The veto queen

No, not her … Cue the election watchers … And fish fry, anyone?

Lawmakers introduced 1,660 bills¹ during this year’s legislative session. Only about 15% of those became law.

But some lawmakers beat the odds. 

We spent yesterday geeking out on stats in Skywolf, our legislation tracking service, so we could tally legislative “batting averages” from this year. It’s one of the many stats we’re using Skywolf to track for you. If you’d like a demo of Skywolf, just fill out the form.

A legislative batting average is simply how many bills a lawmaker got signed into law, divided by the total number of bills that they sponsored. It’s one of many metrics to determine who had an effective year of lawmaking, and who didn’t. 

So who was the most effective lawmaker? 

Well, if we look at raw number of bills signed, it would be Republican Rep. David Livingston, who had a whopping 24 of his bills signed into law. But if you exclude the 15 budget bills that were in Livingston’s name, the most productive lawmaker was Republican Sen. TJ Shope, who shepherded 21 of his bills into law, despite running up against a Democratic governor.  

Nobody else even came close. The next most-prolific bill passer was Republican Sen. David Gowan, who got the governor’s signature on 13 of his bills. 

But in terms of home runs to at-bats, the most effective hitter was Democratic Rep. Nancy Gutierrez, who batted 100% this year — the one bill she sponsored earned a gubernatorial signature. 

Republican Reps. Travis Grantham and Neal Carter each had seven of their 11 bills signed into law, earning them a 64% batting average. Republican Rep. Michele Pena got exactly half of her bills signed this year — and two out of four aint bad. 

But most lawmakers barely even register. Only about half of the 90 state lawmakers got any of their bills signed into law. 

Out of the 48 lawmakers who got at least one bill signed into law this year, 41 of them were Republicans. (Shout-out to Democrats Catherine Miranda, who had three bills signed, Alma Hernandez, Consuelo Hernandez and Stacey Travers, who each got a pair of bills in their names signed, and Brian Fernandez, Stephanie Stahl-Hamilton and Gutierrez, who got one bill signed each.)

Hobbs only vetoed 73 bills this year, down from a record-breaking 143 last year. But she still axed about 20% of the bills that reached her desk. 

So who sent Hobbs the most bills that she hated? 

That would be Republican Rep. Gail Griffin, who saw a dozen of her bills make it all the way to the governor’s desk, only to get the life veto-stamped out of them. (Still, Griffin got 11 of her bills signed into law. She’s prolific.)

Batting average stats aren’t a perfect measure of a lawmaker’s performance. For one thing, the deck is stacked against Democrats, who often have to convince Republican colleagues to sponsor Democratic ideas so they actually stand a chance of making it into law. 

And they don’t account for those pesky strike-everything amendments, which essentially supplant an existing bill with new language — potentially even language the original sponsor doesn’t like.²

And it doesn’t take into account the difficulty of passing one bill versus another. A pro-puppy bill should be easier to pass than a pro-tax bill, for example. 

The key to keeping up a solid legislative batting average, according to Shope, who put 21 new laws on the books this year, is to “run bills that governors, even Hobbs, shouldn’t veto.”

Litigation and intimidation: A judge reaffirmed that the rules Secretary of State Adrian Fontes outlined in his Elections Procedures Manual — which are mainly intended to prevent voter intimidation — can’t go into effect for the November election, even after a letter from the Conservative Political Action Committee revealed a plan to recruit 100,000 people to monitor voting, capitol scribe Howie Fischer writes. A judge said the rules on what people can wear at polling places and do outside of them are too vague, and while Fontes can challenge the ruling in an official trial, that won’t happen before November. 

$45M to forget: Santa Cruz County plans to sue the Arizona Auditor General and Attorney General for failing to find their county treasurer’s alleged $39 million embezzlement of taxpayer funds by not conducting random reviews or on-site evaluations, per the Nogales International’s Daisy Zavala Magaña. The county is willing to settle for $45 million in damages, however. 

Real consequences: Older adults and people with physical disabilities are worried about continuing to receive care after the state’s Medicaid system, AHCCCS, issued improper contracts to health care providers that put the future of the long-term care programs AHCCCS manages in jeopardy, Kathy Ritchie reports for KJZZ. The Medicaid program plans to switch members to new healthcare plans that don’t cover some of the programs recipients are currently in. 

Liquid gold: The Phoenix City Council approved a cost-sharing plan with Mesa, Glendale, Scottsdale, Gilbert and private water company Epcor to pay for a $700,000 feasibility study of a water purification plant, per the Republic’s Taylor Seely. Buckeye and Queen Creek are noticeably absent from the agreement as the two cities desperately need water sources besides groundwater, but they have to pay to play. Meanwhile, the Scottsdale City Council approved a plan to bring recycled wastewater to homes in about two years, Scottsdale Progress’ Tom Scanlon reports. 

Your support is like journalistic gold to us. 

Speech isn’t free: The woman arrested at a Surprise City Council meeting last month for criticizing the city attorney filed a 42-page complaint with other residents and free speech groups to challenge Surprise’s policy of banning complaints about city employees during public comments, per the Republic’s Shawn Raymundo. It also accuses the city and officer who arrested Rebekah Massie of Fourth and 14th Amendment violations. 

“In the process of detaining, arresting and removing Massie, Shernicoff bruised and injured Massie’s wrists, arms, and legs, causing her severe physical and emotional pain and distress,” the lawsuit states.

No more shortcuts: Attorney General Kris Mayes joined two environmental groups to sue the Arizona Corporation Commission over its decision to exempt UniSource Energy from obtaining an environmental compatibility certificate to expand its generation station near Kingman, the Arizona Capitol Times’ Reagan Priest reports. State law requires utility companies to undergo the environmental review, but UniSource found a workaround the ACC accepted. 

Oh, Canada: Arizona is among the top ten places where foreign buyers purchase real estate, and 60% of those buyers are Canadian, the Phoenix Business Journal’s Angela Gonzales writes. From April 2023 to March 2024, 5% of all foreign buyers looked at Arizona to purchase homes, and Canadians are looking for second homes here to escape high tax rates.

Lost time: Arizonans’ life expectancy dropped from 76.3 to 75 years in a new analysis from the Centers for Disease Control, which is likely the result of COVID-19 and drug overdoses, Axios’ Jessica Boehm reports.

Arizona's official state fish, the Apache trout, is no longer endangered. 

What better place to announce that than the haven of creepy taxidermy, camouflage clothes and fishing gear — Bass Pro Shops? 

Gov. Katie Hobbs and Interior Secretary Deb Haaland held a press conference yesterday to announce the beloved state fish is off the endangered list, and in some parts of Arizona, you can start eating them. 

1. When we say bills, we’re excluding any memorials or resolutions that don’t need gubernatorial approval.

2. Our calculations assign the win for a signed striker to the sponsor of the underlying bill, since the name of the person who authored the amendment is rarely known publicly.