The Goldwater Institute, acting on behalf of Former Scottsdale Mayor Jim Lane, local activist Susan Wood, and AZGOP Member-at-Large Yvonne Cahill (CD1) filed a lawsuit in Maricopa County Superior Court against the city of Scottsdale on June 18. In the complaint, the plaintiffs allege that the city is mischaracterizing a proposed new sales tax set to be voted on by the public in November with “objectively false or misleading information.”
According to court documents, the Goldwater Institute and the plaintiffs allege that the proposed tax’s “titles and tagline text are misleading, obscure the principle provisions of the measure, and constitute a ‘bait and switch.’” They go on to explain, “The Resolution is deceptive and inherently misleading, and fundamentally unfair.”
The controversy has arisen from a 0.2% Land Acquisition Tax that was approved in 1995 which is set to expire no later than June 30, 2025, and another in 2004 at 0.15% which funded the land purchase and construction of trailheads in the McDowell Sonoran Preserve respectively and a newly proposed 0.15% sales tax that would last for 30 years to provide funds for city parks.
In the 2025 Scottsdale 0.15% Sales Tax: Questions and Answers, the new tax description claims, “The ballot proposal would replace and reduce an expiring 0.20% city sales tax with a 0.15% sales tax to provide funds solely for capital replacements and improvements at city parks and recreational facilities and additional maintenance, preservation and protection, including police and fire protection, of city parks and the McDowell Sonoran Preserve. This tax would expire after 30 years.”
As the lawsuit notes, “the New Parks & Rec Tax does not, and cannot, ‘replace’ the Land Acquisition Tax that was scheduled to expire already. And likewise, the New Parks & Rec Tax “does not, and cannot, ‘reduce’ the current Land Acquisition Tax,” which without any intervention would already be eliminated as scheduled.
The City wrote that the new tax, which it calls a “replacement tax,” would provide:
51% for capital asset replacements and improvements to aged Indian Bend Wash parks and other citywide parks (see further discussion of capital replacements and improvements below)
14% for increased citywide park maintenance including additional maintenance workers and contracts to enhance park maintenance
7% for the Police Park Ranger program including additional resources for enforcement and education to provide better safety and security for city parks and the Preserve.
18% to increase maintenance, protection, and care for the McDowell Sonoran Preserve and its desert plants and wildlife, including trail and trailhead maintenance; protecting wildlife habitat; assessing and protecting archaeological, ecological, and cultural resources; and removing invasive plants to reduce wildfire risk (known as fire fuel mitigation)
10% for the Fire Department wildland fire fuel mitigation program with additional resources to remove/reduce overgrown plants and weeds around the Preserve and in city open spaces that pose ongoing wildfire risk during dry summer months, and additional Fire Department resources including technical rescue teams for citywide parks and the Preserve.
Goldwater Institute spokesman Joe Seyton told the Daily Independent, “They are deceiving voters because they are claiming a tax increase is actually a tax reduction, but what they are not saying is that voters will pay a lower sales tax if they vote no than if they vote yes.” He added, “Arizona law prohibits ballot measures from communicating information that is objectively false or misleading. It’s a bait and switch.”
In a statement published by the Goldwater Institute Cahill said, “Our own city leaders are deceiving taxpayers so that we’ll vote to raise taxes on ourselves. We deserve honesty from our local officials—especially when it comes to the money hardworking Arizonans are required to fork over to the government.”
Speaking with The Scottsdale Progress, Mayor David Ortega lashed out at his predecessor saying, “It is sad that former Mayor Jim Lane, who saturated our city with 23,689 apartments during his tenure, now tries to stop citizen-driven renewal of our 48 city parks, the Green Belt and protection of the McDowell Sonoran Preserve.” He continued, “Adding new Police, Fire and Park Ranger personnel for our safety is also a key element of the ballot measure. In Scottsdale, we value our treasured open space legacy, and commitment to pass them on in great shape to future generations.”
The mayor continued, “Lane and opponents failed to show up during months of deliberations, so we will see them in court.”
On Monday, an Arizona court ruled that government “prevailing wage” mandates for businesses were unlawful.
The Maricopa County Superior Court issued a ruling against the cities of Phoenix and Tucson concerning their prevailing wage ordinances, which required contractors on public works to pay its workers according to city and federal rate determinations. The Department of Labor defines prevailing wage as that average wage paid to similarly employed workers in a specific occupation in that area of intended employment.
The Maricopa County Superior Court agreed that state law (A.R.S. § 34-321(B)) prohibited any city from enacting such prevailing wage ordinances as the cities of Phoenix and Tucson had done in January.
“This Prevailing Wage Statute, by its plain language, prohibits any Arizona political subdivision, such as the City of Phoenix and the City of Tucson, from enacting an ordinance that requires contractors and subcontractors to pay their workers less than the prevailing rate of wages. Nevertheless, both cities did just that on January 9, 2024,” read the ruling.
Phoenix Ordinance G-7217 and Tucson Ordinance No. 12066 required city contractors or subcontractors under a contract with an aggregate value of $4 million or more and $2 million or more, respectively, to pay workers not less than the prevailing wage rate for the same class and kind of work in the Phoenix metropolitan area. Both cities required certain record keeping and instilled penalties for violations including contract rescission, disqualification from future city contracts, and liquidated damages up to three times the wages owed.
Yet, the cities argued that their ordinances were protected under Proposition 202, or the Raise the Minimum Wage for Working Arizonans Act. The cities claimed that the act functioned under the doctrine of implied repeal: since the act and state law were inconsistent, the act took precedence since it came after state law. The superior court rejected that interpretation, since the act itself didn’t address the term prevailing wage, and there remained definable differences between prevailing wage and minimum wage.
“A prevailing wage ordinance is not a minimum wage law, and the Minimum Wage Law did not impliedly repeal the prevailing wage prohibition because the two laws can be harmonized by ‘reasonable construction,'” stated the court. “They have fundamentally different underlying policy goals. Moreover, unlike minimum wage laws, which set a single, across-the-board floor on wages, prevailing wage measures impose a complex, fluctuating schedule of wage standards (determined by federal law and regulation) meant to approximate average wages for specific occupations and localities.”
The Goldwater Institute, in partnership with attorney Robert G. Schaffer, sued Phoenix over its prevailing wage ordinance on behalf of the Associated Minority Contractors of Arizona, the Arizona Chapter of the Associated General Contractors of America, and the Arizona Builders Alliance.
The institute’s vice president for legal affairs, Timothy Sandefur, said in a press release that the ruling protected fairer wages for workers.
“Today’s decision is a victory for Arizona taxpayers — who deserve to have public works projects run as closely as possible to true market conditions, instead of having their costs decreed by politicians in order to benefit their political friends,” said Sandefur. “It’s also a win for workers themselves, who deserve to do work in a competitive environment where wages are based on merit, instead of political dictate.”
AZ Free News is your #1 source for Arizona news and politics. You can send us news tips using this link.
The Republican Party of Arizona is fighting hard for Hispanic votes in the all-important 2024 November General Election.
Last week, the AZGOP released a Spanish-language ad, which will be running during the 2024 Copa America tournament. The ad features the chair of the state Republican Party, Gina Swoboda, and a Republican member of the Arizona House of Representatives, Steve Montenegro.
🚨 NEW AD: @AZGOP is hitting the airwaves during the 2024 @CopaAmerica_ENG with a Spanish-language ad! 📺🇺🇸
We’re committed to lowering the cost of living, empowering parents with education freedom, and making homeownership affordable for all Arizonans. pic.twitter.com/A6HXifHdR4
— Republican Party of Arizona (@AZGOP) June 22, 2024
In the short commercial, both Swoboda and Montenegro speak in Spanish to potential voters, noting the challenges facing everyone in the state – “high prices for food, gasoline, [and] homes; high crime; [and] protecting family rights in deciding what is the best education for their children.” They then highlight the commitment of the Arizona Republican Party “to protecting the American Dream” and coming alongside all families to help “achieve a better economy…in Arizona.”
The Pima County Democratic Party mocked the commercial from its state political rival. The “X” account for the county party wrote, “Spolier Alert. They’ll make a bunch of empty promises all while they get busy deporting your family members.”
Spolier Alert. 🚨🚨They'll make a bunch of empty promises all while they get busy deporting your family members. https://t.co/Qg4I8DxKBZ
— Pima County Democratic Party (@PimaDems) June 22, 2024
Republican State Senator Janae Shamp praised the effort, saying, “Keep the American Dream alive!!”
Recent polls across the country have indicated that Democrats may be losing support among the key Hispanic voting bloc in the upcoming election – and that Republicans have been picking up some of those voters. Last week, a poll from Equis of registered Latino voters showed that a majority of respondents have more trust for former President Donald J. Trump over President Joseph R. Biden when it comes to the issue of immigration (41-38).
An April poll from the New York Times / Siena College showed that Biden may only have a nine-point advantage over Trump with Hispanics (50-41). Also, a poll from Axios / Ipsos around that time showed Biden dropping twelve points from his previous support from Hispanics, falling to within single digits of his competitor (41-32).
Any shift in any significant voting bloc in November’s General Election could be the difference between Republican and Democrat victories and majorities in the crucial Grand Canyon swing state. Trump and Biden are vying for Arizona’s eleven Electoral College votes, and those tallies to the national total have been very hard to come by in the past two presidential contests. Additionally, Arizona has a very competitive U.S. Senate seat up for grabs, the control of the state legislature in the balance, and multiple propositions to determine state policies and constitutional amendments for the future.
Daniel Stefanski is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.
Senator Laphonza Butler (D-CA) Chair of the Senate Judiciary subcommittee on the Constitution will be holding a ‘field hearing’ on ‘Reproductive Rights’ in Arizona on Tuesday, June 25th. The stated purpose of the hearing is to “examine the impact that various state laws have had on abortion patients and providers across the country in the two years since Dobbs.” Arizona is to serve as the hearing’s backdrop just one day after the ruling’s anniversary, likely due to the resurgence of a pre-statehood abortion ban following the Dobbs ruling that threw out Roe v. Wade and it’s later repeal.
Arizona’s post-Roe abortion law saga may not tell the whole story though. Given that Arizona legislators repealed the near-complete ban on abortion in May, reverting back to the 2002 15-week abortion ban, politicos have instead suggested that the hearing has far more to do with the contentious Senate race for ex-Democrat Sen. Kyrsten Sinema’s (I-AZ) seat.
As previously reported by AZ Free News, the race between closely matched candidates Republican Kari Lake and Democrat Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ03) is down to a single-point lead.
In April, Gallego told NBC News that a repeal of the abortion ban would be too late. He told reporters, “The damage is done,” adding “Any initiative they pass right now wouldn’t even take effect for quite a while.” The reversion to the 2002 15-week ban takes effect on September 24, 2024. “To make matters worse, it could just get overturned later by another state House or state Senate,” Gallego noted. “The only protection we really, really have is to codify this and put this on the ballot and enshrine Roe and protect abortion rights,” he said. Just hours before speaking with reporters, he had held a rally with Vice President Kamala Harris ginning up support on the back of the abortion debacle.
It seems unlikely that this is an event that Gallego would sit-out, and even if he should stay on the sidelines. The hearing seems likely to play out as an informal campaign event.
As reported by Deadline, Gallego was in Los Angeles fundraising for his Arizona race as recently as June 10th, shmoozing with show-business executives and Democrat power-brokers at the home of political strategist Donna Bojarsky. In 2018, both Bojarsky and Butler enjoyed appointments to positions of prominence in the L.A. area by then-California Gov. Edmund Brown. Bojarsky was reappointed to the California Volunteers Commission, and Butler was appointed to the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum Commission.
Butler, the former President of pro-abortion lobbyist group EMILY’s List, has been working collaboratively with Arizona Democrats since at least September 2022 when then-Secretary of State Katie Hobbs joined the group for a round-table event in Pima County.
In a press release from Hobbs’ campaign for the roundtable, Butler reportedly referred to Gallego’s opponent, Kari Lake, as an “extremist.” The release noted, “Butler also highlighted the dangerous policies that anti-choice extremists like Kari Lake want to force on Arizonans, stressing how crucial it is that we elect Katie Hobbs as governor to defend the state from life-threatening abortion bans.”
I look forward to holding a field hearing in Phoenix, AZ tomorrow to examine how SCOTUS’ decision in the Dobbs case has impacted the lives of patients and providers across the country. pic.twitter.com/YySQ3oHhum
— Senator Laphonza Butler (@Senlaphonza) June 24, 2024
According to the Arizona Republic, the Bulter hearing entitled, “Chaos and Confusion: Examining the Patchwork of Abortion Restrictions Across America Since Dobbs,” is scheduled for 12:30PM at the A.E. England Building, at 424 N. Central Ave in Phoenix and will feature testimony from a panel of so far unnamed guests. Butler said in an emailed statement, “For nearly 50 years the U.S. Supreme Court, in decision after decision, guaranteed women of the United States the constitutional right to privacy and the right to make decisions about their own bodies.” She added, “As Chair of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, I lead this field hearing to further examine the consequences of the Supreme Court’s decision to roll back that right.”
Senator Butler’s office told AZ Free News in an email that the witness panel will include “Mini Timmaraju – Policy Expert, President and CEO of Reproductive Freedom for All (formerly NARAL Pro-Choice America), Eloisa Lopez – Patient Witness, Executive Director of Pro-Choice Arizona and the Arizona Abortion Fund, and Dr. Misha Pangasa – Provider Witness, a Phoenix-based OBGYN, abortion provider, and physician advocate with Physicians for Reproductive Health.” As of this report AZ Free News has not been able to ascertain if Gallego will be in attendance.
On Saturday, Democratic Mesa lawmaker Lorena Austin hosted a drag show fundraiser open to all ages.
The legislature’s first “nonbinary,” “gender nonconforming” elected official planned the event from 9 to 11 pm at Meno’s Place in Mesa. The event required a $10 cash cover charge to enter. Along with offering $5 raffle tickets, Austin teased the appearance of an unnamed, special guest, in addition to the MC, a drag queen named Gypsy Rose.
Austin first posted about the fundraiser event back on June 1 to commemorate the beginning of Pride Month.
Back in March, Austin drew ire for hosting a controversial drag queen story hour event hosted at the state capitol. House leadership claimed Austin misled them to reserve the conference room where the story hour took place. House Speaker Ben Toma revoked Democrat access to House meeting rooms as a result of Austin’s event.
“Use of House facilities for radical activism to promote dangerously perverse ideology will not be tolerated while I am Speaker,” posted Toma.
Democrat Rep. Lorena Austin deliberately misled House leadership to reserve a conference room to host a drag story hour with Planned Parenthood.
Use of House facilities for radical activism to promote dangerously perverse ideology will not be tolerated while I am Speaker.
Austin responded that it was “ridiculous” that she was accused of being dishonest or deceitful, let alone perverse for promoting LGBTQ+ ideologies in children.
The drag story hour took place ahead of an “LGBTQ+ Youth Day” at the Capitol, arranged in part by One-N-Ten. That organization recently made headlines for hosting a name change clinic advertised by the DeMiguel Elementary School in the Flagstaff Unified School District.
One-N-Ten provides LGBTQ+ programs to minors as young as 11 years old, focusing on topics such as sexual health and gender identity.
The gender nonconforming lawmaker won her first election thanks to a majority of funding from out-of-state Democratic money. Austin campaigned in part on rolling back laws prohibiting males from joining female sports teams and gender transition surgeries for minors.
This time around, Austin is campaigning on some of the same things — increasing teacher pay, establishing more affordable housing, expanding Medicaid access, and greater legalization of abortion — though missing from her priorities are those related to LGBTQ+ policies.
Austin is defending a seat in a historically Republican district, though she and another Democrat, Seth Blattman, won in 2022.
According to testimony from Austin in a promotional video for her alma mater, Arizona State University, she discovered her gender identity after joining an LGBTQ+ activist community in St. Louis, Missouri following the 2014 death of Michael Brown. This epiphany occurred after she dropped out five times from Mesa Community College; Austin credited her involvement in the ensuing protests to her desire to return to continue her degree at MCC and then finish at ASU.
ASU awarded Austin a scholarship through a leadership program launched by President Michael Crow. She graduated ASU in 2020 as the dean’s medalist for the School of Transborder Studies.
Austin was one of the primary opponents of a bill prohibiting schools from using preferred pronouns or names rather than those that align with a child’s biological sex or birth certificate, respectively.
Governor Katie Hobbs cited Austin’s testimony in opposition to the bill as evidence that the legislation would be harmful, and that transgenderism among children was something to be supported, not opposed.
Hobbs’ husband, Patrick Goodman, helped children embark on gender transitions in his capacity as a Phoenix Children’s Hospital Gender Support Program counselor.
The hospital was known for its provision of comprehensive gender-affirming care to gender dysphoric children. As part of his job, Goodman consulted with minor patients about the application of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones.
AZ Free News is your #1 source for Arizona news and politics. You can send us news tips using this link.
New internal polling from the National Republican Senate Committee announced by Republican Senate candidate Kari Lake’s campaign shows that Lake now leads Democrat Congressman Ruben Gallego by one-point in the narrow race. The survey further demonstrated that the contentious race for President between former President Donald Trump and Democrat incumbent President Joe Biden is casting a large shadow over the down-ballot races.
An NRSC Memo obtained by The Washington Post regarding the poll stated, “In the multi-party ballot for the presidential race, President Trump leads Joe Biden by a significant margin of +11 (46% to 34%) among likely votes. This trend is crucial as it demonstrates a strong Republican presence in Arizona, which can positively influence down-ballot races like the Senate contest.” The NRSC also endorsed Kari Lake in February as reported by Politico; she also enjoys the endorsement of former President Donald Trump.
A press release from Lake’s campaign noted that among undecided voters, Trump holds a 7% lead over Biden which bodes well for Lake.
NRSC memo on Arizona Senate race: The latest NRSC survey shows Kari Lake leading Ruben Gallego by one point, 47% to 46%, among likely voters —aligning with another recent poll on the race. Trump’s standing in Arizona could help down-ballot candidates like Lake. pic.twitter.com/dUsYCJ3Ekx
— Yvonne Wingett Sanchez (@yvonnewingett) June 20, 2024
The NRSC concluded that while the race is still “a pure toss up,” Lake is “well positioned to win.” The memo explained, “The undecided voting block presents a significant opportunity to further define Ruben Gallego and attract more support for Lake. Given the unfavorable views of President Biden among undecided voters, Lake has a pathway to consolidate and expand her base.”
The Lake campaign released a statement along with the announcement saying, “Arizonans overwhelmingly disapprove of Joe Biden’s performance. Soon, Arizonans will learn just how closely Ruben Gallego is tied to Joe Biden and his radical policies – voting with him 100% of the time – and they won’t approve of his record either. Kari Lake is ready to get to the U.S. Senate to help President Trump implement the policies that provided Arizonans, and Americans as a whole, with historic peace and prosperity.”
The Lake campaign notes that the NRSC result aligns with credible pollsters citing “the bipartisan AARP Poll conducted by President Trump and Joe Biden’s pollster.” It would appear to diverge from many mainstream polls which have shown Lake trailing Gallego from 3-6 points since early June, according to RealClear Politics. The AARP poll which showed Gallego ahead by 3 points found in part, “One reason Gallego is ahead is Democrats are more consolidated in their backing of him than Republicans are behind Lake. Additionally, Independents, who favored Trump by 6-points, give Gallego an 8-point edge.”
The NRSC poll by contrast could indicate that Lake is succeeding in consolidating her base.
