The Republican-led Senate is poised to vote on multiple bills that would impose greater restrictions on gender transition procedures in Arizona.
The Senate Health and Human Services Committee passed four bills targeting different aspects of gender transition procedures: Senate Bills 1014, 1177, 1094, and 1095. All with the exception of SB 1095 were heard in committee last week. All were passed without the support of Democratic lawmakers.
Progressive activists lined up to testify against the bills during the several committee hearings.
SB1095, which would ban gender transition procedures for minors, provoked testimony from several activist adults who identify as transgender.
Former Liberty Elementary School District governing board member, Paul Bixler, said SB1095 would harm, not help, children. Bixler, a man, identifies as a transgender woman.
Ruth Carter, an attorney, said SB1095 amounted to discrimination. Carter, a woman, identifies as a nonbinary individual.
Marilyn Rodriguez, Creosote Partners founder and lobbyist representing the ACLU, said SB1095 was impermissibly broad as written.
Sen. Lauren Kuby (D-LD8) called the bill discriminatory, and argued that lawmakers shouldn’t ban gender transition procedures since certain healthcare experts support those procedures as treatments for gender dysphoria.
“These are private, personal decisions, healthcare decisions, we shouldn’t be discriminating against transgendered youth or those who have gender dysphoria as is described,” said Kuby.
Sen. Analise Ortiz (D-LD24) said the legislature would be better focusing on making healthcare more affordable. Ortiz said the legislation was not only discriminatory but violative of parental rights laws.
“It bans healthcare for a specific group of people solely based on gender identity; that is discrimination no matter how you want to paint it,” said Ortiz.
Sen. Mark Finchem (R-LD1), the bill sponsor, disputed the narratives of his Democratic colleagues that healthcare experts were to be trusted fully and that gender transition procedures were appropriate for minors.
“To those who worship the grounds that doctors walk on: they also said cigarettes were good for you,” said Finchem. “[Permanently altering treatments like mastectomies] are decisions that kids are being talked into, in some cases. I didn’t just dream this bill up myself. This came from kids and parents. More kids than parents.”
Majority Leader John Kavanagh (R-LD3) questioned the logic of his Democratic colleagues that parents had a right to submit children to irreversible medical treatments, but not the right to decide whether their children should be called by certain pronouns or alternative names in school.
SB 1014 would require health insurers to offer coverage for detransition procedures should those insurers provide coverage for gender transition procedures. It would also issue reporting requirements on insurance claims for gender detransitions.
“Detransitioners are people too; they deserve the same care as those who are manipulated into believing they have gender dysphoria, which leads them to undergo gender transition surgery that they later regret,” said the bill sponsor, Sen. Janae Shamp (R-LD29), in a press release. “This legislative package puts their long-term well-being above politics and ideology.”
Jeanne Woodbury, a lobbyist for the ACLU, argued the reporting requirements within the bill would result in discriminatory outcomes.
Bixler, the transgender-identifying former school board member, claimed the bill would result in providers refusing to provide gender transition procedures.
SB 1177 would ban public funding for gender transition procedures.
Sen. Wendy Rogers (R-LD7), the bill sponsor, explained during Wednesday’s HHS hearing that she discovered taxpayers were funding gender transition treatments for prisoners. Rogers also discovered that individuals were being arrested on purpose in order to receive free gender transition treatments.
“Taxpayer dollars should never be used to bankroll irreversible procedures on children,” said Rogers in a later press release. “This legislation draws a hard line and makes clear that public funds will not subsidize experimental or life-altering interventions on minors.”
Ashton Allen expressed support on behalf of Center for Arizona Policy. Allen said subsidies should be tied to valid medical treatments, which he said gender transition procedures weren’t.
Woodbury, the transgender-identifying ACLU lobbyist, argued against Rogers’ claims and said the treatments were affordable. Woodbury also said an end to subsidization would lead to excessive medical risks associated with forced detransitions.
Minority Whip Rosanna Gabaldon (D-LD21) said ending subsidies was “extreme and punitive,” as well as “unfair and dangerous.”
Sen. Sally Ann Gonzales (D-LD20) accused Rogers of faking a story that individuals were getting themselves arrested in order to receive free gender transition treatments. Gonzales called the bill discriminatory.
Sen. Shamp questioned why drugs historically considered to be dangerous were suddenly ethical in the context of gender reassignment.
“Lupron was deemed cruel and unusual punishment being utilized in the prison system for sex offenders, rapists. But now we want Arizona taxpayers to pay for that drug to be utilized for gender reassignment? How the heck did we get here?” said Shamp.
SB 1094 would allow individuals to seek damages in court against physicians who performed gender reassignment surgeries on them as minors. Kavanagh sponsored the bill.
“When permanent procedures are performed on minors who suffer harm, there must be consequences,” said Kavanagh in a press release. “These reforms restore transparency and provide a pathway to just compensation for those harmed.”
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The Maricopa County Recorder’s Office recovered $500,000 in overcharges from the federal postal agency.
County Recorder Justin Heap reported during Wednesday’s board of supervisors meeting that the United States Postal Service (USPS) had overcharged Maricopa County for “several years,” to the tune of $500,000. The recorder advised the supervisors that their office worked with USPS to recoup those lost funds.
“We discovered the United States Postal Services has been overcharging Maricopa County for quite a few years. We have worked with them, we will be receiving a refund of $500,000 from USPS to help defray the costs of everything going forward,” said Heap. “We used to give awards in this county for people who save the county money, now we get subpoenas.”
$500,000 makes up about two percent of the recorder’s budget under the 2026 fiscal year budget. It amounts to a little over one percent of the 2025 fiscal year budget.
The revelation of the recovered $500,000 emerged during a special meeting called by the board of supervisors requiring Heap to testify on the administration of his office and claims of disenfranchisement — a meeting which Heap made clear he opposed.
“This reaches to the level of administrative interference. We’re in the middle of an election, I’ve had to pull certified election officers off of this election to spend time compiling this report and these documents to comply with this demand,” said Heap.
Heap brought the report which he said contained “thousands of pages of documents” providing evidence of his office’s administration. The recorder said the compilation of this report strained his office due to the constrained timeline of less than a week.
As to the disenfranchisement claims that emerged during Maricopa County Superior Court testimony last month, Heap said the recorder’s office has struggled in previous elections to complete provisional ballots under the condensed time frame. In order to solve that problem, Heap asked the board for an Agilis sorting machine. That sorter would cost just under $600,000.
The recorder said relying on Runbeck for provisional processing wouldn’t be advisable considering their company doesn’t connect to the county’s voter database, and the requirement of transporting the ballots to Runbeck would expose the county to chain of custody complications.
Heap said disenfranchisement hasn’t occurred “so far this year” under his administration, and that claims made during court testimony were referencing past administrations. One of the staff members who cited disenfranchisement during their testimony, chief of staff Sam Stone, retained his own counsel.
Supervisor Thomas Galvin asked Heap to explain why the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office (MCAO) said they had not approved universal mail-in ballots during last year’s congressional district 7 special election, when the recorder’s office said they had.
Heap rejected the characterization of those mail ballots. He said his office only made a proposal to send ballots to a selection of 3,000 voters who lacked a polling place, but didn’t act on it.
“This proposal was not even put in our plan to the MCAO, and we never implemented it, I’m not sure why the board has continued to hang up on a proposal that was never actually implemented,” said Heap.
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Property tax subsidies for wind and solar projects may be coming to an end in Arizona.
On Wednesday, an Arizona House committee approved HB 2918, legislation to hold renewable energy to the same taxation standards as other forms of energy production. The bill passed the Natural Resources, Energy and Water (NREW) Committee only with support from Republican lawmakers.
According to Joint Legislative Budget Committee estimates, renewable energy companies benefit from about $180 million annually in tax exemptions in the state.
The millions in exemptions come from two “stacked” subsidies: a reduction in the taxable original cost, which reduces a project’s starting valuation base below the actual amount invested through the value of certain federal incentives, and a valuation of 20 percent of depreciated cost, which sets the full cash value of renewable energy and storage equipment at 20 percent of the cost determined following establishment of the taxable original cost.
Republican lawmakers argue this benefit has gone on far enough, given how well-established the renewable energy industry has become. Legislative leaders say these sorts of benefits should be exclusive to emerging industries, like data centers.
Wednesday’s lack of support from Democratic lawmakers indicated the desire to shift resources away from renewable energy is rooted in a partisan desire to shrink the state’s foregone revenues.
NREW Committee chair Gail Griffin (R-LD19) said this legislation would put the merits of renewable energies to the test on the free market while keeping power reliable and affordable. Griffin said the “preferential treatment” of renewable energy lacked justification for further continuance.
“The American public has known from day one that these projects could not stand on their own feet without massive state and federal tax breaks,” said Griffin. “If renewable energy projects like wind and solar are truly the lowest-cost resource, then they should have no problem repealing the massive property tax break for new projects going forward.”
Last month, Gov. Katie Hobbs targeted the benefits given to data centers during her state of the state address.
House Majority Leader Michael Carbone (R-LD25) countered in a press release issued Wednesday that data centers have justification for their tax exemptions — renewable energies, not so much. Data center tax exemptions amount to about $38 million annually, less than one-fourth the amount received by renewable energy.
“The Governor said during her State of the State that, over a decade ago, ‘we made a strategic decision to grow data centers by creating a tax exemption for them,’ but then asked, ‘Should taxpayers continue subsidizing the data center industry?’” said Carbone. “I think the same question should be asked of large, utility-scale renewable energy projects like wind and solar. Years ago, this state gave renewable energy projects a massive tax break, substantially more than data centers, and now it’s appropriate to ask whether it’s fair to have Arizona taxpayers continue subsidizing the renewable energy industry.”
The legislation would impact large, out-of-state corporations. It would not apply to those facilities owned by or engaged in a power purchase agreement with the state’s public utilities — part of a grandfathering provision to ensure tax break eliminations don’t trigger a jump in customer rates.
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Arizona state lawmakers requested the U.S. Supreme Court to take up an appeal on the state’s proof of citizenship for voter registration.
Last February, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals struck down two laws which established proof of citizenship requirements. That court declared Arizona’s laws attempting to add more requirements on voter registrations were preempted by the simpler registration requirements of federal voting rights laws under the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) and were therefore invalid.
Those laws, passed in 2022 under then-Gov. Doug Ducey, restricted mail-in voting for registrants lacking citizenship verification in addition to requiring recorders to check federal citizenship databases and applicants to provide documentary proof of citizenship and residence. These pieces of legislation emerged following the Supreme Court’s 2013 decision against an Arizona law requiring proof of citizenship when registering to vote in federal elections.
Several years later, in 2018, the state entered into a consent decree requiring county recorders to search Arizona Department of Transportation (ADOT) records for state registration forms lacking proof of citizenship. Those applications without verifiable citizenship proof through ADOT would only be allowed to cast ballots in the federal election, otherwise known as “federal-only voters.”
A number of progressive activist organizations joined in a lawsuit to challenge these laws: Mi Familia Vota, Voto Latino, Living United for Change in Arizona, League of United Latin American Citizens, Arizona Students Association, ADRC Action, Arizona Coalition for Change, Poder Latinx, Chicanos Por La Causa and their affiliated action fund, Democratic National Committee, Arizona Democratic Party, Arizona Asian American Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander for Equity Coalition, Promise Arizona, and the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project.
The Inter-Tribal Council of Arizona, San Carlos Apache Tribe, Tohono O’odham Nation, and Gila River Indian Community also were among the challengers to proof of citizenship laws, citing concerns with challenges tribal members face to obtain proof of residency. Several tribal members were named independently in the lawsuit: Keanu Stevens, Alanna Siqueiros, and LaDonna Jacket.
The leaders of the Republican-led Arizona legislature filed their petition with the Supreme Court this week.
Sen. President Warren Petersen (R-LD4) issued a press release announcing the Supreme Court petition in which he accused the Ninth Circuit judges of having “rewrote” federal law and ignored Supreme Court precedent.
“For more than two decades, Arizona has required proof of citizenship to register to vote, because only American citizens should decide American elections,” said Petersen. “This case is about whether states still have the power to enforce commonsense safeguards to ensure only eligible voters participate in our elections. Arizona is standing up not just for our state, but for every state’s constitutional authority to secure its own elections.”
The filing argues that the Ninth Circuit ruling against Arizona law stretches federal voting law far beyond its allowable interpretation.
“This case, which comes to the Court on a non-expedited basis and underpinned by a comprehensive evidentiary record, offers an ideal vehicle for clarifying the NVRA’s preemptive scope, affirming that federal consent decrees cannot perpetually paralyze state legislative bodies, and vindicating the presumption of legislative good faith,” read the filing.
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The Republican-led Arizona Senate is advancing legislation aimed at increasing oversight of Gov. Katie Hobbs’ handling of contracts.
On Wednesday, the Senate Regulatory Affairs and Government Efficiency Committee passed Senate Bill 1186 (SB1186) along party lines: Republicans in support, Democrats against.
State Sen. Mitzi Epstein (D-LD12) said she opposed the bill because it wasn’t “ready for primetime.” Epstein raised a concern that private companies could be impacted under the current way the bill is written. Epstein was the only one to explain her vote.
“Influence peddling is a bad thing, and we want to make sure in all aspects of government, including in this body, that people cannot pay for play,” said Epstein.
The bill would require companies currently holding or vying for state contracts or grants to disclose anything of value provided within the preceding five years to the governor, including anything beneficial provided to campaign or inauguration-related activities or outside organizations supporting or opposing the governor politically.
It would also prohibit state agencies and state employees from destroying any notes taken during evaluation of a company responding to a request for proposal on a state contract or grant. Should any state agency or state employee destroy their notes, any agreed-upon contracts could be solicited again.
Gov. Hobbs remains under legislative investigation over allegations of a “pay-to-play” relationship with Sunshine Residential Homes. That company received a unique rate increase following their donations to Hobbs. This legislation was inspired by that ongoing controversy.
Senate leadership to include President Warren Petersen (R-LD14), President Pro Tempore T.J. Shope (R-LD16), Majority Whip Frank Carroll (R-LD28), and Majority Leader John Kavanagh (R-LD3) all issued statements endorsing the legislation preceding the committee vote.
“State government has a responsibility to ensure taxpayer dollars are awarded through a fair and competitive process people can trust,” said Petersen. “When billions in public funds are at stake, the rules must be clear, consistent, and focused on delivering the best value for Arizona families.”
“After vetoing our bill last year, the Governor came back this session with her own proposal, but it still leaves the biggest gap untouched,” said Shope. “Her plan focuses on releasing information after contracts are awarded. Our bill requires transparency before decisions are made, when it actually matters.”
“The scandals we’ve seen show what happens when government oversight fails,” said Carroll. “When billions of taxpayer dollars are being spent, mistakes or favoritism don’t just stay inside government, they affect services families rely on and erode public confidence.”
“Arizona’s contracting laws were written for a different era and leave gaps that agencies can’t effectively police today,” said Kavanagh. “SB 1186 modernizes the rules by setting clear disclosure standards and establishing enforceable safeguards that strengthen the contracting process itself.”
Earlier this month the bipartisan advisory team put together by the Republican-led Arizona House brought on outside counsel from out of state for an independent investigation of the connection between Hobbs and Sunshine Residential Homes. The counsel, Justin Smith, is representing President Donald Trump in his defamation lawsuit against E. Jean Carroll; Smith’s law group was founded by Trump’s solicitor general, D. John Sauer.
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