'There's an understanding': AZ GOP leaders eye pragmatic session ahead of key elections

Arizona Republican lawmakers made their voices heard last year with a variety of conservative bills, only to draw a record-breaking 143 vetoes by Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs.

House Speaker Ben Toma, R-Glendale, doesn’t expect to see history repeat itself in the new legislative session that starts Jan. 8.

“The caucus has decided at this point, everybody’s on record – there isn’t a lot of appetite expressed so far for continuing this putting up bills that we know are not going to get signed,” he said. “There’s an understanding. There are things that are doable and things that are not.”

Toma said he was optimistic for a productive, 100-day session that finds a quick budget agreement with Hobbs. He hopes to help leverage the GOP’s slim majority along with Senate President Warren Petersen, R-Queen Creek, to pass bills with Hobbs’ acquiescence that push back on liberalism, keep spending to a minimum and loosen regulations where they believe it’s needed. And Toma hopes to do all those things while running for Congress.

GOP members have discussed plans to boost housing affordability by reducing the time needed to approve new development, manage groundwater by allowing its transport to developing areas, and increase teacher pay by convincing voters to extend taking extra payments from the state Land Trust. Both chambers have released outlines for their lawmaking priorities.

Sen. Justine Wadsack, a Tucson Republican who's a member of the conservative Arizona Freedom Caucus, last year drew headlines for her support of removing allegedly offensive books from school libraries and criminalizing men dancing in drag in front of minors. This year will be different, she indicated.

“There will probably not be really any controversial bills that I’m running this year,” she said. “Last year, I ran the bills for the people. This year, I’m running the bills for the state.”

But conflicts in the still-new realm of divided government threaten to shake up the vision of a kinder, gentler session. Early bills that have been filed reveal the likelihood of plenty of vetoes.

Sharp political divides remain in play. Last month, Petersen filed a lawsuit against Hobbs over her refusal to submit to the Senate’s confirmation process for her nominations for state agency directors.  Hobbs continues to move forward with a plan to help fund the defeat of Republican lawmakers in November’s election, and last week announced plans to add transparency measures to the GOP’s Empowerment Scholarship Account private school voucher program.

“I remain optimistic,” Toma said. “There are things we’re going to have to do, things we’re really going to have to focus on.”

Both the House and Senate appear unified, for now, with each presenting lists of priorities they intend to roll out for the new session.

The House wants to support county attorneys in fighting crime, make getting into business easier, tackle affordable housing issues, secure water resources, target books that encourage sexual activity, gender ideology and racial division and protect 1^st and 2^nd Amendment rights.

The Senate says it will seek to provide help on gas prices, housing costs, and teacher pay; reduce regulations on schools but maintain accountability; increase capacity at psychiatric treatment facilities; use technology to enhance border security and protect children under state supervision; and address election procedures causing “lengthy timelines and delays on the release of election results.”

Some ideas loaded with political baggage

The governor has little choice but to work with Republicans while they’re the majority party if she wants state government to function normally. Most of the roughly 200 bills that Hobbs signed last year had little or no support from Democrats.

But she’ll be using her veto stamp regularly this year again, in all likelihood. Sen. Jake Hoffman, a Queen Creek Republican who chairs the Freedom Caucus, has pre-filed several “culture war” bills. Among those is another attempt to ban the state from funding mandatory Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion training.

Some Republican bills may receive the Democratic treatment and not be assigned to committees for hearing. That's likely the case for an early bill by Rep. Julie Willoughby, R-Chandler, that would mandate random drug testing for state legislators.

Hobbs may open to other bills floated by Republicans, depending on their final forms. She hasn’t been too critical of the idea of a proposed ballot measure that would extend a voter-approved, 2016 sales tax for schools to increase teacher pay across the board, though her spokesman reportedly called it "half-baked." The bill language has yet to be submitted.

Another advance bill idea Republicans held at a recent news conference centered on granting legislative leaders the power to help change metro Phoenix gasoline requirements. Christian Slater, Hobbs' spokesman, also called that one “half-baked.”

Lawmakers, including Sen. Wendy Rogers, R-Flagstaff, hope to work with Hobbs’ office for a needed fix to 2024 election timelines due to a new law that makes automatic recounts more common. Election officials said it’s possible that under the new law, several timetable problems could occur. Among those concerns: Recounts could still be ongoing as presidential electors are supposed to appoint the president and vice president.

County officials on Friday reiterated those concerns in letters sent to legislative leaders and the governor.

“It’s our job as the state Legislature to make sure that all of the guidelines and the milestones can be met within the calendar of 2024 in case there are challenges to an election outcome,” Rogers said at a news conference about GOP priorities last month.

Hobbs will also find herself working with Republicans on a new “tamale” bill. Speaker Pro Tempore Travis Grantham, R-Gilbert, pre-filed a new version of a “cottage food” bill that Hobbs vetoed last year.

Rep. Alexander Kolodin, R-Scottsdale, hopes to make a splash with a deregulation plan for groundwater he claims will be a win for everyone involved. His plan involves lifting rules that prevent one groundwater management area from transporting its water to another spot where groundwater is less plentiful but more desirable for developers.

“We allow somebody that wants to buy that water to go and buy it from somebody that wants to pump it,” he said.

The plan would require that whoever transports the water would agree to keep more in their aquifer than they would under normal use, which helps neighboring farmers and the environment, he said.

Republican leaders, including Petersen and Toma, have also raised the issue of increasing the pace of homebuilding.

Hobbs, who created a Water Policy Council in one of her first executive actions, halted new construction permits for managed areas with limited groundwater in June. In October, representatives of the Arizona Senate and Farm Bureau quit the council, calling it a “forum to rubberstamp the progressive environmental goals of special interest groups.”

Election ambitions

With this year’s election on the horizon, some Republicans have openly criticized the Freedom Caucus.

Republican Sen. Shawnna Bolick is an election conspiracy supporter who’s being challenged for her seat by Democratic Rep. Judy Schwiebert in Phoenix’s competitive Legislative District 2. Bolick told a Maricopa County supervisor she thought the conservative bloc would “be the reason why we lose both the House and the Senate.”

Wadsack told The Arizona Republic if her GOP colleagues weren’t working with the caucus, “it’s going to be a problem because there’s a lot of us in there now.”

She noted that Bolick stood with Freedom Caucus members in the Senate against the bill to put the transportation tax measure Proposition 400 before voters in 2024.

“The Republicans know where we stand. We are constitutional. We are conservative,” Wadsack said. “And if Republicans don’t agree with that and they don’t want to vote with us, that’s going to show the people who they are, not us.”

The division in the Republican party and its potential effects on GOP lawmakers this session could grow sharper if former President Donald Trump’s frontrunner status continues. It could also come into sharper focus if a grand jury under Democratic state Attorney General Kris Mayes brings charges against Hoffman or Sen. Anthony Kern, R-Glendale, for presenting themselves as legitimate electors for Trump in 2020 after Biden won the Arizona vote by more than 10,000 votes.

Rep. David Cook, a Globe Republican in his fourth term as a state representative and has launched a primary challenge against Rogers in GOP-heavy Legislative District 7, described one bill he’s preparing that seems tailor-made to embarrass his opponent.

It would allow the government to challenge a homeowner’s declaration of a primary residence when it appears that a different, and perhaps much more expensive home is the owner’s actual residence. If someone owns a home in Tempe, another home next to an airport, and calls their “trailer in Flagstaff” a primary residence to “pay a lower tax rate on it, to me, that’s tax fraud,” Cook said.

Rogers owns a mobile home in Flagstaff, which is in her district, as well as homes in Tempe and Chandler (the latter in a private airpark) that are not. She has been criticized for appearing to flout the state’s residency requirement for lawmakers.

Cook has also filed early bills to help rural Arizonans obtain insurance settlements in certain flooding situations, prevent bots from snatching up concert tickets for resale at exorbitant rates, and change Arizona’s one-party consent law for recording to require all parties to a recording give consent.

Another election-related factor could be the race for Arizona’s Congressional District 8, in which both Kern and Toma are running against Trump-endorsed candidate Abe Hamadeh and former U.S. Congressman Trent Franks.

Asked whether his candidacy would affect his management role as House speaker, Toma said he couldn’t accomplish what he’s doing if not for his legislative and campaign staff.

“I’ve inherited (CD8 Congresswoman) Debbie Lesko’s campaign team, that was part of the agreement,” he said. “They know the district. We have a very clear plan. My job is to execute and to trust them as necessary.”

Budgets first

Lawmakers’ No. 1 priority is always the state budget, and that responsibility has become a bigger chore with deficits in place of last year’s surplus. The fiscal year 2024 budget passed last year now has a shortfall of more than $400 million because of less-than-expected tax collections and because lawmakers spent all but $10 million of available funds.

Projections for fiscal year 2025, which begins July 1, also show a budget deficit of about $450 million. Lawmakers won’t get to spend their time choosing pet projects to toss money at, like they did last year.

Before they get to the new budget, though, lawmakers will need to balance the existing budget. That’ll mean giving up some of the money each was given for projects in last year’s budget negotiations.

“If the dollars haven’t been spent, it’s still on the table,” Toma said.

Rep. Kevin Payne, a Peoria Republican first elected in 2016 who’s running for state Senate, said instead of being given $20 million to spend on their own projects, each House member can protect $30 million of all projects. The projects most likely to be saved are those that multiple lawmakers want to protect, he said.

“I think it’s going to be very difficult,” Payne said of the process. “It’s like herding cats.”

Payne is worried about how the shortfalls will affect his desire to fund public safety personnel, including raises for correctional officers.

He’s also concerned that lawmakers will pull back the $5 million he directed last year to studies of psilocybin, the psychedelic component in “magic” mushrooms, on the mental health of veterans and others. The law’s text accidentally required all the money to be used by June instead of over several years. That would likely mean the money will be untouched because scientists who want to study psilocybin know they wouldn’t be reimbursed as planned.

He's preparing a new bill for this session that will allow the grant to continue.

Sen. John Kavanagh, a Fountain Hills Republican who's chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said at the Dec. 14 news conference the budget shortfall was "quite manageable" and suggested some road projects could be delayed.

Reach the reporter at rstern@arizonarepublic.com or 480-276-3237. Follow him on X @raystern.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: AZ GOP leaders eye pragmatic legislative session ahead of key elections