The Arizona Senate passed a bill banning gender reassignment surgeries for minors late last week after State Senator Tyler Pace (R-Mesa) switched his vote. Pace voted against the original version of the bill during the Senate Health and Human Services Committee. At the time, Pace argued that parents should have the right to make those medical decisions for their children.
Pace agreed to support the bill after he authored a strike-all amendment modifying it, which the committee approved. The amendment removed language prohibiting physicians or health care professionals from referring minors to health care professionals for gender transition procedures. It also removed language prohibiting government funds from going to entities, organizations, or individuals that provide gender transition procedures to minors.
When the committee reconsidered the bill as rewritten under Pace’s amendment, Pace cited the international standards of care of World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) to justify his changed mind, noting that they don’t support transgender surgeries for minors. Pace clarified that physicians who implement gender reassignment surgeries on minors would be in violation of international best standards of care and subject to sanctions otherwise.
“There’s a certain threshold of irreversibility that can happen during a gender transition. We acknolwedge as a state, and so does other very friendly transgender countries like Finland, like I brought up earlier, as well as the international organizations that say: when you get to this degree of irreversibility, it should not be made as a minor,” said Pace.
There was disagreement in the committee between State Senators Nancy Barto (R-Phoenix) and Raquel Terán (D-Phoenix); Terán wanted to hear more public testimony, but Barto said that they heard almost 3 hours on the same subject the previous week.
The final Senate version of the bill removed the amendment stipulation that a minor must not have lived continuously in the gender role congruent with their gender identity for 12 months in order for the surgical prohibition to apply.
During the Senate floor vote, Democrats said the legislation opposed equality and attacked minors. State Senator Christine Marsh (D-Phoenix) said the bill was an “unnecessary,” masked effort to choose “buzz-words out of thin air” for the true objective of attacking children.
State Senator Rosanna Gabaldon (D-Sahuarita) claimed that transgender procedures merely prevented puberty. Gabaldon didn’t broach the subject of reported adverse effects of hormone blockers and therapies or gender reassignment surgeries.
With the amended language, the bill passed along party lines — no Republicans objected to it.
No gender reassignment surgery under the age of 18 passed the Arizona Senate. On to the house. pic.twitter.com/g7TGnDYjYR
The Arizona House passed a bill to prevent illegal immigrants from voting, HB2492, along party lines on Monday, 31-26. The bill would impact federal-only voters heavily because that class of voters isn’t required by federal law to provide proof of citizenship. Federal-only voters had a significant impact in the 2020 election. The main exception made in this legislation would be for those who submit forms produced by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission.
The bill would require county recorders to rely on local, federal, and state databases to discern whether the applicant is a citizen. Refusal to comply would qualify officials for a class six felony. In the event that an applicant is discovered to be here illegally, officials must notify applicants of their rejection and refer the case to both the county attorney and attorney general for further investigation. Lack of citizenship proof, however, would only require election officials to notify the applicant of their rejection and offer them time to respond with proof of citizenship. A floor amendment removed the 30-day deadline applicants would’ve had to abide by to provide proof of citizenship.
Valid, unexpired driver’s licenses or nonoperating ID numbers would suffice for proof of location requirements to establish residency.
County recorders must also work with the secretary of state to present a list of all individuals who registered to vote and haven’t provided satisfactory evidence of citizenship by Halloween of this year. At that point, the attorney general would have until the end of next March to determine each applicant’s citizenship status and submit a report to the secretary of state, senate president, and house speaker.
As AZ Free News reported, the sponsor of the bill, State Representative Jake Hoffman (R-Queen Creek), explained in the House Government and Elections Committee last month that there were over 11,000 individuals who didn’t provide a Documentary Proof of Citizenship (DPOC) to vote in the 2020 election. By contrast, there were about 1,700 individuals who didn’t provide proof of citizenship in 2018.
HB2492 received significant opposition from the illegal immigrant activist community. Those who harassed and stalked Senator Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) into an Arizona State University (ASU) bathroom over her refusal to support President Joe Biden’s reconciliation bill.
The bill now heads to the Senate for consideration.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
Voters may be asked to approve the requirement of ID for early ballots, according to the Arizona legislature’s approval of a proposed constitutional amendment, SCR1012. The resolution, sponsored by State Senator J.D. Mesnard (R-Chandler) and now headed to Governor Doug Ducey for approval, passed 31-26 along party lines in the House on Monday and 16-12 in the Senate last Thursday.
SCR1012 would require voters to sign an affidavit including their date of birth and their early voter ID number: either their driver’s license number, their nonoperating ID license number, the last four digits of their social security number, or their unique identifying number. For security purposes, the legislation clarified that concealment measures must be undertaken when delivering or mailing the ballots. If a voter can’t mark the ballot themselves, they must include their assistant’s phone number and relationship to them.
Election workers must ensure that this additional information is present and accurate. Inability to confirm the information would first require election workers to contact the voter before disqualifying the ballot.
Additionally, on-site early voting locations must require voters to present their ID before receiving a ballot. The legislation prohibits the state from charging for nonoperating ID licenses required for registering to vote or voting.
The legislation would apply no earlier than the next primary elections in 2024.
During last week’s vote on the bill, Senate Democrats argued that the bill would cause severe lags and disruptions at best and outright voter suppression at worst. Senate Republicans responded that signatures alone weren’t a sufficient identifying measure.
State Senator Martín Quezada (D-Quezada) noted how after a similar bill was enacted in Texas, a rate of 40 percent of ballots were rejected in the largest county, Harris County, to the tune of thousands of ballots. Quezada said that the potential rejection rates were too great to pass the bill. He argued that it would be “suppressing the vote.”
In response, State Senator Kelly Townsend (R-Mesa) rebutted that signatures alone weren’t enough. She declared that about 90 percent of signatures from the 2020 election were obvious mismatches, along with 39 percent of those being probable mismatches. Townsend raised the greater concern of accountability for the election workers who decided to approve those ballots with mismatched signatures, questioning whether they would also rubber stamp ballots with missing, unmatched, or incorrect ID numbers or birth dates.
“Why are we wasting our time on this? What’s the point? May the best cheaters win. You know? Because no one’s going to hold you accountable. So maybe that ought to be the new narrative: whoever can outplay the system the best is the one who wins the election,” said Townsend. “You guys say ‘voter suppression’; we need cheating suppression.”
State Senator Sean Bowie (D-Chandler) argued the bill was unnecessary. He said that over 80 percent of his district’s voters vote by mail. Bowie said that people weren’t capable of adapting to the changes of additional requirements on their ballot.
State Senator Vince Leach (R-Tucson) pointed out how Democrats weren’t insulted at the idea of IDs for other parts of public life, including traveling, but expressed displeasure concerning elections.
“It’s beyond the pale that when it comes to a ballot box that, all of a sudden, everything goes out the window of everyday life. The world is changing because of one small card the size of a credit card. It’s unbelievable,” said Leach.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
On Monday, the Senate determined that SB1399 would advance for a final vote as early as next week, a bill that would prohibit the state from discriminating against potential adoptive or foster parents or individuals who advertise, provide, or facilitate adoption or foster care services based on their religious beliefs. State Senator Sine Kerr (R-Buckeye) introduced the bill.
The bill also allows the state to consider the child’s religious beliefs in their placement with a family. Individuals may also seek court relief if they believe they’ve been discriminated against, and are entitled to recoup attorney fees, compensatory damages, and any relief including injunctive or declaratory.
Acts of religious discrimination were classified as altering the tax treatment of a person, including assessing penalties and refusing tax exemptions; disallowing or denying a tax deduction for charitable donations; withholding, reducing, excluding, terminating, or materially altering the terms or conditions of a state grant, contract, subcontract, cooperative agreement, guarantee, loan, scholarship or other similar benefit from or to a person; withholding, reducing, excluding, terminating or adversely altering the terms or conditions of or denying any entitlement or benefit under a state benefit program from or to a person; imposing, levying or assessing a monetary fine, fee, penalty, damages or an injunction; withholding, reducing, excluding, terminating, materially altering the terms or conditions of or denying license, certification, accreditation, custody award or agreement, diploma, grade, recognition or other similar benefit, position or status from or to a person; and refusing to hire or promote, forcing to resign, fire, demote, sanction, discipline, adversely alter the terms or conditions of employment, retaliate or take other adverse employment action against a person employed or commissioned by the state government.
State Senator Raquel Terán (D-) said she opposed the bill in committee because she didn’t consider religious discrimination to be a valid form of discrimination, calling it “alarming.”
“This is discrimination that hs no place in our country or in our state,” said Terán.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
Arizona State University (ASU) planned to launch American University Kyiv (AUK) next month, a private Ukrainian university offering both bachelor’s and master’s degrees comprised from ASU curriculum.
American University Kyiv Founding Rector Roman Sheremeta claimed to ABC15 that he miraculously avoided Russia’s invasion by one day, not knowing he avoided their breach by a mere 24 hours. Sheremeta — a Ukrainian native who resided in Cleveland, Ohio until AUK development — added that the remainder of his family living in Ukraine were safe.
Roman Sheremeta is the founding rector of American University Kyiv. The school, in partnership with ASU, was set to welcome students next month.
In a response to ABC15, Sheremeta criticized the U.S. for not taking a more active approach to thwarting Russia’s advances.
“This is not the end of the story, and the west has been very inactive in terms of their responses,” said Sheremeta. “They didn’t believe this would happen in the 21st century, and Putin will go as far as the west allows him to do.”
AUK was a product of Cintana Alliance, an initiative launched by ASU President Michael Crow and education magnate Doug Becker: founder of an expansive private equity firm, Sterling Partners; founder and prior chairman and CEO of the largest education company globally, Laureate Education; and prior chairman and CEO of the largest K-12 tutoring company in the U.S., Sylvan Learning Systems. Becker also has membership within the John Hopkins Medicine Board of Trustees and chairs the International Youth Foundation (IYF) Board.
Becker’s business ventures have deep, controversial ties with the Clintons. Former President Bill Clinton held the position of Honorary Chancellor of Laureate Education, receiving about $18 million in compensation: something that stirred up controversy during Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential run. Hillary’s trove of emails off her server revealed that, after she was newly appointed as secretary of state in 2009, she insisted that Becker be invited to a private State Department dinner on higher-education policy due to his long-standing support for her and Bill. The Clinton Foundation reportedly received millions from Laureate Education, partnering with them for global initiatives for several years. Over the next few years following that state department dinner, Bill would be appointed honorary chancellor at Becker’s company, Hillary announced Laureate Education would be part of the State Department Global Partnership, and the State Department gave IYF over $25 million.
Also involved in AUK’s development was the U.S.-Ukraine Business Council (USUBC) Ambassador Kurt Volker, as Arizona Daily Independent reported. Considering former President Donald Trump underwent impeachment hearings over his investigation into President Joe Biden and Hunter Biden’sUkrainian and Chinese business dealings — confirmed and memorialized in breaking investigative reporting by New York Post as “Hunter Biden’s laptop” — Volker’s role as special envoy to Ukraine at the time spurred controversy. The negative press prompted Volker to step down from his roles within the Trump Administration and as the McCain Institute Executive Director.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
