we’ve been scrolling through the bills that have been filed for the upcoming legislative session as we build our legislation-tracking lists in Skywolf.

Here are three of the many … interesting … ideas we’ve seen filling up the hopper so far this year.

• SB1004: unlawful release of balloons

  Prime Sponsor: Sen. John Kavanagh

  Summary: Makes it unlawful for individuals over 18 years of age to intentionally release ten or more balloons inflated with lighter-than-air gas, with some exceptions. Violations are a petty offense.

• SCM1001: Donald J. Trump highway

  Prime Sponsor: Sen. Wendy Rogers

  Summary: Urges the Arizona Department of Transportation to designate State Route 260 as the “Donald J. Trump Highway” and to install appropriate signage reflecting this designation.

• SB1029: pedestrians; street median; prohibition

  Prime Sponsor: Sen. John Kavanagh

  Summary: Prohibits pedestrians from remaining on painted traffic medians or raised traffic islands that are less than ten feet wide, except while expeditiously crossing from one side of the street to the other. Exceptions are made for individuals dealing with exigent circumstances, and for medians or islands that contain constructed paths or structures designed to accommodate a person's presence.

No ninjas this time: The Maricopa County supervisors said they plan to audit their elections, but they swear it won’t be like the Cyber Ninjas debacle after the 2020 election, the Republic’s Sasha Hupka reports. Supervisor Tom Galvin said the “review” — he wanted to get away from the word “audit,” KJZZ’s Camryn Sanchez noted — would be done by “reputable companies” and focus on election processes, not the results of those elections. The move came after years of the Maricopa supervisors fighting misinformation about elections. But there are three new faces on the board, including Debbie Lesko, who voted to overturn the 2020 presidential election results.

When is a legislator not a legislator?: Newly sworn-in Maricopa County Recorder Justin Heap may not in fact be allowed to take office yet, Capitol scribe Howie Fisher writes. The Arizona Constitution says legislators can’t hold other offices during their term — and he’s technically still a lawmaker until his successor is sworn in on Monday. Outgoing Recorder Stephen Richer says he still holds the post until then. But he already moved his stuff out of the office, saying he was worried he’d get locked out.

On tap in the House: New House Speaker Steve Montenegro says voters should expect to see state representatives focused on the economy, public safety, and school choice as he laid out his vision for the upcoming legislative session on KTAR’s The Mike Broomhead Show. When it came to public safety, that vision focused heavily on the border. As for education, he wanted to make sure pay increases for teachers actually get to the teachers, while also pushing to “protect parental rights, medical freedom, school choice.”

“Rising, rising, rising”: Last year was a rough one for renters in Maricopa County. Officials reported more than 87,000 evictions in 2024, which broke the record set nearly two decades earlier, KJZZ’s Katherine Davis-Young reports. Evictions have been rising since the end of pandemic-era renter protections, along with high rent costs and an overall lack of affordable housing. But cities like Phoenix that employed a rental tax can no longer do that thanks to a bill Gov. Katie Hobbs signed last year that went into effect this month.

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Getting the runaround: Mexican immigration officials are picking up migrants headed to the U.S.-Mexico border and dropping them off throughout Mexico, as long as it’s far from the border, the Associated Press reports. That includes resorts in Acapulco, where migrants said they were told, incorrectly, that they’d get a permit to travel freely. It’s all part of the Mexican government’s “dispersion and exhaustion” policy, aimed at breaking up caravans and wearing out migrants before they can reach the border, with the goal of appeasing U.S. officials like incoming President Donald Trump.

“They left us dumped here without any way to get out. They won’t sell us (bus) tickets, they won’t sell us anything,” Ender Antonio Castañeda, a 28-year-old Venezuelan staying in Acapulco, told the AP.

Like Judge Judy: You don’t have to be a lawyer in Arizona anymore to provide legal services in civil matters, thanks to a change from the Arizona Supreme Court, which authorized new “community justice workers” that can prepare documents, negotiate and provide legal advice under the supervision of a real lawyer, the Tucson Sentinel’s Natalie Robbins reports. Last year, the Supreme Court created an apprentice program allowing would-be lawyers who narrowly failed the Bar to work under the supervision of a lawyer, all in an attempt to increase Arizona’s poor population-to-lawyer ratio.

We told you yesterday about a 12News story explaining the origins of the gigantic baby cutout advertising Duncan Farms along the I-10 in the West Valley.

It was a heartwarming piece about the baby girl in the photo who is all grown up and has her own kids now.

Alleged former baby model Jaymee Lawton has no recollection of doing the project. But she’s been introducing herself as “the Big Baby" for years, including to 12News.

However, longtime West Valley farmer and (now former) politician Clint Hickman cast some doubt on that story, saying he knew “the Big Baby.”

It was his nephew’s best friend, he says. And it was a boy!

Given all babies look alike, we may never know the truth.

But we suspect there are a lot of late 20-somethings in the West Valley all claiming they are the true Big Baby.