by AZ Free Enterprise Club | Sep 16, 2023 | Opinion
By the Arizona Free Enterprise Club |
Secretary of State Adrian Fontes appears to be in a tug-of-war with Governor Katie Hobbs to determine who is worse at their job. It’s been well-documented that since she took office, Hobbs has been off to a rough start with high-profile staff exits, breaking the veto record after killing the bipartisan “Tamale Bill,” and alienating many Democrats by signing the Republican budget. But over the past eight months, Fontes has been working just as hard in the battle to see who’s more incompetent. Not only has he failed to perform the necessary voter list maintenance—leaving 14 Arizona counties in violation of Section 8 of the National Voter Registration Act—but he rushed through a version of the Elections Procedures Manual (EPM) that is filled with unlawful provisions.
Now, Secretary of State Fontes has been dealt another major blow after a superior court judge ruled against him…
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by AZ Free Enterprise Club | Sep 9, 2023 | Opinion
By the Arizona Free Enterprise Club |
For local governments—and councils of governments—in Arizona, it appears that creating a climate action plan has become all the rage. Maybe that’s because it pays well.
The latest group to bow down at the altar of the Biden administration’s climate change agenda is the Maricopa Association of Governments (MAG). Back in August, MAG received a $1 million grant from the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Climate Pollution Reduction Grant Program to serve as the lead planning organization for the Phoenix-Mesa-Chandler metro area. The grant requires MAG to develop a priority climate action plan by next March, a comprehensive climate action plan by 2025, and a status report in 2027 after the four-year grant period expires.
But this $1 million grant isn’t the only way MAG stands to benefit…
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by AZ Free Enterprise Club | Sep 2, 2023 | Opinion
By the Arizona Free Enterprise Club |
The federal government and state governments across the country should be doing everything they can to ensure election integrity going forward. Over the past few years, the Arizona legislature has taken this to heart. But the Left has been fighting against every legitimate election reform that comes from conservatives. Not only are they filing lawsuits in court, but they’ve been deploying a new tactic that threatens the First Amendment.
Lawsuits Against Election Integrity Bills
In 2021, the Arizona legislature passed, and then-Governor Ducey signed into law SB 1485—a law designed to clean up Arizona’s early voter list. Then in 2022, state lawmakers followed that up with HB 2243 (to ensure regular voter list maintenance) and HB 2492 (to ensure that only U.S. citizens are voting in our elections).
These are commonsense laws that everyone should be able to get behind, but the Left gave up commonsense years ago…
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by AZ Free Enterprise Club | Aug 26, 2023 | Opinion
By the Arizona Free Enterprise Club |
The people of Arizona deserve elections that are both accessible and secure—where it is easy to vote and hard to cheat. It is the duty of the legislature to pass bills that ensure this, the Governor to sign those bills into law, and the Attorney General to enforce those laws.
But the Secretary of State’s role is different. This elected official is supposed to provide an Elections Procedures Manual (EPM) that provides impartial direction to county recorders to ensure uniform and correct implementation of election law. But just like his predecessor in this role before him (now-Governor Katie Hobbs), our current Secretary of State Adrian Fontes has filled his EPM with unlawful provisions…
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by AZ Free Enterprise Club | Aug 21, 2023 | Opinion
By the Arizona Free Enterprise Club |
For years, the Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC) has been the stomping ground for the left to push its Green New Deal Agenda. In fact, it was just over two years ago when the commission quietly released its plan to impose California-style energy mandates in our state. Their goal was to ban fossil fuels and require most electricity companies to provide “clean” energy by 2050. Thankfully, the commission voted down these energy mandates in January 2022. But that hasn’t stopped the left from trying to find other ways to exploit the ACC.
One of their latest efforts has centered on Tucson, and as part of its Green New Deal agenda, Tucson Electric Power (TEP) asked the ACC for rate hikes to subsidize electric vehicles. But TEP didn’t get everything it wanted…
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