We're Listening

We're talking about you, talking to us ... Busy agendas mean a busy Agenda ... And do green scammers wear cowboy hats?

The Arizona Agenda has always strived to be more than a newsletter about Arizona politics and government — we’re trying to create and facilitate a community of politically active and curious Arizonans. 

But often we get stuck in the grind of keeping up with a daily newsletter (it’s a lot of work!), and we forget to make enough time to listen to the thoughts, suggestions and advice from our growing community of more than 10,000 readers. 

So this rainy Sunday seemed like the perfect opportunity to propose a few questions about our plans for this Year of Our Election, 2024. 

We’ve left the comments section open for all readers, so give us your thoughts on any of the following questions. And if you’re not the type to comment publicly, you can always reply to this email to send us a personal note.

Our art intern, ChatGPT, believes we have a sweet little studio/coffee shop that we could invite you all to, which would be nice.

And if you want to skip the questions and tell us we’re doing a great job, this is the button for that.

Chatting with chatty folks

We’re big fans of audio’s ability to draw people in for longer discussions about geeky topics, so we’re leaning into that in 2024 with an interview-based podcast series.

We envision it toggling back and forth between newsmaker guests, candidates in the upcoming election season and those more behind-the-scenes players who really get things done in Arizona politics. It’ll also make for some fun Q&As for you print-only folks. 

But before we finalize the format and start lining up our guests, we want to hear from you. 

• Who would you like us to interview, and what should we ask them about? What topic or person could you nerd out on for 30 minutes while doing chores?

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Explaining the basics

Second, we’re playing with more short video as a tool for educating more non-political people¹ about the weird and wonderful world of Arizona politics and government. 

• What are the facts or stories you’ve learned about Arizona politics that would blow the average voter’s mind? 

• What are your burning questions about how things work in Arizona politics, government or elections? 

Don't be embarrassed, the more basic the question, the better!

Making time for friends

Finally, we miss you! It feels like a long time since we’ve had a chance to catch up with many of you.

So we’re going to take one Friday a month to just catch up. That’ll be a mix of digital hangouts, casual coffee or happy hours and maybe even some structured events. 

And we’re going to save more time to come to your events, too! 

If your organization or group wants to dig into Arizona politics and government, send us a note. We’d love to drop by. 

So our final question for you is, where should we meet up? As in, what kinds of spaces — live or digital — would you use to interact with us, and each other? 

• For example, how many of you would join an Arizona politics Slack channel? 

• Or would you want to do a video chat with a politician? Kind of like a live group interview.

• If we announced a coffee hour, would anyone show up?

We want to hear your outside-the-box ideas for how we could all get together this year.

Committee agendas are getting full at the Capitol this week as bills start getting hearings ahead of February’s deadlines to get out of the House or Senate.

Here’s what we’re watching so far:

Monday: Lawmakers are attempting to bar electric vehicle owners from paying taxes based on the number of miles driven (to replace the fact that they don’t pay gas taxes, which pay for roads), and they’re trying to outlaw photo radar in the Senate Transportation, Infrastructure and Missing Children Committee starting at 2 p.m.

Tuesday: Lawmakers take aim at event ticket companies by banning ticket-buying bots and cracking down on scalping in the House Commerce Committee at 2 p.m.

Wednesday: There’s a lot of weird stuff going on in the House Judiciary Committee at 9 a.m., but we’d suggest you watch the House Government Committee instead. It starts at the same time and will consider the Don Bolles monument bill, HB2595. 

Thursday: The House Ethics Committee is back for more discussion about Democratic Rep. Leezah Sun at 11 a.m. It’s not clear from the agenda if they plan to take testimony or vote on what to do about her. 

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The 23 million unplanted trees were a red flag: Former Arizona Democratic Party Chair Andrei Cherny, now a candidate in the crowded Dem primary for Arizona’s Congressional District 1 seat, is being investigated by the Department of Justice for his role as a co-founder of the carbon credit intermediary company Aspiration, Bloomberg’s Tom Schoenberg and Allyson Versprille report. Investigators are looking into whether the company misled customers about the quality of its carbon offsets. Cherny said he had “no knowledge whatsoever” of any wrongdoing, then promised to take on corruption in government while taking the opportunity to subtweet the dead husband of his rival, Marlene Galán-Woods, by claiming to have led the charge into the coverup of the Fiesta Bowl scandal, a deep cut referencing former AG Grant Woods’ less-than-thorough investigation into the junket misconduct.

Like chameleons: Two applicants vying to take over for former Maricopa County Sheriff Paul Penzone have magically become Democrats in recent months despite long histories of Republican party affiliation, the Republic’s Jimmy Jenkins reports. Penzone stepped down earlier this month, and the person appointed to fill out the rest of his term has to be a Democrat.  

Mark brings home the bacon: Earmarks are once again all the rage in Congress, and the Daily Star’s Tim Steller digs into who brought home what for Arizona. Democratic U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly dominated the list, with $42 million worth of earmarks for the state in FY22-23, while Republicans hadn’t asked for any earmarks. That’s changing though, as Republican Rep. Juan Ciscomani has put in for $35 million worth of local project earmarks.  Meanwhile, everyone has ideas of how to earmark all that money the state has been putting aside for water infrastructure projects. But they’re mostly big desalination project ideas, the Daily Star’s Tony Davis reports. 

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You may notice that all these government earmarks and projects do not benefit the crumbling local news industry. That’s up to you to save!

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The frontlines are frigid: Although the number of migrants crossing Arizona’s border has decreased in recent weeks, humanitarian groups say migrants face perilously cold weather at a remote area of the border wall south of Arivaca. Volunteers are providing medical support, shelter and food, but the aid workers claim Border Patrol agents have threatened to arrest them for transporting migrants during medical emergencies, the Daily Star’s Emily Bregel reports. Meanwhile, Arizona’s emergency rooms are packed, with some now seeing nearly twice as many people per day than they did pre-pandemic, the Republic’s Stephanie Innes reports. Blame more cases of respiratory diseases, more snowbirds, and fewer primary care doctors, among other factors. 

Construction companies fund school construction: Construction companies that donate to local bond elections wouldn’t be able to work on the projects the bonds pay for under a new Republican bill, KJZZ’s Wayne Schutsky reports. Rep. Laurin Hendrix’s legislation would draw down the construction industry’s considerable buy-in on infrastructure-related bond campaigns. Construction companies that would benefit from school infrastructure spending have long bankrolled public school bond campaigns. 

Gotta make a living: The Border Chronicle’s Melissa Del Bosque details her run-in with MAGA media/militia grifters at the Arizona border, noting human rights groups say they’re pretending to be law enforcement while intimidating migrants. Newsmax correspondent “Jaeson Jones” has built a diverse portfolio off border chaos through his self-published books and merch, the right-wing border speaker circuit, and starting his own intelligence firm, all despite seemingly not speaking Spanish, she notes.  

“Changing the spelling of his name from Jason to Jaeson means he’ll rank higher in online search results,” del Bosque writes. 

Tamales at the park?: The city of Tempe shut down a local group feeding the hungry. Hugs AZ requested a permit to give out free meals weekly at a public park, but the city denied the permit, saying the group had previously fed the homeless without a permit. Now the group isn’t allowed to apply for a permit for a year, ABC15’s Ford Hatchett reports. Meanwhile, the tamale bill that would allow cooks to sell items requiring refrigeration, which Hobbs vetoed last year, is moving through the Legislature after the House Committee on Regulatory Affairs approved the bill, per Axios’ Jeremy Duda. 

Hot races: The Pima County Board of Supervisors is a 4-1 Democratic lock, but Republicans are pinning their hopes on winning back former Supervisor Alley Miller’s seat and flipping a retiring supervisor Sharon Bronson’s seat to take control for the first time in recent memory, our sister ‘sletter, the Tucson Agenda, reports. Also, don’t sleep on this year’s races for Pima County sheriff race or county attorney. Both offices are currently held by Democrats who are facing serious inner-party challenges.

More forced resignations, please: Cochise County Supervisor and former state lawmaker Peggy Judd is stepping down from chair of the board, but not resigning even though she’s facing prosecution for election interference and criminal conspiracy for attempting to delay and recount the results of her county’s election in 2022, Terri Jo Neff reports for the Herald Review. And U.S. Rep. Paul Gosar is mad that the number of white people enlisting in the military has been on a half-century decline. He thinks it’s because the military is Marxist and woke, Vice News reports. 

Arizona author Tom Zoellner explains in the L.A. Times why so many Arizona Republican politicians dress like cowboys, even though the only connection many have to ranching is that they deal in bullshit.

But we especially enjoyed Tucson drugstore cowboy and former Democratic lawmaker Tom Prezelski’s outrage that the GOP has coopted his style.

“Now you get all these Republicans looking like norteño musicians,” he told Zoellner.

1. The political community needs a word for the non-political community, like muggles.