The silent and the supermajority

A 60% rule with a 0% fight … Money + politics + sports = home run! … And Signal us your war memes.

Republican lawmakers are attempting to decimate your right to approve changes at the ballot box.

That sentence is what we in the news business call an “evergreen lede” — we could write it basically any time the Legislature is in session and it would be accurate in some form or another.

But the attack on Arizonans’ rights to amend their state Constitution that we’re talking about today is also a not-so-subtle back-door attempt to undermine abortion rights.

Basically, Republicans want any change to the state Constitution to require support from 60% of voters, rather than a simple majority. It’s not a terribly novel idea — lawmakers have been bouncing it around for a decade or more, and Florida and Ohio already have that requirement.

But what makes Republican Rep. Alexander Kolodin’s HCR2025 uniquely brazen is that it would carve out one exception in the state Constitution that voters could repeal with a simple majority vote: Prop 139, the Arizona for Abortion Access Act that voters overwhelmingly approved just last year.

And if it pisses you off that Republicans are trying to undermine the voters, just wait until you hear what Democrats are doing about it.

It’s basically nothing!

The bill flew through the House Government Committee in just about two minutes at the tail end of a five-hour meeting. Not a single Democrat spoke up against it.

In the House Democratic Caucus meeting about the bill, Democrats didn’t discuss it at all, other than to say it should be pulled from the “consent calendar,” which makes a bill open to debate from the full House. But when it came up for debate, Democrats barely spoke up.

Two Democrats explained their votes as it passed the House on partisan lines. But neither of them mentioned the abortion provision.

And sure, all House Democrats voted against the measure when it came to the House floor last month. But you could train a sea lion to press a red button. If that’s all House Democrats are doing to fight policies they disagree with, they might as well stay home in their pajamas all day.

HCR2025 is up for a vote today in the Senate Judiciary and Elections Committee.

After that, it’ll head to the full Senate. If Senate Republicans approve it, the measure will go straight to voters on the 2026 ballot, bypassing the governor’s veto stamp. There’s not much Senate Democrats can do to stop the measure from heading to the ballot, but they could be louder than their House colleagues about it.

Planned Parenthood Advocates of Arizona organized a press call today to try to raise awareness about the bill, but hardly anyone showed up.

“This bill never should have gotten this far and has flown under voters’ radars for weeks now,” Erika Mach, chief external affairs officer of Planned Parenthood Advocates of Arizona, said.

Broadly, advocates are not terribly worried about voters stripping the Arizona for Abortion Access Act out of the state Constitution. Voters backing a repeal seems unlikely — they just approved it last year with nearly 62% of the vote.

That’s a high enough margin to change the state Constitution even under Kolodin’s legislation, a rare feat that shows it had broad bipartisan support.

More worrisome is that, if approved, it would prevent the next citizen-led constitutional amendment.

In Florida, where the supermajority rule is already in place, a majority of voters approved recreational marijuana and abortion protections last year. But 56% and 57% support, respectively, wasn’t enough to get those constitutional changes across the finish line.

If Arizona voters enact the same rule, it will “embolden an extremist, out-of-touch minority” to thwart the will of a majority of Arizonans, Mach said.

And it’s insulting to voters that the Arizona for Abortion Access Act was singled out as the lone provision of the Constitution that doesn’t require a supermajority to repeal, since lawmakers are implying that voters didn’t know what they were supporting with Prop 139, Mach said.

In 2022, voters approved Prop 132, which requires a 60% vote to approve any measure creating a new tax.

Prop 132 narrowly passed with just under 51% of the vote. Had Kolodin’s amendment been in place, the constitutional change would have failed.

And like Prop 132, Kolodin’s amendment to change the state Constitution to make it harder to change the state Constitution would only require a simple majority of voters to approve.

Throwing curveballs: A state Senate committee advanced a measure to bankroll renovations at Chase Field with taxpayer money while adding some guardrails like capping how much sales tax can go into the improvements and making Maricopa County pay as much as Phoenix, the Republic’s Stacey Barchenger reports. Maricopa County isn’t happy with the changes and Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego showed up to testify for the first time at the Legislature after previously warning Gov. Katie Hobbs the total cost to taxpayers would be much greater than initial estimates. Hobbs said she’ll only support a version of the bill “that is acceptable to all the parties.”

Legos are priceless: The State Board of Education delayed voting on changes to the ESA handbook on Monday but talked about capping personal computer expenses at $2,000 and musical instruments at $4,000, per 12News’ Joe Dana. Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne endorsed the proposed changes, which would also prevent using school vouchers to buy car seats, water slides and gift cards. There aren’t any plans to rein in Lego purchases, which ESA parents spent $1 million on in over nine months.

A monthly subscription to the Arizona Agenda costs a lot less than some of the ESA-funded Lego sets. Plus, you can help us keep building this newsletter instead of stepping on one of those pain-inducing blocks.

Flagged down: Twenty-two Native American tribe flags are on display at Hobbs’ office at the state Capitol after they were removed from the Department of Veterans Affairs facility in Phoenix, KJZZ’s Wayne Schutsky reports. The Trump administration’s new rules limiting what flags can go up on VA property forced the facility to remove the flags. It handed them over to the Salt River Pima Maricopa Indian Community, who then gave them to Hobbs.

Eh?: Canadians are boycotting U.S vacations after Trump threatened the country with tariffs and annexation, per the Wall Street Journal. Trips from Canada to the U.S. through air travel fell 13% from a year ago, while border crossings on return trips dropped 23%, and the U.S. could lose billions worth of tourism dollars. One couple planned to travel to Arizona in May and spend $3,500 on flights and lodging, but they canceled the two-week trip after then-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told business leaders that Trump is serious about plans to annex Canada.

“I don’t feel right spending my money there,” canceled Arizona vacationer Craig Treulieb said.

When life gives you Yemen: National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard and CIA Director John Ratcliffe deflected questions from Arizona U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly on their group chat with an Atlantic journalist that divulged a pending attack on Yemeni rebels, the Republic’s Ronald J. Hansen writes. Ratcliffe admitted “pre-decisional strike deliberations” should be classified when Kelly asked, while Gabbard sidestepped the question.

Chemtrail Kelli really stuck: State lawmakers are advancing a bill to prohibit releasing substances that block solar radiation, which stems from the “chemtrails” conspiracy that says the government is putting poisonous chemicals in the atmosphere, Capitol scribe Howie Fischer writes. There’s some evidence to suggest blocking sunlight could curb climate change, but a committee hearing on the bill was full of speakers and Republican lawmakers saying the chemtrails are already being deployed.

“I think that it’s very disappointing that people like to relate it to tin-foil-hat wearing and Chemtrail Kelli,” Republican Rep. Rachel Keshel said.

The internet is forever: LGBTQ+ advocates at Arizona State University are reuploading digital resources they say the university purged on gender-inclusive housing and guides for student spaces, per KJZZ’s Kirsten Dorman. ASU said those resources are still available, but student organizations keep finding broken links and archived web pages on the Wayback Machine. The Trump administration has told universities to get rid of what it perceives as “DEI” materials or risk federal funding.

Maybe he’s in the chicken suit?: About 200 people, including one person wearing a giant chicken suit, showed up to a town hall in Cottonwood to mock Republican U.S. Rep. Eli Crane, who understandably was not at the event (other than in the form of a cardboard cutout), which organizers titled the “Where’s Eli Town Hall,” per Verde Independent’s Vyto Starinskas.

The memes about the Atlantic editor getting included in a top-secret Signal group chat delivering real-time updates on the Trump administration’s bombing of Yemen are just fire.

If you haven’t read the story, do yourself a favor. It’s a doozy.

Now, on to a few of our favorite tweets and memes.