A bill aimed at lowering gas prices by allowing more types of gasoline to be sold in Arizona passed the Arizona State Senate on Thursday.
In Maricopa County, environmental regulations allow for only two blends of gas to be sold to consumers, one winter blend and one summer blend, referred to as Cleaner Burning Gasoline, according to a news release.
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The Arizona Republican Party named Senator Justine Wadsack (R-Tuscon) as their Freshman Senator of the Year for making history by seeing an unprecedented number of her proposed bills pass through the State Senate.
In a single year, Wadsack was successful in promoting a number of significant legislation that attracted national notice and addressed important issues for Arizonans, including water supply, education, and child protection.
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Arizona Republicans and Democrats are lining up as candidates as the 2024 state election draws closer.
Republicans have a one-seat majority in the state House and Senate and some early candidates are vying for seats to determine which party has control of the legislature.
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Arizona Senate President Warren Petersen (R-Gilbert) said that the Prop. 400 plan passed by the legislature on Monday is the most conservative one passed in Arizona History.
The Arizona Legislature periodically extends the Prop. 400 public transportation tax every few years. The half-cent tax, which was first implemented in 1985 to finance roads is now also used to fund Maricopa County’s public transportation and light rail.
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Arizona State Senator Justine Wadsack (R-Tuscon) is preparing for the next legislative session by outlining her priorities and beginning to craft legislation for introduction in the State Senate.
Arizona’s regular legislative sessions begin on the second Monday in January and typically conclude after 100 days. However, the House and Senate can mutually vote to extend the regular session beyond 100 days. This happens regularly. It will run as long as lawmakers need it to.
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Arizona State Senator Justine Wadsack (R-Tucson) is encouraging families that the “Arizona Families Tax Rebate,” a part of the $17.8 billion state budget approved by Governor Katie Hobbs on May 15th, is expected to be sent out sometime this fall.
The Arizona Families Tax Rebate, championed by Arizona Senate Republicans and the Arizona Freedom Caucus will allow Arizona families to receive up to $750 in rebates based on 2021 tax returns.
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Arizona Republican lawmakers have launched a new committee to investigate the freedom of speech in Arizona’s public universities and to look into the events surrounding a program titled “Health, Wealth and Happiness,” presented by Arizona State University’s T.W. Lewis Center.
This follows officials at Arizona State University allegedly firing University administrator and Director of the T.W. Lewis Center, Ann Atkinson, for bringing conservative speakers Dennis Prager and Charlie Kirk onto campus earlier this year for the “Health, Wealth and Happiness” program which focused on professional development and networking.
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An Arizona Republican state senator called out Governor Katie Hobbs for her “harmful” veto of a bill mandating those found guilty of dangerous crimes against children to register on the state’s sex offender website.
Senate Bill (SB) 1583, sponsored by State Senator Sine Kerr (R-Buckeye), aimed to close a gap in state legislation that now only compels those offenders found guilty of committing sex crimes against children to list their names on the website for sex offenders if they pose a significant danger of doing so again. Level one offenders, who are the least likely to re-offend, may not have to list their names on this website.
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Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs says she will not rescind an executive order that strips county attorneys of their authority to prosecute abortion-related crimes.
According to Hobbs, it is her “legal authority” to protect Arizonans’ ability to get an abortion.
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Arizona Senate President Pro Tempore T.J. Shope (R-Florance) said that Governor Katie Hobbs’ recent executive orders to provide insurance-covered sex change procedures and ban so-called “conversion therapy” are “out of touch” with the desires of the majority of Arizonans.
Last week, Governor Hobbs signed two executive orders one to require state employee health care plans to cover sex change surgeries and another to ban state agencies from funding, promoting, or supporting so-called “conversion therapy” for minors.
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Following a hearing on Wednesday, a judge lifted a restraining order State Senator Wendy Rogers (R-Flagstaff) obtained against a “woke” journalist for showing up at her home repeatedly and talking to her neighbors after she had been instructed by the Arizona Senate to stay away from Rogers.
Flagstaff Justice of the Peace Howard Grodman, who was previously suspended for numerous ethical violations and who has ties to the Coconino County Democratic Party, said that even though the actions of Arizona Capitol Times reporter Camryn Sanchez were considered harassment by Rogers, they wouldn’t be considered harassment by a “reasonable person.”
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The Arizona Senate Majority Caucus announced the creation of a new committee Friday that will review Arizona’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The pandemic was a heartbreaking period for so many people on so many different levels,” said State Senator Janae Shamp (R-Surprise), who will chair the committee. “I lost my job as a Perioperative Nurse because I refused to take the experimental vaccine that we now know has produced serious side effects in a number of otherwise healthy individuals. We’ve witnessed lives and livelihoods lost for no other reason than the mismanagement of COVID-19, and we are determined to hold those accountable for the injustices experienced.”
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A Senate bill (SB) from State Senator Wendy Rogers (R-Flagstaff) passed through the Senate Tuesday to protect Arizona’s National Guard from being deployed into active combat unless there is a declaration of war.
“If the president wants to use the Arizona national guard to fight wars halfway across the world, then it can only be done after a majority of the people’s representatives vote to send them there,” Rogers said on the Senate Floor. “If Congress refuses to vote, then it’s a war the Arizona National Guard should not be fighting.”
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In the wake of the 2022 General Election, results project that both parts of the Arizona State Legislature will fall under a Republican majority, although it appears the governor’s seat will fall into the hands of Democrat Katie Hobbs. Kim Quintero, the spokesperson for the Senate Republican Caucus, said that while it is too early to know precisely how the Hobbs administration will change Arizona, Senate Republicans will do their best to continue bettering Arizona.
“Whatever the outcome, we will strive to work with a Hobbs administration as best we can for the betterment of all Arizonans. We have pressing issues to tackle such as our water shortage, border security, public safety, election integrity, education, transportation, and much more. We’re optimistic that we can still pass some good, common-sense policies with a governor who genuinely is in office to make Arizona a better place to live, work, play and raise a family. We’re hoping that will be the case with a Hobbs administration,” Quintero told the Sun Times via email.
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Arizona State Representative Diego Espinoza (D-Tolleson) announced last week that he would resign from the Arizona House, despite winning the August primary election for a seat in the Senate, leaving no one on the ballot.
“Today, I announced my resignation to my seat in the Arizona House effective Monday, September 5th 2022. I will also forgo my primary election win for a seat in the State Senate,” Espinoza said while announcing his resignation. “As a lawmaker, I was able to reach challenging milestones for our community and overcame many obstacles to achieve a better tomorrow for our people in Arizona.”
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Blake Masters, a venture capitalist backed by former President Donald Trump, has won the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate in Arizona.
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As early voting for the August 2nd Arizona Primary Election is underway, OH Predictive Insights (OHPI) held a poll showing that many Arizona Republican Party (GOP) Voters remain unsure who they want to vote for in several races.
“The Governor and Senate primary is taking up much of the oxygen (and airtime) away from these down-ticket races,” said Mike Noble, OHPI Chief of Research. “With voters predominantly undecided in these races, their respective campaign efforts will be critical as they chase ballots, get out the vote, and spend their hard-earned campaign dollars leading up to Election Day.”
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Arizona Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ-05) recently sent a letter to the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) Secretary Tom Vilsack, challenging woke gender policy changes that threaten school meal plan funding.
“In an effort to appease the Left’s woke gender agenda, the USDA is now attempting to hold American schools hostage,” Biggs said in a press release. “USDA’s definition changes of ‘sex discrimination’ would only harm American students. The department is coercing American schools to adopt the Biden Administration’s radical gender equality platform or else it will strip student benefits from these schools.”
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Arizona Senate President Karen (R-Prescott) defended House Concurrent Resolution (HCR) 2038 this week, which would express support for proper forest management.
“Arizona is in a unique situation,” said Fann. “We have dealt with catastrophic fires, and they are getting worse over the last 20 – 30 years. The Rodeo Chediski Fire, if you remember that horrible fire, part of the reason it was so bad and got so out of control is because of a lot of the underbrush that was never allowed to be cleared out.”
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Arizona State Sen. Warren Petersen (R-Gilbert) spoke against a proposed suspension of Senate rules to revote on a previously failed gun control Senate Bill (SB) on Tuesday.
“The reason why this bill should not be supported is because it will stop law-abiding citizens from protecting themselves. Criminals do not follow gun laws. They will not abide by this law. Only law-abiding citizens will abide by this law, so you will simply restrict more opportunities to protect people,” said Petersen when explaining his vote.
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A number of election integrity bills addressing ballot boxes and ballot harvesting failed to pass the Senate on Monday.
“If you think it’s a problem. If you think ballot boxes contribute to ballot harvesting and can be manipulated, you would ban them. Not require that we tape them. It’s too late at that point,” said State Senator Michelle Ugenti-Rita (R-Scottsdale) while explaining her floor amendment to HB 2238.
According to HB 2238, sponsored by State Representative Jake Hoffman (R-Phoenix), “a county recorder or other officer in charge of elections may not use an unmonitored drop box for receipt of voted early ballots.”
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The Arizona Senate passed a new bill on Tuesday aimed at improving election integrity.
“Number one, only eligible, qualified citizens can vote in elections, and that means when you are going to a voter registration process, you have to give election officials time to be able to actually review the registration and make sure someone is qualified to vote. When you do same-day or Election-Day voter registration, that takes away that time to actually be able to conduct that check,” Jason Snead, the Director of the Honest Elections Project told The Arizona Sun Times.
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The Arizona Senate approved two pieces of legislation that are aimed to solidify parental rights over their child’s education and exposure to certain materials.
Both measures, HB 2161 and HB 2439, passed the chamber on a 16 to 12 vote, sending them to the House of Representatives for a final vote before Governor Doug Ducey weighs in.
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Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich has been investigating the results of the Arizona Senate’s independent audit of the 2020 presidential election in Maricopa County but, similar to what the Arizona Senate experienced previously, has been thwarted by the Maricopa County Supervisors’ (BOS) refusal to turn over evidence. Due to the obstruction, State Senator Kelly Townsend (R-Apache Junction), issued a legislative subpoena to the BOS demanding their testimony on Monday, to explain their reasons for delaying the production of documents, and what they intend to do to rectify the situation.
Townsend stated, “Throughout this process, we have been dismayed at the level of obstruction, obfuscation, malfeasance and nonfeasance seen throughout the inquiry. The claim that there is not a ‘shred of evidence’ regarding irregularities in the election is patently false, but hard not to believe by the general public when so much is being hidden from their view.”
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The Arizona Senate passed a bill this week that would increase academic transparency.
In a 16-13 vote along party lines with Republicans favoring the bill and Democrats opposing, SB 1211 passed.
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The Arizona Court of Appeals rejected a request from Cyber Ninjas, the company that audited Maricopa County’s ballots, to block a public records request by the media for records from the audit. Phoenix Newspapers Inc., which owns The Arizona Republic, asked for emails and other documents in its April request, which the lower trial court granted. Cyber Ninjas appealed the decision. The appellate court rejected the cyberfirm’s argument that opening its records up for public inspection would allow opening the records of any contractor that does business with the state.
Jack Wilenchik, Cyber Ninja’s attorney, expressed his disappointment to Capitol Media Services, “The government cannot force private contractors to produce things the government does not own. He said it’s similar to a violation of the Fourth Amendment protections against search and seizure.
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Arizona Senate candidate Blake Masters wants to break up Big Tech and ban their business practices he believes are harmful.
“I think Republicans need to reacquaint themselves with their history of antitrust enforcement, and realize huge concentrations of power in private hands can violate people’s liberties just as much as government,” Masters said in an interview with the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Masters, who announced his candidacy in July, serves as chief operating officer at investment firm Thiel Capital and runs the Thiel Foundation, a philanthropic organization founded by billionaire investor and PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel. He competes in a crowded Republican primary with fellow candidate and current Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich for the chance to unseat incumbent Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly in 2022.
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Two state lawmakers in Arizona, one from each political party, resigned Wednesday.
“To my constituents & colleagues, I’m writing to inform you of my resignation, effective September 30th, from my House seat in Legislative District 11. It has been an honor and a privilege to serve with you, the Republican caucus, and the entire House,” Rep. Bret Roberts (D-AZ-11) announced on Twitter.
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The former Secretary of State serving as the liaison for the Arizona State Senate Audit, will remain in his capacity as liaison after all. This is the second time that Senate President Karen Fann (R-Prescott) has apparently walked Bennett back from the brink of walking away from the audit. Their latest agreement to keep Bennett on was less publicized than the first; no official statements have been put forth concerning the new terms of Bennett’s role. Per their agreement, Bennett will regain access to the building and may obtain information from the auditing company, Cyber Ninjas, upon request.
As The Arizona Sun Times reported on Thursday, Bennett has gone back and forth over his decision to bow out of the audit. Bennett relayed those sentiments twice this week: once on Monday, then again on Wednesday. Both times, Bennett discussed stepping down from his role with the radio host James Harris on morning episodes of The Conservative Circus. Both times, Bennett said he was liaison “in name only” because he was repeatedly excluded from overseeing critical aspects of the audit.
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On Wednesday, the Arizona Senate’s audit liaison Ken Bennett announced he will step down from the audit. Bennett issued the announcement on Wednesday morning in a radio interview.
Bennett said it was “impossible” to function as liaison, and revealed that volunteer consultant Randy Pullen would be assuming his duties. He said he would be a liaison in name only. Bennett refused to approve any final report on the audit, since he wasn’t allowed inside any longer.
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Twitter permanently suspended the account of the official account of the Arizona Legislature’s audit of Maricopa County ballots, along with several other audit accounts on Tuesday. The official account, @ArizonaAudit, is offline, with a message stating it is suspended, as is a second account that appears affiliated with the audit, @AuditWarRoom.
Four more accounts associated with audits taking place in Wisconsin, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Georgia were suspended, along with some accounts that were fundraising for the audit. One was run by One America News Network’s Christina Bobb. Voices & Votes raised $150,000 for the audit. Bobb tweeted, “They are blocking the release of audit information on Twitter.”
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State Senator Paul Boyer (R-Glendale) won’t hold Maricopa County election officials in contempt for noncompliance with the Senate’s subpoena for election equipment and materials needed to complete the audit. This was revealed by Senate President Karen Fann (R-Prescott) after Senate Liaison Ken Bennett shared that one of sixteen Republican senators wouldn’t hold the county accountable.
The auditing company, Cyber Ninjas, explained in a hearing last week that they still lack the splunk logs, chain of custody documents, portable media and external drives, router configuration files or data, network diagram, backups of election management data, digital copies of all election policies and procedures utilized, files transmitted for duplicating or spoiling ballots, records of all paper distributed to vote centers, information and guidelines on adjudication of ballots, total count of all ballots sent to eligible voters on the state’s voter information portal (UOCAVA), and a full backup copy of database of voter rolls.
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During the Arizona Senate hearing on the election audit in Maricopa County Thursday morning, audit officials reported discovery of issues such as ballot duplicates and surpluses, voter roll data, and machine security. The audit officials testifying were Senate Liaison Ken Bennett, Cyber Ninjas CEO Doug Logan, and digital security firm CyFIR founder Ben Cotton. Cyber Ninjas is conducting the audit.
The Arizona Sun Times checked the Arizona legislature website at 8 am MST. The website was down. All that was displayed was an error message that said service was unavailable. The website remained that way until sometime after the Senate hearing began.
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One of Arizona’s largest newspapers is suing the state Senate and the contracted company running the audit, Cyber Ninjas, for access to their election audit records and financial records. The Arizona Republic, part of the Gannett mass media company, filed a special action on Wednesday in the Maricopa County Superior Court – case number LC2021-000180. Reportedly, the Senate denied the paper’s request for access to the audit and financial records, saying they weren’t public record. The specific information they hope to obtain includes the process for the audit, businesses involved, funding sources, and all communications of those involved.
The plaintiffs in the case are Phoenix Newspapers and Kathy Tulumello, news director for The Arizona Republic. Including the state Senate and Cyber Ninjas, the other defendants named are Senate President Karen Fann (R-Prescott), Senate Majority Leader Warren Petersen (R-Gilbert), and the secretary for the Senate, Susan Aceves.
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The Arizona audit is wrapping up its operations and has moved out of its three-month home: the Veterans Memorial Coliseum. For about another week, audit workers will finish up in another building on the fairgrounds, the Wesley Bolin Building. Auditors will be able to use the building until July 14.
Although officials told The Arizona Sun Times that they would be finished by last Saturday, more work popped up after the county submitted additional resources that required review. Randy Pullen, a volunteer consultant to the Arizona Senate for the audit, estimated that they would be done sometime next week. He explained to The Sun Times that the slight delay occurred because the county submitted log reports on duplicate ballots last minute. Those logs showed how many from every batch were taken out by the county for duplication.
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The Arizona Senate is poised to begin a major audit of over two million ballots cast in the 2020 election in the state’s largest county, a process the state Senate president claims has been stymied by county officials and which the county claims rests on legally uncertain ground.
Senate subpoenas to the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors for information and equipment needed to perform the audit have been pending since Dec. 15, 2020 and were upheld by a judge on Feb. 25. In mid-March, the state Senate announced that Republicans in that chamber would be conducting a “broad and detailed” review of Maricopa’s ballots, one that would involve “testing the machines, scanning the ballots, performing a full hand count and checking for any IT breaches,” among other approaches.
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