Arizona’s top Democrats from Congress on down are coordinating to pass a ballot measure that would enshrine relaxed voter ID laws in the Arizona Constitution.
A coalition of top Democrats joined on a livestream earlier this week for a launch of the Protect the Vote Arizona Act political action committee: Reps. Greg Stanton (D-AZ-04), Yassamin Ansari (D-AZ-03), and Adelita Grijalva (D-AZ-07); Secretary of State Adrian Fontes; Attorney General Kris Mayes; and the minority leaders for the Arizona House and Senate, Rep. Oscar De Los Santos (D-LD-11) and Sen. Priya Sundareshan (D-LD-18).
The Democrats styled the ballot measure in their public comments as focused primarily on keeping mail-in voting as an option in Arizona. However, most of the ballot measure focuses on undoing the strictness of voter ID laws and ensuring that stricter voting requirements may not come to pass.
The Protect the Vote Arizona Act would require the acceptance of any IDs with the photograph, name, and address of an individual — not just limited to any government-issued form of identification.
The act also prohibits limiting allowable forms of identification to photo IDs, and requires acceptance of IDs so long as election workers can’t determine “on its face” that the identification provided had expired.
The act would also require the acceptance of “any two forms of identification that bear the name and address of the elector.” The non-exhaustive examples of valid voter ID included utility bills or bank or credit union statements dated within ninety days of the election, or any mailing labeled “official election material.”
Even if an individual doesn’t provide valid identification, the law would require that individual be allowed to cast a provisional ballot regardless. According to the ballot measure, that provisional ballot wouldn’t count unless the elector provides any of the myriad forms of ID to their county elections officer within a certain time frame.
Beyond identification laws, the act would prohibit any policies or laws that would “burden” voting, not just those that restrict or curtail voting. One of those measures would concern mail-in ballots. The act proposes to enshrine mail-in ballots within the Arizona Constitution.
Help us protect early voting and mail-in voting in Arizona! Join me for a ‘Protect the Vote’ livestream this evening to learn more about this key Arizona ballot initiative. We must count and protect every single vote 🗳️📩 pic.twitter.com/uqkqmfYOue
Ansari said in the livestream that Democrats need to gather 500,000 signatures by July 2 to get their constitutional measure on the ballot this November. The Protect the Vote Arizona website said a lower number will be needed: about 384,000 signatures.
Ansari estimated that they’ve already collected about 50,000 signatures in recent weeks.
During conversations on the ballot measure, Grijalva agreed with a claim that the SAVE Act and similar efforts to require voter ID were rooted in racist efforts to prevent non-whites from voting.
“We have to give people hope that there is a way out of this,” said Grijalva. “We know that our message is resonating with people.”
Other top Democrats on the livestream included Democratic Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY), Greg Casar (TX), Jasmine Crockett (TX), Maxwell Frost (FL), and Robert Garcia (CA).
The political action committee behind the ballot measure, Protect the Vote Arizona, claimed to have had no funding or expenditures since its launch in January through the end of March.
Key members behind the ballot measure are Maritza Miranda Saenz, a lobbyist with Lumen Strategies, and Dacey Montoya, Gov. Katie Hobbs’ treasurer and a leading dark money handler for Arizona Democrats (see: “The Money Wheel”).
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Arizona’s Permanent Land Endowment Trust Fund (PLETF) market value surpassed $10 billion, the Arizona Treasurer’s Office announced.
PLETF reflects the deposits and investments of proceeds from public land sales. The federal government gave nearly 11 million acres to Arizona for endowment when it achieved statehood in 1912, just as it had done for other states.
PLETF has 13 beneficiaries, but its main beneficiaries are K-12 public schools, which includes the Arizona State School for the Deaf and Blind. Other beneficiaries include the state’s universities; state prisons; the State Hospital; the legislative, executive, and judicial branches; the Arizona Miners’ Hospital; and the Arizona Pioneers Home.
(State law slated the Arizona Pioneers Home and Arizona Miners Hospital for termination in July 2032).
Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission data reported the remaining total of state trust land to be about nine million out of the original 11 million acres. The state has a total of nearly 73 million acres.
That nine million acre estimate equals about 13 percent of total land in the state. Privately-held land only makes up 14 percent of Arizona land.
PLETF’s 10-year returns were reported to have outperformed the average U.S. college and university endowments for the past decade.
In February, the PLETF had a fair market value of $10.1 billion.
Arizona Treasurer Kimberly Yee reported that the Permanent Land Endowment Trust Fund had a market value of $10.1 billion. This is an increase of 73% since @AZTreasurerYee took office.
— Office of the Arizona State Treasurer (@AZTreasury) May 1, 2026
The latest reported all-time high, the newest in a succession of all-time highs, can be attributed to the treasurer office’s director of endowments, Tim White.
White has managed PLETF’s stock portfolio for nearly 30 years (since 1999). Per the treasurer’s office, White has the ultimate decision-making responsibility on all holdings and trades for PLETF.
White’s tenure has overseen a growth of the PLETF fair market value from $475 million in 1992 to repeated all-time highs, including the most present reporting.
Despite this progress, some argue the PLETF could be doing more.
The Common Sense Institute Arizona (CSI) issued a report critical of the approach to the PLETF last November. In it, CSI argued that the administration of PLETF has failed for a long time — not just for the duration of this administration, but for the last 100 years.
CSI claimed PLETF could have been worth more than $163 billion, over sixteen times this latest historic amount, and could have distributed $140 billion to beneficiaries.
CSI estimated in its report that the ordered sale of remaining trust land over the next ten years would generate more than $18 billion in revenue and $55 billion in new economic activity.
The organization’s director of policy and research, Glenn Farley, told KJZZ last December that the state has taken the most action on growing the financial account but hasn’t taken enough action on selling the physical land. Farley advocated for a “foundational reevaluation” of the state’s timeline for land sales and its PLETF priorities.
“[T]his is not an administrative problem,” said Farley. “This is a 100-year problem. No administration in this state has really taken full advantage of this asset.”
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Rep. Abe Hamadeh (R-AZ-08) reportedly assisted with the capture of three illegal aliens while tagging along on a border security sweep.
Hamadeh traded the suit and tie preferred on Capitol Hill for military fatigues during a ride-along with Border Patrol on Tuesday. The congressman thanked the Pinal County Sheriff’s Office for arranging his participation in their immigration enforcement work.
Great honor to join our brave law enforcement officers, state and federal, who are working together in securing our border. Today, we assisted Border Patrol in capturing three illegal aliens.
The Pinal County Attorney’s Office and Board of Supervisors have been sparring over the former’s decision to enter into an agreement assisting Immigrations and Customs Enforcement with deportations. The board sued the county attorney, Brad Miller, over the agreement.
The Pinal County Superior Court issued a temporary restraining order on that agreement in February prior to the case’s transferral to the Maricopa County Superior Court, where it remains pending.
As part of that court-ordered halt, Miller agreed to not engage with ICE beyond information sharing.
Separately, a federal court ruled last month in favor of state laws enabling state and local police to arrest illegal aliens for immigration violations. The case was decided by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals on the fate of a Texas law (Texas Senate Bill 4); the Biden administration initiated that lawsuit, but the Trump administration dropped it recently.
The court dismissed the case after determining that the one county and two civil rights groups that remained as the sole challengers to the Texas law lacked standing.
That appeals court decision gave the green light to the Arizona Border Security Act, or Proposition 314, which was passed by Arizona voters in 2024. Gov. Katie Hobbs attempted to terminate that legislation through veto, but a majority of Arizona voters proved to support the measure.
The Texas and Arizona laws, and others like them, will likely face challenges for the foreseeable future. Civil rights groups filed a lawsuit to stop the Texas law on Monday.
🚨 Huge news! The Arizona Border Security Act will go into effect!
The 5th Circuit just ruled that Texas SB 4 can finally take effect — giving state and local police the power to arrest illegal border crossers.
Arizona voters made their position crystal clear in 2024,…
A hearing is scheduled for May 15 at 9 am before Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Michael Gordon.
Southwest land border encounters have declined steeply since President Donald Trump took office. Border encounters went from all-time highs of several million per fiscal year (over 2.4 million in fiscal year 2023, and over 2.1 million in fiscal year 2024) to one-fourth previous totals (over 400,000 in fiscal year 2025).
At this point in the last fiscal year, southwest land border encounters were approximately 380,700. For this fiscal year, there have been just over 63,700 encounters: approximately one-sixth the total from the same point in time the last fiscal year.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection fiscal years run from October of the previous year to September of the current year (fiscal year 2026 runs from October 2025 to September 2026).
While Arizona’s Republican elected officials in Congress have offered their support for immigration enforcement, Democratic representatives have worked to slow or halt immigration enforcement.
Congresswomen Adelita Grijalva (D-AZ-07) and Yassamin Ansari (D-AZ-03) have both dedicated significant taxpayer resources to assisting illegal aliens and opposing ICE.
AZ Free News reported last week that nearly half of Grijalva’s press releases since taking office have concerned a defense of illegal aliens or opposition to ICE. Nearly one-third of her X posts since taking office were defenses of illegal aliens, demands to abolish ICE, or opposition to immigration enforcement. Three of her 14 non-recognition remarks on the congressional record were focused on opposing ICE and immigration enforcement.
Grijalva and Ansari, along with Rep. Greg Stanton (D-AZ-04) and Democratic Sens. Mark Kelly and Ruben Gallego, have made multiple trips to immigration detention centers, independently and as a group. The Democratic officials have referred to illegal aliens as their constituents.
Last week, Grijalva, Ansari, and Stanton introduced legislation to limit detention periods of illegal aliens to 12 hours.
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The sole Maricopa County supervisor to extend support for the county recorder over the ongoing elections authority spat has requested court assistance with mediation.
In a filing last week in County Recorder Justin Heap’s case against the board of supervisors before the Maricopa County Superior Court, Supervisor Mark Stewart filed a response amending his vote from opposition against to support for his fellow supervisors’ motion to stay the ruling.
Some interpreted the filing as Stewart backtracking his support for the recorder. Stewart has sided with Heap generally on the proper division of elections authority.
Stewart said ongoing mediation attempts have failed and required court intervention.
“Supervisor Stewart supports a temporary stay solely for the purpose of mediation,” stated the filing. “Previous efforts at mediation have failed despite the parties all claiming a willingness to mediate based upon timing, preconditions, and disagreement over the mediator.”
Stewart requested the court order Heap and the board to attend a mediation before the court appointed mediator within the next two weeks.
In a video posted online, Stewart explained that his filing was not a challenge to the court ruling, like the motion put forth by his colleagues, but simply a means to “alleviate some of the operational ambiguity” within remaining questions of operations so that board and recorder staff could move forward.
“What we do not need is to prolong this conflict. We need a defined path forward,” said Stewart. “While we may have different views on the path forward, I know we all have the same goal of delivering reliable, secure, transparent elections for Maricopa voters.”
Stewart said he didn’t want the case to go to appeal. That was something his fellow supervisors desired.
Background on my court filing:
Court ordered mediation is not about the appeal.
Let’s use the time of the stay to negotiate operational challenges and accept the ruling.
— Mark Stewart Maricopa County Supervisor District 1 (@MarkStewart_AZ) May 5, 2026
Last month, the superior court ruled in Heap’s favor and restored the county recorder’s election powers. The court rejected the board’s claim of plenary authority and declared it had acted unlawfully beyond statutory authority. A specific finding of wrongdoing concerned the removal of personnel, systems, and equipment from the recorder’s office.
The court warned, further, that continued absconding of election powers by the board of supervisors would likely result in voter disenfranchisement.
“The evidence at trial established that the Recorder’s inability to exercise meaningful control over election systems and staff will likely cause concrete operational harms, including inability to timely process provisional ballots under A.R.S. § 16-134, resulting in voters being denied tabulation of the full ballots they had voted and to which they were entitled,” stated the ruling. “These harms will not resolve and may likely increase absent court intervention, particularly as general election cycles approach.”
The board argued in a filing earlier this week that the court’s ruling conflicted with state statute and would interfere with administration of the upcoming jurisdictional election scheduled to occur in less than two weeks.
“This ruling creates confusion about key aspects of election administration including chain of custody, on-site tabulation, and the handing of mail-in ballots on Election Day,” said Board of Supervisors Chair Kate Brophy McGee in a statement. “Making major changes in the middle of the election cycle is not just a terrible idea for voters, it’s going to be almost impossible to implement responsibly.”
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Gov. Katie Hobbs’ overruled housing moratorium could leave taxpayers on the hook for more than $1 billion in compensation to builders.
The housing moratorium was a result of the Arizona Department of Water Resources’ (ADWR) indefinite suspension of developer certificates throughout the Valley based on new groundwater regulations imposed under Hobbs in 2024.
For decades, state law required developers to prove 100 years of assured water supply for their developments. Once Hobbs took office, ADWR imposed new regulations that expanded developers’ duty to prove assured water supply beyond their development into the surrounding water management area.
The Home Builders Association of Central Arizona (HBACA) sued ADWR over the regulations last January, represented by the Goldwater Institute. Last month, the Maricopa County Superior Court sided with HBACA and struck down the moratorium. Judge Scott Blaney found that ADWR violated Arizona law on the extent of its powers and on agency rulemaking.
ADWR plans to appeal the ruling.
A former ADWR director and one of the leading policymakers behind the legacy rule on assured water supply (the 1980 Groundwater Management Act) spoke out against the superior court ruling.
Kathleen Ferris, now an Arizona State University (ASU) senior research fellow with the Kyl Center for Water Policy, told KJZZ last month that ADWR was justified in its rulemaking because it had discovered that Phoenix-area groundwater was more interconnected than understood previously.
Whether that court ruling will stand on appeal or no, taxpayers will likely be on the hook for hundreds of millions — perhaps over a billion — in builder compensation claims filed under the Private Property Rights Protection Act, enacted under Proposition 207.
Prop 207 entitles property owners to just compensation for any land use laws’ impact on the use, division, sale, or possession of their property that reduces its fair market value.
One such Prop 207 claim is already underway.
Last September, developers Buckeye Tartesso and Buckeye Tartesso II filed a claim demanding over $320 million in compensation for lost value due to the ADWR rule. That figure, however, reflected only a low estimate which the developers felt they could accept as a settlement.
“[This figure] incorporates a number of conservative assumptions, and the [developers] expect that actual, proven damages would be significantly higher,” read the demand letter. “This demand is an offer of settlement, in the nature of a compromise, and the [developers] reserve the right to seek additional or different damages if litigation is necessary.”
ADWR prevented the developers from obtaining a certificate of assured water source for the Tartesso development in the city of Buckeye, which spanned over 12,800 acres. As a consequence, they were prohibited from subdividing or selling lots on that property.
The Goldwater Institute filed the claim on behalf of the developers.
Should all builders file similar claims, taxpayers could be on the hook for over $1 billion in compensation payments at a time when the state is already struggling with budget woes.
Gov. Hobbs inherited a budget surplus of over $2.5 billion from her predecessor, Republican governor Doug Ducey. After two years in office, the budget plunged to a $1.4 billion deficit: a near-180 on the state’s fiscal health.
The latest figures reflect a slightly better status, though still nowhere near in the black: a deficit of over $300 million, according to Rep. David Schweikert (R-AZ-06).
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