The Senate Democrats’ messenger

A Q&A with Calli Jones … One secret trick to lawmaking … And a lost Bible.

Some of Calli Jones’ daily tasks involve handling press inquiries, working on talking points for lawmakers and running social media for the 13 members of the Senate Democratic caucus.

She’s the director of communications for Arizona’s Senate Democrats, but she’s also mastered the art of left-wing messaging to her more than 14,000 TikTok followers.

You can check out our full conversation with Jones here, and go to the 10:50 mark to see Nicole’s cat interrupt the interview.

Jones posts on her TikTok account nearly every day. As bubbly pop music plays in the background, she sits in her car, makes a cup of coffee or enjoys a meal while telling people about the financial fallout of Trump’s tariffs and the privatization of public goods.

Jones said her most successful posts include political messaging set to 2000s R&B songs.

“(My niche) may just be putting Usher over a video of me typing, and then someone is learning about, like, the SAVE Act in Congress that's trying to take away the right to vote for married women,” she said. “To me, that's important, and that is what I can give in my personal capacity.”

Jones is well within her wheelhouse handling Senate communications while doing her own online messaging. She double majored in political science and criminology at Northern Arizona University, then became president of the Young Democrats of Arizona and a delegate for Bernie Sanders in 2020.

But after Democrats’ resounding loss in 2024, Jones thinks the party has a messaging issue: They need to communicate more.

More people will talk about Democratic issues if they have more access to those talking points on their daily social media scrolls. That’s partly why Jones posts so much.

As part of that messaging, she thinks Democrats need to dispel the idea that left-wing principles are “radical.”

“I don't think that it is a radical idea that kids who come from low-income backgrounds deserve to have school meals for free … I think it's radical that we accept that there are people that go without healthcare, go without food, go without housing,” she said.

Here’s what Jones had to say to our five rapid-fire questions:

Q: If you could get rid of one part of your job, what would it be?

A: The Outlook email system.

Q: What is your biggest pet peeve when it comes to press interactions?

A: Deadlines.

“They'll email me like, like, 12 minutes before (their deadline) and they're like, ‘Hey, can I get a statement?’ And I'm like, I'd love to help with that, but they're currently on the floor, in committee, or they left for the day,” Jones said.

Q: What’s the craziest thing you’ve seen happen in the Senate during your time in this position?

A: Jones has seen a guillotine on the Capitol lawn the day before the 2020 election, and police deployed tear gas at protestors near the Senate building after the fall of Roe v. Wade.

Her craziest day so far, however, was when Arizona’s Supreme Court upheld the 1864 abortion ban last year.

Q: Who in the Democratic caucus do you think would do really well on TikTok who is not posting right now?

A: The House and Senate’s Minority Leaders: Rep. Oscar De Los Santos and Sen. Priya Sundareshan.

Q: Is there a TikTok in your drafts that was too risky to post?

Jones said she recently ranted at her phone for three minutes in her kitchen about the Trump tariffs, but decided that was probably a bit too much.

“That really is what my drafts are, is just like me kind of losing it in my kitchen, just talking about politics … Part of my job is to make this place look polished, right? To make it look like government is happening in the most professional sense, and politics is just not professional,” she said. “Politics is a mess of personality and individual people all trying to come together, hopefully to make the best decision for the state, in our case. And sometimes you just have to let it out. And I am hopefully doing an okay job of deciding what I post and what I don't.”

Strike that: Lawmakers have proposed more than 300 “strike everything amendments” this year, which allow them to swap out the text of an existing bill for something totally unrelated and often circumvent legislative committees, the Capitol Times’ Jamar Younger reports. That’s a bit of an increase over last year, when they only proposed about 220. A little less than half of the strikers were actually adopted.

A scene from last week’s series of graphic illustrations of the legislative process.

Activist allegations: Republican Sen. Jake Hoffman’s Senate Committee on Director Nominations shut down Gov. Katie Hobbs’ pick to lead the Department of Insurance and Financial Institutions after public testifiers called her a “DEI activist,” the Capitol Times’ Reagan Priest reports. Barbara Richardson served on insurance industry committees focused on climate resiliency and race issues, but she told lawmakers she cut ties with the groups. Hobbs originally appointed Richardson in 2023 without going through the official nomination process, but a lawsuit has forced the governor to get Senate approval this year.

Party foul: Maricopa County Democratic Party Chairwoman Patti O'Neil launched a lawsuit against Maricopa County, claiming she was fired from the Public Health Department over her political advocacy, the Republic’s Sasha Hupka writes. O'Neil said the code of conduct changed from requiring workers to “behave in an unbiased manner” when she was first hired in 2022, to outright stating employees can’t be members of political party committees.

Will vote for crypto: After the crypto industry spent more than $10 million to help elect him, Democratic U.S. Sen. Ruben Gallego is repaying the favor by voting to support the crypto industry’s preferred regulatory framework, the Donald Trump-backed GENIUS Act, the New York Times reports.

If you got rich on crypto, please consider donating one Bitcoin to the Agenda. If not, please consider clicking this button to support local news.

“Golf bros and bachelorette parties”: Scottsdale cops are still dealing with rowdy short-term rentals, the Scottsdale Progress’ Tom Scanlon reports. Meanwhile, in Sedona, 25 people are responsible for a third of all complaints, and there are two frequent complainers who skew the data, per Red Rock News’ Tim Perry.

Reversing course: The Trump administration sent notices to asylum seekers in Arizona that “it is time for you to leave the United States,” the Republic’s Daniel Gonzalez reports. The notices came after federal officials canceled the legal status of hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers who used the CBP One app, a Biden administration program that allowed people to enter the country legally. Meanwhile, the Trump Department of Justice dropped a challenge to a 2022 law requiring proof of citizenship (rather than an attestation, which almost every other state accepts) to register to vote, Capitol scribe Howie Fischer reports.

She’s back: One-time vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin is getting a retrial in her defamation suit against the New York Times after it ran a 2017 editorial wrongly claiming Palin’s famous map of congressional districts with gun crosshairs on them inspired the shooting of former Democratic U.S. Rep. Gabby Giffords, the Times writes. The case is expected to rely on the same evidence, though the country “has changed” since the last trial, the Times notes.

Taboo writing: Navajo people aren’t supposed to visit the sacred sites at Canyon De Chelly, which they view as burial grounds — but Diné journalist Alastair Lee Bitsóí, went there for a piece in the Smithsonian Magazine. He spoke about his decision, his piece and his experience with KJZZ’s Lauren Gilger.

“I know that like, the potential exposure to such energies would impact my well-being, and it did. I mean, I also knew that going into the assignment, the editors were understanding. I was like, well, I’m feeling sick from this site,” he said.

Boom: The Glendale City Council is weighing a fireworks ban, supporting a study committee to see if it could be done via the city charter, the Glendale Star’s Alicia Venter writes.

Tucson has main character energy this summer — with more high-profile elections in the next few months than some cities see in a decade.

Today’s Tucson Agenda breaks down longtime Tucson City Councilmember Richard Fimbres’ surprise resignation and the six wildly different contenders for a vacant supervisor seat (thanks to that special congressional election).

There’s housing policy, political comeback arcs and at least one passionate pothole rant.

If you’re not reading Tucson Agenda, you’re missing the most dramatic local politics in Arizona.

After we repeatedly made fun of Republican Rep. Alexander Kolodin for repeatedly losing his keys at the Capitol, it’s only fair we also laugh at Republican Sen. David Farnsworth.

While we hope he finds his Bible, this has to be the weirdest “lost” flyer to ever get taped to the state Capitol windows.