by Matthew Holloway | Jul 19, 2024 | Education, News
By Matthew Holloway |
The Dysart Unified School District Governing Board voted unanimously to reject a recent Executive Order from President Joe Biden imposing new Title IX rules on schools via the US Department of Education. The new rules would, among other impacts, redefine “sex” to include “gender identity,” therefore requiring schools to reject biological sex in favor of how a student chooses to present themselves. The new rules released on April 19, 2024, are currently enjoined by federal court orders in 15 states, preventing enforcement, but as of this report are still applicable in Arizona.
Dysart Unified School District Governing Board President Dawn Densmore told reporters from the Arizona Daily Independent on Sunday, “The resolution I created in response to President Biden’s Executive Order and the United States Department of Education was adopted by unanimous vote at our meeting on July 11th.”
She added, “It’s an honor to lead the way in efforts to protect children and our faith communities from this government overreach.”
A Louisiana Federal District court in June found that the new Title IX rules constitute a significant federal overreach with Ogletree Deakins noting from the ruling:
- “The Department exceeded its statutory authority under Title IX by redefining ‘sex’ to include ‘gender identity.’ The court found that based on the plain text and legislative history of Title IX, ‘sex’ was intended to refer to biological sex, not gender identity.
- The new rules raise First Amendment concerns by potentially compelling speech, such as requiring teachers to use students’ preferred pronouns, even if doing so conflicts with their religious beliefs, and engaging in viewpoint discrimination.
- The Department’s rulemaking was arbitrary and capricious. The Department failed to provide a reasoned explanation for departing from long-standing interpretations of ‘sex,’ left regulations in place that conflict with the new ‘gender identity’ mandate, and failed to adequately address safety concerns raised in public comments.”
In response Densmore told the Independent that the Dysart Unified School District Governing Board:
- “Will not demand that parents or guardians compel the speech of their minor children, or the First Amendment rights of our staff in a way that contradicts their family values or religious freedoms
- Already has current discrimination policies in place which protect every student, staff member and job applicants
- Is committed — while not adopting the Title IX expansion — to honoring the original intent of Title IX, our U.S. Constitution, and the Constitution of the State of Arizona
- Is committed to empowering parental involvement in education and minimizing public monies to be used to promulgate obtuse overreach into our schools.”
Arizona Women of Action shared the resolution via X on July 11 commenting, “This model conservative school board needs support.”
The board resolved in part: “WHEREAS, the Dysart Governing Board is committed to empowering parental involvement in education and minimizing public monies to be used to promulgate obtuse overreach into our local school district and criminalizing innocent children, or the people of the varying faiths that commonly and firmly believe in truth, such as a Creator of two distinct and wonderfully made sexes, and;
BE IT RESOLVED that the Dysart Unified School Governing Board has determined:
1. The United States Department of Education has created a Final Regulation which is contrary to the plain language of Title IX
2. The Governing Board, deriving authority from the Arizona Constitution, Arizona statutes and the regulations of the Arizona Administrative Code, strongly urge the Arizona State Legislature to further codify our state statutes to ensure our children are protected from the political weaponization of government, which would infringe on both federal and state constitutional rights.”
According to the Arizona Republic, the board of the Dysart Unified School District was also to receive legal guidance on the “legal process for challenging” the regulatory change.
AZ Free News has contacted Densmore and asked for the next steps the board is preparing to take and will provide an update when received.
Matthew Holloway is a senior reporter for AZ Free News. Follow him on X for his latest stories, or email tips to Matthew@azfreenews.com.
by Matthew Holloway | Jul 18, 2024 | Education, News
By Matthew Holloway |
Dr. Owen Anderson, a professor at Arizona State University’s Center for the Study of Religion and Conflict, offered an analysis of the philosophy of early communist thinker Friedrich Engels in a video posted to his Substack on July 8. He described it as “a sustained attack on the Christian family.” What resulted from this academic critique of Engels, which directly quotes his widely acknowledged public work, were a series of attacks on the professor and defenses of the communist thinker from what Anderson dubbed “anonymous (usually brand new) accounts,” and “trolls.” One of these commenters, under the screenname “RD,” replied to Dr. Anderson’s initial post claiming, in part, that Engels, “discusses in the same section of the book, that arrangement describes Greek and Roman pagan marriages as well as later Christian ones. Since these predate and do not depend on Christian ideas, he’s not attacking Christianity per se.”
Check out Dr. Anderson’s initial post here.
The commenter continued, “As for ‘radical leftists at state universities’ — the vast majority of university professors are in monogamous relationships roughly of the kind Engels describes, with the important caveat that in our time there are far greater legal protections for wives (a fantastic improvement since Engels’ writing). It’s not at all clear that they ‘hate’ this form of the family or ‘teach’ this hatred regularly. In other words, as usual, either you don’t know what you’re talking about or you have disingenuously ripped a statement out of context in order to increase your own sense of victimhood.”
Anderson responded to the commenter that he doesn’t engage with “anonymous trolls” and added rather congenially, “If you’d like to be honest about who you are I’d be happy to discuss these points. You’re mistaken about the purpose of Engels and what it means to hate.”
In response, “RD” accused the professor of being “litigious” and “thin skinned” with ASU and his colleagues citing as evidence “your very public statements on this blog, where you constantly whine about mundane matters to agents of the state.”
He added, “Only a fool would risk having you file a frivolous lawsuit over a blog post. It is enough for me that your readers would double-check your ‘work’ against the evidence of Engels’ own text, where they would very quickly see that you don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He claimed to disagree with Engels and accused Dr. Anderson of “not reading these texts honestly and accurately, the duty of any intellectual.”
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In a subsequent paid post, Dr. Anderson stated in part,
“One of the surprising not surprising things I’ve experienced since calling out bias against Christians at state universities is that those who want to attack me hide behind anonymous (usually brand new) accounts. I know the internet is full of such trolls. That isn’t what surprises me. What surprises me is that these cowards claim to be either professors or know how to defend professors. They want your tax money to teach your children, but they won’t be honest about what they believe.”
He added, “If they can’t be honest about who they are then I don’t engage with them. They need to own their arguments. If they want to engage in the public square and they believe their cause is just and true, then they should be eager to attach their name to it. But they won’t. This one went on to tell me I’m thin skinned! Imagine insulting any other religion and then telling that person they are thin skinned if they call you out.” He then bid the commenter “Bye, bye.”
Anderson’s determined commenter still wasn’t finished though and launched into a criticism of the professor for his work at ASU combating academic cancel culture referring to the pervasive anti-Christian bias the professor has striven against as “free of speech,” and accusing him of “a very public campaign with Arizona legislators trying to get your colleagues fired.” He further alleged that Anderson, “constantly snitch-tag(s) politicians and media influencers on twitter, including actors like Charlie Kirk whose purpose is to intimidate and harass college professors.“
The pseudonymous “RD” concluded, “You suggested that ASU should discipline your colleague for a social media post that you claim mocks (your understanding of) Christianity, and you think politicians should concern themselves with the (non-required) recommended reading list of a program at your institution. In short, you have no respect either for free speech or for academic freedom, and so you shouldn’t be surprised when no one wants to talk to you. That’s all from me.”
In what appears to be the final exchange between the two, Dr. Anderson incisively cut to the core of the commenter’s argument and eviscerated it noting: “This post is a present. Thank you. You’ve admitted that academics don’t have to keep their own standards about sensitivity and not insulting other religions (in the name of free speech and academic freedom). I’m looking forward to seeing you apply this. No wonder you want to stay anonymous.”
“Dr. A,” to use his sobriquet from his Substack, concluded by highlighting the aforementioned exchange with a few key notes:
1. “RD didn’t respect my boundary. I said I won’t engage with anonymous trolls. RD didn’t dispute that title, but insisted I must listen to more insults. That is called stalking. It is a behavior ASU prohibits.
2. RD calls me a snitch. Is this the third grade playground? What RD doesn’t like is that I’m a whistleblower and that those he is defending are guilty of the very thing they preach against. They preach sensitivity but want to ban Christians and conservatives from campus. RD calls this freedom. He calls me defending the right for Christians and conservatives to speak on campus ‘snitching.’ The truth is I am a whistleblower and have protected rights under federal and state law as well as the ASU faculty manual. RD knows that coming at a whistleblower will result in trouble and so wants to be anonymous.
3. RD insults me for ‘snitching’ on a colleague who insulted Christians on social media. Imagine if this was any other group than Christians. RD would help fill out the disciplinary form and hand it in to ASU.
4. What hasn’t happened. I have had a handful of ASU professors come at me to insult me since I began speaking publicly about abusive behavior towards Christians. I haven’t heard them say, ‘we should examine our behavior.’ They very clearly teach that it is wrong to insult a person’s religion. However, they want to get away with doing so toward Christians. They want freedom of speech protected for their radical leftist beliefs, but they deny that same thing to conservatives.”
The professor signed off the post with a promise that he would continue to call out his critics on their hypocrisy adding, “If that means they call me names then I’m looking forward to it.” And left his readers with a quote from Socrates writing, “When one of his disciples asked Socrates, ‘aren’t you worried what people will think of you?’ he replied, ‘I only care what thoughtful people who take time to investigate the situation will think.’”
When reached for comment by AZ Free News, Dr. Anderson confirmed that the commenter “RD” has made no further effort to contact him, and they have not revealed their identity. You can subscribe to Dr. Anderson’s Substack here, to read about his ongoing work to expose academia’s hostility toward Christianity.
Matthew Holloway is a senior reporter for AZ Free News. Follow him on X for his latest stories, or email tips to Matthew@azfreenews.com.
by Daniel Stefanski | Jul 15, 2024 | Education, News
By Daniel Stefanski |
Another political battle may be brewing over Arizona’s historic school choice program.
Earlier this week, Arizona House Speaker Ben Toma sent a letter to Tom Horne, the state’s Superintendent of Public Instruction (ADE), over his department’s controversial decision to acquiesce to Attorney General Kris Mayes’ demands to increase regulation of the Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) program.
In his letter, Toma wrote, “I understand that you may have no choice but to cooperate with the Attorney General’s politically-motivated investigation. However, ADE is best situated to determine how to implement its policies in a way that fulfills legislative intent but does not burden parents with unnecessary bureaucratic requirements.”
Toma added, “As you implement your Department’s policies, I urge you to scrutinize Attorney General Mayes’ unsolicited legal advice expressed in her July 1, 2024, letter, consider how her interpretation of Arizona statutes would impact parents throughout the state, and reject her interpretation of the law that would lead to absurd results.”
The Republican Speaker’s communication addressed an email from ADE ESA Executive Director, John Ward, to parents within the program, informing them about a letter he had received from Mayes’ Solicitor General. According to Ward, that letter “stated that some ESA program practices are inconsistent with State law and result in payment of ESA funds without authorization of law, [and that] the Solicitor General’s Office has directed the ESA program to address the issues it identified.”
The Attorney General’s Office cited two Arizona statutes to bolster its argument that “the Arizona Department of Education has approved certain supplemental items and textbooks without requiring curricula, which may result in ‘illegal payment of public monies.’” Ward told parents that “ADE has no choice but to comply with the Solicitor General’s determination,” forcing families to “submit a curriculum with all supplemental materials requested or purchased” – something that he even noted was a practice “in place since before the current ADE administration.”
Horne’s acceptance of Mayes’ interpretation of the law was surprising to many onlookers, being that his office has been at odds with the Attorney General’s Office on almost every issue related to this program. Previously, Horne issued a number of statements that expressed his ardent opposition to the Democrat Attorney General’s persistent attacks on the ESA program and vowing to match her office step for step in defense of parents.
One of the foremost experts and defenders of the ESA program, Christine Accurso, addressed this action by Horne’s office, writing, “I joined the ESA program as a parent in 2014 and in all of the years we participated, I never had to submit curriculum that listed pencils and paper (for example) as something I can use ESA funds for. This new regulation is not what the legislature intended. If you go back and listen to the many years of committee hearings you will clearly hear the lawmakers desired to give parents access to tax dollars to provide an excellent education for their child, putting them on equal footing financially (while providing a 10% savings) to what the state funds in the public schools. I don’t know of a school district in Arizona, let alone America, who has curriculum for such obvious supplemental educational materials, as noted above.”
Accurso’s sentiments were reciprocated by Speaker Toma, who in his letter to Horne, stated, “it appears that the Attorney General’s Office is advancing an argument that documentation is required for most ESA-related expenses. The legislative record does not support such an overtly restrictive view or burdensome administration of the ESA program.”
Speaker Toma concluded his letter by expressing his appreciation for Horne’s “willingness to discuss these implementation issues with legislators who – like parents – are understandably concerned about the Attorney General’s letter.”
Daniel Stefanski is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.
by Staff Reporter | Jul 6, 2024 | Education, News
By Staff Reporter |
A north central Phoenix legislative district may have a chance to replace its Democrat state senator in the upcoming November election.
State Senator Christine Marsh is running for reelection in Arizona Legislative District 4 this November. Based on her history of election finishes, Marsh may be in for another close contest in the swing district.
Marsh has served in the Arizona Legislature since January 2021. In the November 2020 General Election, she defeated Republican State Senator Kate Brophy McGee by fewer than 500 votes in Legislative District 28 (under the last redistricting lines). The previous election, McGee had bested Marsh by 267 votes in the 2018 General Election.
In the first election under the new redistricting lines for the decade, Marsh won another narrow victory over Nancy Barto by less than 1,200 votes for the right to represent the citizens of Legislative District 4.
The Democrat legislator has been a fierce opponent of her state’s efforts to increase school choice opportunities for Arizona families. In January 2017, Marsh co-authored an op-ed in the Arizona Republic, entitled “Expanding vouchers is dangerous for Arizona.” She wrote, “Those of us who care deeply about public education and the future of our state must work together to focus on what impacts 80 percent of students in our state – stopping the expansion of vouchers and School Tuition Organizations.”
On June 24, 2022, Marsh voted against the historic legislation to expand Arizona’s Empowerment Scholarship Accounts program, joining nine of her colleagues.
The following year, Marsh penned another op-ed for the Arizona Republic, stating that “Anti-public-school Republicans have chosen a path apt to cut safety and services, and sacrifice Arizona’s next generation’s chance to succeed. It’s time our state scrapped the universal private school voucher expansion before our public school system and, more importantly, your neighborhood public school is shuttered.”
Marsh has proven to be a reliable Democrat vote during her time in office, joining her caucus on a number of controversial issues that haven’t always reflected the sentiments of her district. Many of her votes throughout her tenure in the Arizona Legislature defy one of her posted priorities on her campaign website, which reads that “we need more balance at the Capitol in order to force negotiation and compromise.”
In 2022, Marsh cosponsored SB 1281, which would have repealed the preemption on cities from banning plastic bags. That same year, she voted against bills that would have prohibited minors from having irreversible sex change surgeries, banned taxpayer money from going to lobbyists, stopped government from forcing children to mask up without parental consent, and prohibited one single politician from unilaterally shutting down businesses in a self-declared state of emergency.
That same year, when Marsh voted against a proposal requiring accommodations for students who do not want to use a bathroom with a student of the opposite sex, she said that the schools can just get shower curtains.
Earlier this year, Marsh voted against a bill “requiring students in grades 7 to 12 to be taught about the Holocaust and other genocides” – even though fellow Democrat, Governor Katie Hobbs, signed the legislation into state law.
She joined Democrats in voting “NO on a bill requiring public schools to teach Arizona students about the victims of communism.”
Marsh also “voted NO on tougher punishments for public school and public library employees who expose our children to wildly disgusting pornographic books and images.”
She voted against a bill “prohibiting the court from ending probation early for criminals who are in our country illegally and are being deported.”
At the end of the 2024 legislative session, Marsh opposed legislation “classifying Mexican drug cartels as terrorist organizations.”
In June, she also voted against a bill “allowing Arizona kids to have lemonade stands without a license and without having to pay taxes.”
In another major action for the just completed legislative session, Marsh voted no on HCR 2060, which referred several border-related policies to the ballot in November for Arizona voters to empower local law enforcement with more tools to protect communities from the historic effects of the border crisis.
Additionally, Marsh voted against “a child safety bill cracking down on companies that don’t perform reasonable age verification before allowing access to the websites they manage with content considered harmful for children.”
Senator Marsh has also been an advocate for legislation seeking to mitigate the liberty provided by the Second Amendment, boasting about Democrats’ efforts to pass universal background checks.”
On her website, Marsh lists several endorsements from interest groups, including left-leaning Arizona List, Moms Demand Action, and the Sierra Club.
Marsh is running unopposed for the Democrat nomination for state senator in the July primary election. Republicans Kenneth R. Bowers, Jr. and Carine Werner are vying for the Republican nomination to face the Democrat incumbent in the November General Election.
According to the Arizona Legislative District 4 Democrat Party, Republicans control 38% of the district’s voter registration, compared to 27% Democrats and 35% Other. In 2022, LD 4 had a higher voter turnout than both Maricopa County and the State of Arizona at 76%.
AZ Free News is your #1 source for Arizona news and politics. You can send us news tips using this link.
by Staff Reporter | Jun 24, 2024 | Education, News
By Staff Reporter |
The Arizona legislature’s new budget for the state nixed the Kindergarten Entry Assessment (KEA) at the behest of Department of Education Superintendent Tom Horne, who called the program a “waste of classroom time.”
The KEA required teachers to assess their students within the first 45 calendar days of enrollment.
Horne issued a press release earlier this week acknowledging the change as motivated by educators’ disdain for the program, which the superintendent said was reportedly viewed as “an unnecessary bureaucratic requirement.” Horne said eliminating the KEA would improve academic results through reducing teacher paperwork.
KEA’s elimination wasn’t sudden: the education department reported that it reduced the program’s administrative requirements by over 80 percent last year. Although, Horne said he would have eliminated the KEA earlier if he’d had the legal authority to do it on his own.
“Over time, the KEA had ballooned into an endless morass of paperwork that meant teachers had to spend too much time on bureaucratic requirements versus time with students,” said Horne. “Now the legislature has taken the welcome step of entirely removing the legal requirement for the KEA, which frees up more time for teachers to spend on classroom instruction.”
Several public school leaders offered support for Horne’s decision.
“Superintendent Horne reviewed our feedback on the KEA in our Kindergarten classes,” said Dysart Unified School District Superintendent John Croteau. “The KEA duplicated many of our current practices and took away valuable instructional time. This decision prioritizes student interests by focusing on maximizing valuable classroom time to enhance student learning opportunities.”
“Superintendent Horne and his department sought feedback directly from kindergarten teachers and families about the time, student privacy, and resources lost to KEA and we appreciate the swift and effective action taken to eliminate this program in the best interests of Arizona kids!” said Challenger Charter School CEO Wendy Miller.
According to last year’s KEA requirements, teachers were to observe the following learning and development objectives in their students during instruction: social emotional development (manages feelings, follows limits and expectations, responds to emotional cues, interacts with peers, solves social problems); physical (uses fingers and hands); language and literacy (tells about another time and place, follows directions, notices and discriminates rhyme, notices and discriminates alliteration, uses and appreciates books and other texts, uses print concepts); cognitive/approaches to learning (attends and engages); and mathematics (counts, quantifies, connects numerals and quantities).
School districts and charter school governing bodies were given discretion through the last legislative session as to the appropriate evaluation methods or assessments to accomplish the KEA. Prior to that, educators had to rely on the Teaching Strategies GOLD (TSG) platform to complete KEA. TSG usage and accurate KEA completion required additional training from teachers, with the introductory course amounting to three hours alone.
Arizona’s KEA requirement can be traced back to 2013 when the state launched a pilot initiative, The Kindergarten Project, through partnership with the Arizona State Board of Education, First Things First, Alesi Group, and Virginia G. Piper Charitable Trust.
AZ Free News is your #1 source for Arizona news and politics. You can send us news tips using this link.
by Matthew Holloway | Jun 19, 2024 | Education, News
By Matthew Holloway |
The State of Arizona has passed a balanced budget through the Republican controlled House and Senate not only hammering down a $1.4 billion shortfall in projected tax revenues but actually expanding and reforming the state’s Empowerment Scholarship Accounts (ESA), and School Tuition Organization (STO) eligibility, much to Democrat Governor Katie Hobbs’ chagrin. Hobbs, despite her opposition toward the ESA program, implied her acceptance of the budget in a Saturday post to X, and on Monday evening signed the budget into law.
As reported by 12News, the budget was approved in a marathon of votes that stretched throughout the Saturday workday and landed on Hobbs’ desk where it was approved at the end of the business day. Many agencies in Arizona are now working with a budget cut of approximately 3% that arose primarily from depressed sales tax collections in 2023-24. Hobbs and her fellow Democrats have tried to assign the blame to former Republican Gov. Doug Ducey for tax cuts and expansion of the ESA program to allow all students access to the education of their choice.
In spite of this rhetoric, the GOP led legislature successfully prevented a reduction in the funds directed to putting students in underperforming schools into private schools and under the tutelage of homeschooling parents. The budget even included a 2% inflation-driven increase in the K-12 public schools budget.
Senate Majority Whip Sine Kerr explained in a statement from the AZ Senate Republicans:
“What’s not included in the $16.1 billion budget is an elimination of the historic Universal Empowerment Scholarship Accounts program or our School Tuition Organizations program providing tens of thousands of Arizona families the freedom to pick the best schools to meet their children’s unique learning needs.
We are continuing our commitment to providing every family in the state of Arizona with a quality education, no matter their zip code or economic status. Additionally, we said ‘no’ when Governor Hobbs and Democrats proposed eliminating our Arizona Freedom Schools at our public universities, which are dedicated to civics education and ensuring students are equipped down the road to lead our state to a brighter tomorrow.”
In the new budget, the ESA program sees an expansion to “allow the use of account monies to reimburse the parent of a qualified student or a qualified student for the purchase of a good or educational service that is an allowable expense.” Reforms to the ESA will be extensive with the Arizona Department of Education to work in consultation with the Auditor General to generate risk-based audits of the program and ensuring that educators being paid through the program are not subject to disciplinary action by the State Board of Education and requiring all teaching staff and personnel with unsupervised contact with the students be fingerprinted as public school teachers already are. Expansion to the STO program grew the student eligibility to include any students who “are placed in foster care … at any time before the student graduates from high school or obtains a general equivalency diploma.”
In her comments posted to X, Hobbs commented, “While this bipartisan budget delivers reforms to ESAs, they are not enough.” She added a commitment to bring “accountability and transparency” to the program referring to it as “unsustainable.”
In addition to the preservation and expansion of Arizona’s ESA and STO programs, the AZ Senate GOP offered the following highlights from the budget:
- Reduces state spending by $1.7 billion below the 2023-2024 enacted budget (a 10% reduction).
- Reduces ongoing spending by $330 million.
- Protects school choice programs—both Empowerment Scholarship Accounts and School Tuition Organizations are funded for continued growth.
- Protects Arizona Freedom Schools.
- Does not pull dollars from the rainy-day fund.
- No new taxes or tax increases.
- No new debt.
- Reduces ongoing funding of state agencies by 3.5%, including cuts to universities by $23 million.
- Maintains law enforcement funding, while adding $5 million for local border security support and $4 million for fentanyl interdiction and law enforcement response.
- Prohibits board fee increases for 2 years.
- Lowers vehicle emissions testing fees by 5%.
- Ends ongoing funding for COVID federal programs.
- Maintains road infrastructure funding.
- Adds additional full-time employees to reduce concealed carry permit application and renewal time frames.
- Makes conservative policy and spending reforms to the Arizona Commerce Authority, the Arizona Department of Transportation, the Industrial Commission of Arizona, and the Board of Technical Registration.
Senate President Warren Petersen summarized the contentious budget in statement, “Following last year’s state budget, where Republican lawmakers provided inflationary relief to everyday Arizonans through $274 million in tax rebates distributed to struggling families, as well as a ban on the tenant-paid rental tax taking effect this January, Republicans are again successfully supporting our hardworking citizens while simultaneously reining in spending.” He added, “In this year’s budget, we defended more than $520 million allocated last year for much-needed transportation projects statewide. We also cut fees for Maricopa County drivers on emissions testing by 5%, and we banned fee increases on Arizonans from state boards for the next two years.”
“Arizonans can rest assured that their state has a balanced budget. I’m thankful for members of the legislature who came together, compromised, and passed this bipartisan agreement,” Gov. Katie Hobbs said in a statement reported by AZ Mirror. “But I know we still have more work to do.”
Despite the modest gains of the budget, not all Republicans supported the compromise. The Arizona Freedom Caucus seemed very displeased and took their case to the public in a post to X, writing, “It’s a perfect example of the Swamp that establishment Republicans at the Arizona Capital are saying ‘the Freedom Caucus is the problem’ on this budget The reality is that this is what happens when weak Republicans negotiate a budget in secret with Democrats.”
The Caucus cited a dozen shortcomings in the budget, namely that the Democrat and Republicans who formulated it, “Fail to appropriate any new meaningful border security money for local Sheriffs, kneecap a school choice tax credit, regulate private faith-based schools, weaponize public schools’ ability to stop conservative teachers from providing instruction to ESA students, impede parents’ right to educate their children as they see fit, gift hundreds of millions of your tax dollars to the healthcare industrial complex, refuse to do anything meaningful to fix our elections, use budget gimmicks to pretend to solve the state’s deficit, rather than actually solving it, sweep $430M of water funding intended to help solve our state’s water crisis, fail to hold Hobbs accountable for her illegal pay-to-play scheme, fail to hold Mayes accountable for weaponizing the justice system against her political opponents,” and “fail to hold Fontes accountable for his totally illegal Election Procedures Manual.”
They added, “In the case of the current budget, when @AZFreedomCaucus members approached leadership, raised concerns with some of the nonstarters in the budget, offered solutions, and indicated that with changes we could achieve Republican unity… Warren Petersen and Ben Toma rejected the changes instantly without even considering them, and then spent the rest of the day attacking, defaming, and insulting the members of the Freedom Caucus for not just blindly following orders. Unfortunately, establishment Republicans’ failure to see the present battlefield for what it really is will cost us the legislature. When Democrats take control, whether it’s in November or in two years… you can look back at who voted YES on this year’s budget to figure out who to blame.”
The budget is also likely to draw a legal challenge from Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes regarding the ‘sweep’ of funding from the $1.14 billion, 18-year opioid One Arizona Agreement. The agreement, long a bone of contention between the AG, Governor, and Legislature, stems from a lawsuit that capped the Big Pharma opioid scandal and resulted in then-Attorney General Mark Brnovich signing onto to a $26 billion national settlement with Cardinal, McKesson, and AmerisourceBergen and Johnson & Johnson, which distributed, manufactured and marketed opioids respectively.
The funds are held by the AG’s Office as steward for the money designated for opioid treatment, prevention, and education. Mayes told 12 News’ Brahm Resnick, “I am not giving that money to them. It’s in my bank account at the Attorney General’s Office. It’s not going anywhere.”
In a lengthy statement posted to X, Mayes said, “I have stated publicly + very clearly that I refuse to release these funds in this way as it would violate the agreement, & I stand by those words today. This is an egregious grab, and I will do everything in my power to protect these opioid settlement funds for all Arizonans.”
Matthew Holloway is a senior reporter for AZ Free News. Follow him on X for his latest stories, or email tips to Matthew@azfreenews.com.
