David Cook is a Republican politician elected to serve in the Arizona House of Representatives from the 8th Legislative District. Representative Cook was elected to the State House in 2016 and represents central and eastern Pinal County and southern Gila County. He currently is in opposition to tax reform.
When alerted that a postcard campaign was taking place on Wednesday the 16th to encourage him to listen to the stories of hardworking Arizonans that need tax relief he did provide the following social media tweets (@RepDavidCook), “ …Yes – “we” the people- not any one person, one party, one county- “We the people” of Arizona. Those of us that are truly conservatives – saving the taxpayers – Billions (or trying to) and paying off those debts – not kicking them down the road – for future generations.” A public school teacher then asked, for him to support the flat income tax rate. Now, more than ever we need tax relief. He replied, “How much are your HOA fees a year?” The response, “Respectfully, we don’t have HOA fees, we have Biden penalties.” Silence
Arizonans need to call Representative David Cook (LD8) 602-926-5162 and voice your stories about how hardworking citizens need tax relief. Tax relief is any government program or policy initiative that is designed to reduce the amount of taxes paid by individuals or businesses. This is the time to return money to taxpayers, not leave it in the hands of the government.
Catherine Barrett, an Arizona Master Teacher, has been called “the bravest teacher advocate in the state” by educators and lawmakers. She holds Masters degree in Education and had been teaching for 19 years.
After a mini-Wildfire 101 course from the Arizona State Forester, 18 of the 19 members of legislature’s Joint Committee on Natural Resources, Energy, and Water voted in favor of Gov. Doug Ducey’s proposed $100 million fire suppression and mitigation legislation.
Next up for the bill during this Special Session is a quick trip through two Rules Committees on Thursday morning. That should be followed by the House and Senate convening to consider amendments to the two identical bills, SB1001 and HB2001, which are tracking in both chambers.
Wednesday’s hours-long meeting featured a questions and answers session with David Tenney, director of Arizona’s Department of Forestry and Fire Management (DFFM) on the same day that two ongoing destructive wildfires near Globe -the Telegraph and the Mescal- merged with nearly 150,000 acres burned.
Ducey called the Special Session for the sole purpose to pass a wildfire-related supplemental appropriations bill. The joint committee discussed many of the bill’s targeted investments for wildfire preparedness, response, and recovery, including $76 million toward fire suppression efforts, recovery efforts, mitigation of post-fire floods, economic assistance for those displaced by fires or post-fire floods, and assistance to landowners for emergency repairs from wildfire-related infrastructure damage.
There is also nearly $25 million appropriated in the bill for DFFM and the Arizona Department of Corrections (ADC) to partner on wildfire mitigation efforts such as removing hazardous vegetation and fire fuels. The funds include hiring 720 ADC inmates, working in 72 teams of 10 inmates, to target DFFM-designated areas across the state where mitigation is needed. The goal, said Tenney, is for the crews to cover 20,000 acres annually.
Among the questions Tenney was asked was whether Arizona should own a fleet of firefighting aircraft instead of contracting with providers. Tenney was also asked whether DFFM should purchase a handful of $500,000 firetrucks designed for off-road wilderness access that could be “borrowed” to smaller fire departments.
Tenney also noted that as of this week, Arizona’s 2021 fire season will have impacted nearly 300,000 acres. That puts the state of track for its worst fire season in history due to the combination of excessive heat in all 15 counties as well as drought conditions.
Some committee members tried to get Tenney to discuss whether Arizona’s increasingly larger wildfires are the result of climate change, but the director stuck to the purpose of the legislation -and the Special Session- which is to ensure funding for activities which can have an immediate affect on reducing fires or limiting the damage from fires.
The climate change comments received pushback from Sen. David Gowan (LD-14), who said no one is disputing there is climate change.
“Climate change happens every decade, happens every century, millennium, we have climate change,” he said.
Some Democrats questioned whether the Ducey-backed appropriations bill goes far enough as they preferred legislation addressing more than the immediate critical need. However, committee chairs Rep. Gail Griffin (R-LD14) and Sen. Sine Kerr (R-LD13) guided the discussion back onto the purpose of the legislation – to address the wildfire and post-fire flooding crisis facing Arizona now.
The only no vote was cast by Sen. Juan Mendez (D-LD26).
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is the first to heed the calls by Arizona Governor Doug Ducey and Texas Governor Greg Abbott to send help to deal with the crisis on the U.S.-Mexico border. Ducey and Abbott made the request for assistance through the Emergency Management Assistance Compact.
DeSantis announced that state and local law enforcement officers have committed to deploying to Texas and Arizona to provide additional resources in response to the border crisis including:
The Florida Highway Patrol
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission
Brevard County Sheriff’s Office
Escambia County Sheriff’s Office
Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office
Holmes County Sheriff’s Office
Lee County Sheriff’s Office
Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office
Pasco County Sheriff’s Office
Santa Rosa County Sheriff’s Office
Walton County Sheriff’s Office
“America’s border security crisis impacts every state and every American,” said DeSantis. “The Biden Administration ended policies implemented by President Trump that were curbing illegal immigration, securing our border, and keeping Americans safe. Governors Abbott and Ducey recently sent out a call for help to every state in the nation, needing additional law enforcement manpower and other resources to aid with border security. I’m proud to announce today that the state of Florida is answering the call. Florida has your back.”
“As Attorney General, I am dedicated to ending human trafficking, protecting our children from sexual predators, and fighting the opioid crisis now claiming 21 lives a day in our state, but President Biden is hurting, not helping us achieve these vital public safety goals,” said Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody. “The crisis the President created at our southern border makes all of us less safe, and I am proud to stand with Governor DeSantis as he tries to fix the President’s disaster at the border to protect Floridians.”
As a result of the Biden Administration’s open border policies, attempts at drug trafficking and human trafficking have also increased. FBI Director Christopher Wray recently said that there is “no question” that Mexican cartel activity has crossed the border into the U.S. In just January to April of this year, the Texas Department of Public Safety seized nearly 95 pounds of fentanyl in Texas. That equates to 21.5 million lethal doses of this drug. That is a spike compared to 2020, when the same agency seized only 11 pounds over the first four months.
According to multiple former border patrol agents, children are being used by human traffickers who pose as a family to make their way across the border. These human trafficking attempts are now unchecked by the Biden Administration, which has put pressure on officials to release families within 72 hours and canceled policies that required families to wait before crossing the border while their case was being reviewed. As a result of these policies, according to a recent UNICEF report, there are nine times more migrant children in Mexico than there were at the start of 2021.
According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, last month there were more than 180,000 illegal immigrants caught attempting entry along the Southwest Border. For the five fiscal years ending in 2019, an average of just 15% of individuals encountered by law enforcement had previously attempted to cross the border within that year. Alarmingly, under the Biden Administration this figure has skyrocketed 38% in May 2021.
Arizona has joined a 16-state coalition pushing back against a Biden Administration initiative that would require companies to make policy statements unrelated to financial performance to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Arizona joins the West Virginia-led fight against what is seen as an attack on the freedom of speech.
The attorneys general of Alaska, Arkansas, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Utah and Wyoming join in arguing that the initiative would require companies to make policy statements not related to financial performance to serves a political agenda.
In comments filed this week to SEC Chairman Gary Gensler, the attorneys general expressed concerns that the proposed climate change disclosures are unnecessary from a market protection standpoint, writing that “the Commission has an important and difficult mandate with respect to safeguarding public trading, but it is hard to see how it can legally, constitutionally, and reasonably assume a leading role when it comes to climate change.”
The attorneys general contend that to pass constitutional muster, “speech regulation must advance a constitutionally sufficient government interest, must be adequately related to advancing that end and may be required to use the least restrictive means,” the comments read.
Since early on in the legislative session, Arizona Rep. Bret Roberts has tried to convince his fellow lawmakers that it was crucial to protect citizens from mandatory COVID-19 vaccination demands.
A bill, HB2190, introduced by Sen. Kelly Townsend on Roberts’ behalf would prohibit companies and government agencies in Arizona from demanding proof, referred to as a vaccine passport, of someone’s vaccination status in order to receive government benefits or enter a place of business.
HB2190 stalled out but fast forward nearly three months to Ducey’s decision this week to issue an executive order banning Arizona’s universities and community colleges from mandating that students show proof of their COVID-19 vaccination status or be forced to wear masks “in order to participate in learning.”
The governor’s action came after Dr. Joanne Vogel, Vice President of Student Services for Arizona State University (ASU), announced that students who have not received the COVID-19 vaccination would be subjected to daily health checks, twice-weekly testing, and mandatory face mask use in all indoor and outdoor spaces on ASU campuses.
Rep. Travis Grantham, the Speaker Pro Tempore, issued a statement Tuesday calling for the immediate rescindment of Dr. Vogel’s COVID-19 policy or her departure from ASU. At stake is not only students’ freedom to be vaccinated or not, but the university’s finding, according to Grantham.
“I have received numerous calls from concerned parents whose kids have no other option but to attend a state university,” Grantham noted. “It’s important that this tyrannical policy must not prevent any Arizonan from accessing our state university system. Moreover, as the legislature prepares to pass a state budget for next year, I will not support funding for any state university that intends to harass or discriminate against non-vaccinated students on campus.”
Rep. Jake Hoffman also opposes the ASU policy which he called “a gross abuse of students’ liberties.” He pointed out Tuesday that the state’s universities receive hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer funds and that it was common knowledge lawmakers have language in the pending state budget which would prohibit ASU’s COVID-19 policy.
“They’re just basically giving the Legislature the finger and that’s a problem for our State,” Hoffman said in a radio interview. “It’s an unacceptable overreach by a political subdivision of the state.”
In announcing his executive order, Ducey called on the legislation to codify his executive order into law. The question now is whether the legislation Ducey is seeking will be HB2190 or if it will include something else.
For his part, Roberts said during a radio interview Tuesday morning that the governor’s executive order is “a good start” but he believes all Arizonans -not just students- deserve the same protections. Which would be provided by HB2190.
Roberts also said he is not surprised by the ASU vaccination dustup, although he found it interesting the University of Arizona did not try to implement such as policy. He remains hopeful his vaccine bill -or something similar- will pass.
The problem, he noted, “is future political interest” of those who have so far opposed legislating vaccine policies for private and public purposes.
“If the people make it clear that future political interest are in jeopardy then maybe there’s a chance” of passing HB2190, he said. “I put the right of the individual to make that choice (to vaccinate or not) before a business should be able to dictate whether or not you have to give up your personal medical information in order to particulate in commerce.”
Meanwhile, Sen. Michelle Ugenti-Rita provided a shout-out to Roberts for “taking an early lead on this important issue,” and called on lawmakers to prohibit vaccine passports “from ever being mandated by any government or business.”
