The Daily Agenda: Our Don Bolles legislative agenda
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Gov. Katie Hobbs will lay out her legislative agenda in today’s big speech, so we’re laying out our 2023 legislative agenda today, too.
Journalists don’t usually advocate for legislation. But we’re not your average journalists. So, this year, we’re undertaking a project to bring a monument to the Arizona Capitol Mall to honor an Arizona journalist who deserves a spot in Capitol history.
Don Bolles, an investigative reporter at the Arizona Republic, left the Capitol to meet a source for an interview at the Clarendon Hotel on June 2, 19761. The meeting was a setup. Bolles’ car was rigged with a bomb, which detonated and left him severely wounded. He died days later, at age 47, from the injuries.
Bolles’ legacy lies in his work, which uncovered shady deals and exposed organized crime, often taking on the state’s big businessmen and political power players. His murder spurred investigative journalists to come to Phoenix to probe his killing, resulting in a series of stories dubbed the “Arizona Project.” But the case was never truly solved.
Though Bolles’ journalism spanned different beats, he had a desk at the Capitol as part of the political press corps. But the Capitol today bears no remembrance to the reporter who gave his life to investigating the intersection of organized crime and politics. The main remembrance of Bolles, a bust of his likeness, sits at the Clarendon. We want to change that.
Don Bolles deserves a monument at the Arizona Capitol. And to put up a monument at the Capitol, you need a bill.
The people who visit the statehouse should have an opportunity to learn about Bolles’ legacy. He lost his life to inform the public about government corruption, organized crime and influence peddling. A simple acknowledgement of that fact at the state Capitol is the least we can do.
In many ways, Bolles embodied the best of the news business. The monument would recognize his commitment to the fourth estate at a fraught time for the media. And we believe that honoring Bolles and the kind of investigative journalism he represents can be a small point of bipartisan agreement in this contentious political atmosphere.
For several months, Hank has been pitching the Bolles monument idea to anyone who will listen. So far, it has received a warm reception from both sides of the aisle. Through many meetings with newspaper groups, lawmakers, lobbyists and Bolles aficionados, we’ve built a little coalition of folks who are willing to do the hard work of making and honoring state history.2
There’s a journalistic angle to our quest as well: We’ll get an inside look at how lobbying works. Throughout the year, we’ll be following along in the backrooms where deals are cut and detailing what we learn about passing a bill.
Celebrating Bolles with a monument at the Capitol won’t be simple. With all the political animus toward journalists, we don’t expect that honoring a reporter, even a venerated member of the press corps like Bolles, will be an easy sell to all lawmakers.
But the monument took its first step to becoming reality when Republican Sen. T.J. Shope agreed to sponsor the bill. He has a draft bill ready to go and plans to formally introduce the legislation in the coming days.
If the bill passes and is signed into law, we’ll also have to raise private funds to pay for the cost of the monument and its installation.
We’ll also need the monument itself, of course. We aren’t artists, so we’ll have to find one who can come up with a suitable monument for Bolles and for the setting. Sculptor and former Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers expressed some interest in the idea when we asked him about it, which would be pretty cool.
Clearly, we have a lot to figure out and some hard work ahead of us. And we need all the help we can get. If you would like to assist with this project, send an email to info@arizonaagenda.com to get in touch. We’d love to put you to work.
All sworn in: At her inauguration ceremony Thursday, Gov. Katie Hobbs struck a conciliatory tone as she offered to work with Republicans, so long as they’re not “chasing conspiracy theories, pushing agendas for special interests (or) attacking the rights of your fellow Arizonans.”3 Secretary of State Adrian Fontes was less conciliatory as he denounced “domestic terrorism” and called for stamping out “conspiracy and fascism.” But his story about ranchers doing the right thing was cute. Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne, for his part, channeled his inner Dolores Umbridge by promising “a return to traditional discipline in our schools,” which prompted a round of questions about whether he wants to bring back spanking or use the Enchanted Quill.
Only 97 more to go: In her third executive order as governor, Hobbs announced the formation of an elections task force made up of a bunch of elections experts and political appointees to “study and make recommendations to strengthen election laws, policies, and procedures.” She also established a committee on homelessness and housing and tasked it with coming up with a plan to “prevent and end homelessness.”
The legislative alphabet: Capitol scribe Howard Fischer explains that this legislative session “is being brought to you by the letter E,” for education funding and election law, this session’s two big issues. But also watch for water policy and abortion fights to dominate this year. In another piece, he warns the session may actually be brought to you by the letter “V,” as in veto.
History is written by the victors: Hobbs beat Republican challenger Kari Lake because Lake “wasn’t making strategic decisions and spending money wisely,” according to Hobbs. In an interview with Rolling Stone, the new governor discussed the campaign, the “Twitter files” and her decision not to debate, which she “never” second-guessed, or at least, not “publicly,” she noted.
Getting to the bottom of it: The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors announced it hired former Arizona Supreme Court Chief Justice Ruth McGregor to investigate what went wrong with the county’s printers on Election Day. There’s no end date set for the investigation.
The long build-up: Democratic U.S. Rep. Ruben Gallego is once again puffing his chest in a show of force against U.S. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, hiring a finance director who worked for Mark Kelly and other coveted campaign strategists in anticipation of a possible challenge of his former party-mate and as a way to scare off potential Democratic challengers for the U.S. Senate, Politico reports. But his campaign coffers are still no match for Sinema’s.
Freshmen are so hot right now: Incoming Democratic state Rep. Lorena Austin, representing Legislative District 9, scored a slot on Politico’s list of state lawmakers to watch. The DC outlet noted she’s a “descendant of Mexican immigrants and identifies as LGBTQ.”
Rachel is so hot right now: Rachel joined PBS’ “Arizona Horizon” and 12News’ “Sunday Square Off” this weekend to discuss the news and make predictions about the upcoming legislative session.
Reporting isn’t a crime: After a Wall Street Journal reporter was cuffed and detained for reporting outside a bank in Phoenix, the Phoenix Police Department says it is now investigating the incident internally, ABC15’s Dave Biscobing reports. The woman who recorded video of the police harassing WSJ reporter Dion Rabouin also spoke to Biscobing.
Biggs got tired of winning: U.S. Rep. Kevin McCarthy is the U.S. House speaker after winning enough votes on the 15th round of voting. Brand-new U.S. Rep. Eli Crane and longshot speaker hopeful U.S. Rep. Andy Biggs both voted “present” in the end, giving McCarthy a way to get enough votes. U.S. Rep. Paul Gosar, once a holdout, eventually voted for McCarthy. The New York Times has a full accounting of each member’s votes on the speakership. All the chaos made for a strange first week for Republican U.S. Rep. Juan Ciscomani, he told the Green Valley News.
Get out: Jennifer Wright, the assistant AG under Mark Brnovich who stoked election conspiracies, was unsurprisingly told to resign or be fired under new AG Kris Mayes, the Republic’s Robert Anglen reports.
Rest in peace: Russell Pearce, the former Senate president who was recalled after sponsoring the state’s hardline immigration bill from 2010, SB1070, died last week, his family announced.
Correction: U.S. Rep. Greg Stanton called us late last week to say a line in our Wednesday edition was incorrect. We wrote that then-AG Terry Goddard declined to defend SB1070. In fact, after a lot of hand-wringing about whether it was constitutionally defensible, Goddard did agree to take on the job. But as Stanton, who was working in the AG’s Office at the time, explained, the Legislature wouldn’t let Goddard defend the law.
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