By the Arizona Free Enterprise Club |
Devastating. That’s how it felt earlier this week when the Arizona Supreme Court upheld the trial court’s ruling in Arizona School Boards Association v. State of Arizona. This decision strikes down critical reforms contained in a series of Budget Reconciliation Bills passed by lawmakers and signed by Governor Ducey earlier this year.
And it’s a big blow to the people of Arizona.
This past July, Arizona lawmakers took important steps to protect our state from more COVID mandates and government overreach. Among the laws passed were bans on:
- A county, city, or town from issuing COVID ordinances that impact private businesses, schools, churches, or other private entities, including mask mandates.
- K-12 schools from requiring vaccines with an emergency use authorization for in-person attendance.
- The state and any city, town, or county from establishing COVID vaccine passports or requiring COVID vaccines.
- Public universities and community colleges from mandating COVID vaccines and vaccine passports.
- A city, town, county, school board, or charter school from mandating students and teachers to be vaccinated or wear masks.
But COVID wasn’t the only thing these Budget Reconciliation Bills addressed.
