Gov. Katie Hobbs revoked $50 million in school choice funding awarded by her predecessor, Doug Ducey, calling it “illegal and invalid.”
The funds were used for day-long Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) Program kindergarten. Hobbs said that this represented unequal treatment of ESA versus non-ESA students, since the state only funds half-day kindergarten for public school students.
“Illegally giving $50 million to private schools while failing to properly invest in public education is just one egregious example of the previous administration’s blatant disregard for public school students,” said Hobbs. “I will always fight to protect our public schools and work to give every Arizona student the education they deserve. Today, we averted a violation of federal law and the State Constitution. In my administration, we are committed to deploying federal funds lawfully and equitably.”
Today, we held the Ducey Administration accountable for illegally handing out a $50 million ESA grant. Instead, we're going to put that money to good use.
In my administration, we are committed to ESA accountability, protecting taxpayer dollars, and truly investing in public…
— Governor Katie Hobbs (@GovernorHobbs) May 25, 2023
Hobbs claimed the $50 million grant violated multiple provisions of the Arizona Constitution concerning equal protection, the gift clause, and the maintenance of public schools. The governor also claimed that the grant conflicted with terms set by the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) in its COVID-19 emergency funding because the grant didn’t address educational disparities it purported to address.
Hobbs said her office plans to reallocate the $50 million elsewhere, though the governor hasn’t publicly announced where. She said she delivered notice to the treasurer’s office for next steps.
In response, Treasurer Kimberly Yee criticized Hobbs’ move as “politically driven and belligerent,” and noted that she had no prior notice of Hobbs’ intent to withdraw the funding until she, like the rest of the public, learned of Wednesday’s press release. Yee also disclosed that her legal team was looking into the legality of Hobbs’ actions.
“As has become the norm for this governor, my office first learned of her action through a press release prior to receiving the letter, and we have yet to receive any communication from the Governor or her team on this matter other than the letter. Our legal team is currently reviewing the lawfulness of the governor’s move and determining next steps,” said Yee.
Yee also claimed that Hobbs’ actions reflected a disregard for educational freedom.
“It is clear Governor Hobbs does not care about what is best for Arizona kids or respect the rights of parents to determine the best environment to educate their child,” said Yee. “Instead, she is using these children as pawns in a desperate and transparent attempt to win back support from union bosses and her ultra-progressive base. Educational choice is the civil rights issue of our time, and unfortunately, Governor Hobbs thinks she knows better than parents. I fundamentally disagree, and so do Arizona families.”
Governor Hobbs has just denied thousands of Arizona kids access to kindergarten through this politically driven and belligerent decision.
— Arizona Treasurer Kimberly Yee (@AZTreasurerYee) May 25, 2023
Daniel Scarpinato, former chief of staff to Ducey and former national press secretary for the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), claimed that Hobbs’ true motive was to improve her publicity over other statewide Democratic officials.
“The real story: Katie Hobbs is kowtowing to her far-left base because other statewide Dems are getting way more publicity than her,” stated Scarpinato. “First she canceled summer school. Now she’s against kindergarten. Hobbs’ record is stacking up, and it’s one that hurts real kids. That’s on her.”
The real story: Katie Hobbs is kowtowing to her far-left base because other statewide Dems are getting way more publicity than her. First she canceled summer school. Now she’s against kindergarten. Hobbs’ record is stacking up, and it’s one that hurts real kids. That’s on her. https://t.co/fn4jp6SzsN
The Tucson City Council began the process for increasing residents’ water rates in order to incentivize greater water conservation. The council motioned in a study session on Tuesday to increase rates by reclassifying winter months, which have lower rates, into summer months.
A customer’s water usage over the winter months determines the Average Winter Consumption (AWC), which is charged at a year-round base rate; in the summer months, water usage between 101 to 145 percent of AWC is billed at a higher rate, and over 145 percent at an even higher rate.
The rate increase comes at the behest of the water efficiency and conservation program goals outlined in the city’s Natural Environment Plan. On Tuesday, the city approved Options 1A and 1B to restructure water rates. Those options direct city staff to proceed with the rate adoption process, commence a notice of public intent with a 60-day public outreach and communication hearing prior to a public hearing and rate adoption.
Councilman Kevin Dahl said the water crisis defined by PFAs in the water supply and the Colorado Water River drought necessitated the restructuring of rates. Dahl also claimed that the rate restructure would create equitable change, noting that wealthier entities like homeowners associations and golf courses pay lower water rates while larger families and garden owners pay more.
Rather than allow the traditional policy process, which would take four or five months per proposed change, Dahl moved to expedite both options together rather than separately. The council adopted his motion.
“We need to have a quick start on this,” said Dahl.
The 1A option changes winter months from the current definition of six months to three months. The 1B option then adds on another tier, greater than 145 percent, to the block structure. City staff explained that 1A allows the commercial and industrial class to get used to the three-month winter quarter average for several years, then follow up to determine conservation effectiveness.
Councilman Paul Cunningham said that he appreciated the notice of public intent and hearing, sharing that it alleviated his concerns that residents would experience “sticker shock” over the hike in water rates.
“This is the direction we’re going. We might as well be transparent about it,” said Cunningham.
Cunningham voiced concern over the possibility of specialized rates for different businesses. He also brought up a desire to establish conservation-compliant water parks in the city, noting that they lose residents in the summer to the water parks housed in surrounding cities and states.
“Water, like it or not, is becoming a commodity and is becoming a quantifiable and limited resource,” said Cunningham.
Mayor Regina Romero called the city’s water situation “bleak.” Vice Mayor Steve Kozachik concurred.
“Our goal is to send a strong conservation signal,” said Kozachik.
Tucson hasn’t been the only city to hike its water rates for conservation’s sake. The city of Phoenix proposed increasing water rates over the next year by a minimum of 25 percent.
Watch the city council discussion of the water rates here:
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
An Arizona Republican lawmaker’s videos from a recent border visit appeared to have been deleted from Twitter.
Last week, freshman Representative Austin Smith traveled to Cochise County and stopped by the border to gain first-hand knowledge about the crisis created by the Biden Administration’s policies. He posted two pictures and two videos from his visit to his Twitter account, writing, “Eye opening experience down here on the border. Joe Biden and Mayorkas are derelict in their duty to our country. Absolutely shameful. God bless the Cochise County Sheriff’s Department. They are doing everything they can to keep Arizona and the United States safe. FINISH THE DANG WALL!”
Eye opening experience down here on the border. Joe Biden and Mayorkas are derelict in their duty to our country. Absolutely shameful.
God bless the Cochise County Sheriff’s Department. They are doing everything they can to keep Arizona and the United States safe.
Soon after his media went live to the social media site, the two videos seemed to have disappeared. AZ Free News viewed the post and observed that in place of the videos were the captions “This video has been deleted.”
Smith also noticed the deletion of his videos, sending a public message to Elon Musk to inquire why this had occurred.
The videos Representative Smith published were generic commentaries about the state of the border according to his on-the-ground experience. In the first video, Smith is stationary by the border wall and talks about the number of ‘gotaways’ crossing into the country and the lack of Border Patrol agents around to detect and apprehend any illegal crossers in that area. He states that “the Biden Administration is truly derelict in its duty to protect the United States of America,” and he spends much of his time comparing and contrasting the differences in border security under the Trump and Biden Administrations. He also pleads with his viewers to make political changes with the presidency and the U.S. Senate in the 2024 election in order to effect real change at the border.
In the second video, Smith compares the size of walls before the Trump administration and from the Trump administration, showing that President Trump’s administration built taller infrastructure along the United States-Mexico border.
The first-year Arizona Representative was in Cochise County for the May 20th County Republican Club Lincoln Day Dinner, where he was the keynote speaker. Smith has quickly built out a profile for himself at the Arizona Legislature, focusing, in large part, on stopping Ranked Choice Voting from entering the state.
Excited to join the Cochise County Republican Committee for the 2023 Lincoln Day Dinner! pic.twitter.com/yX9oVvZfpx
After the dinner, he tweeted a picture of him and his fiancée at the event, writing, “Thank you to the great grassroots of @realcochisegop for having @amyesamuel and I tonight! Fantastic group of southern Arizonans!”
An Arizona Republican lawmaker is elated after Democrat Governor Katie Hobbs signed one of her bills this legislative session.
On Tuesday, Representative Barbara Parker issued a press release, announcing that the Arizona Governor had signed one of her bills, HB 2607, earlier this month. Parker’s release describes this action as “a major win for property rights” and writes that this bill “empowers homeowners to hold non-compliant boards more accountable to those they are supposed to serve.”
✅FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE✅
State Representative Barbara Parker Protects Basic Constitutional Rights with Bill to Hold Homeowner Associations Accountable.
— Arizona House Republicans (@AZHouseGOP) May 23, 2023
According to the release, “Under the new law, if the board of a condominium unit owners’ association, or a planned community association, fails to call a special meeting to remove a board member after the requirements are met, then the members of the board are deemed removed from office effective midnight of the 31st day. It further deems the board members removed from office if the board fails to call, notice, and hold a special meeting after the requirements for calling a meeting to remove a board member are met.”
Parker explained her motivation for introducing this legislation, stating, “The purpose of homeowner associations (HOA) was to bring together an association of neighbors to protect and preserve the people’s property and build a sense of community spirit. However, some bad actors have swung the pendulum back to the days of 12th century fiefdoms when overlords punished and abused their citizens. Homeowners had no recourse, other than try to sue deep pocketed Goliaths who can use the people’s own HOA dues against them and even foreclose! HOA boards and property managers need to serve the homeowners they represent, follow the law, and do their jobs.”
She also took a victory lap on the bill being signed into law, writing, “It is no accident that a nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to justice for all protects property rights. America’s Founders understood clearly that private property is the foundation not only of prosperity but of freedom itself and included these protections in the due process clauses of both the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. This timely bill was entirely constituent driven, and it was an honor working with the true stakeholders, the homeowners themselves. State law was failing a resident’s ability to fight back against rogue boards. It has become a true ‘We the People’ victory and I could not be more honored to serve Arizona citizens. Now they can exercise their constitutional liberties to hold unresponsive boards and complicit property management associations accountable when they fail to comply with the law.”
Representative Parker’s bill first passed the House Appropriations Committee on February 20 with a 14-0 vote, and then the full chamber on March 1, 31-28. After the bill was transmitted to the Senate, the Government Committee approved of it on March 29 with an 8-0 tally, and then the full Senate on April 11, 28-0. Because it was amended in the Senate Government Committee, the House ratified the changes on April 26 with a 50-8 vote. HB 2607 was then ferried to the Governor’s Office that day, and it was signed into law on May 1.
Daniel Stefanski is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.
An Arizona legislative attempt to prohibit photo radar has been sent to the Governor’s Office.
Last week, the Arizona House of Representatives passed SB 1234, sponsored by Senator Wendy Rogers, with a vote of 32-26 (with one member not voting and one seat vacant). The bill would “forbid the use of photo radar systems to enforce traffic law.”
Stopping photo radar has long been a focus of Senator Rogers, who forecasted her plans to introduce this legislation last summer. Rogers said, “The photo radar industry made its home base in Arizona. And that ends next year. We’re no longer going to allow government to spy on Arizonans for profit and trample due process rights.”
"The photo radar industry made its home base in Arizona," Rogers told TheNewspaper. "And that ends next year. We're no longer going to allow government to spy on Arizonans for profit and trample due process rights."" /2
After the House approved the proposal, Republican lawmakers cheered its success on social media. Representative Rachel Jones tweeted, “This week, we passed SB 1234 to ban photo radar. These cameras are the biggest scam of all time, and completely unconstitutional. This was a huge win for freedom!!!”
This week, we passed SB1234 to ban photo radar. These cameras are the biggest scam of all time, and completely unconstitutional. This was a huge win for freedom!!!https://t.co/8bbjCpambnpic.twitter.com/DWE9VS3bHh
— AZ Representative Rachel Jones (@RJ4arizona) May 20, 2023
Representative Joseph Chaplik wrote, “Photo radar is a corrupting scheme in our state and it needs to end now. I proudly voted yes for SB 1234 yesterday to ban it completely, just like 16 other states did.”
Photo radar is a corrupting scheme in our state and it needs to end now.
— Rep. Joseph Chaplik 🇺🇸 (@JosephChaplik) May 16, 2023
And Representative Austin Smith posted, “Photo radar is a racket and abuse of our 4th, 5th and 6th amendment rights. How politicians before approved this is shameful. I proudly voted yes to ban photo radar in Arizona. Good bill, Wendy Rogers!
Photo radar is a racket and abuse of our 4th, 5th and 6th amendment rights. How politicians before approved this is shameful. I proudly voted yes to ban photo radar in Arizona. Good bill, @WendyRogersAZ! pic.twitter.com/7HeCevgssL
Before passing the House last this month, this legislation had languished in the legislative process. The House Military Affairs & Public Safety Committee had considered the bill back on March 6, passing it with an 8-7 vote. Earlier in the session, the Senate Government Committee had cleared the measure with a 5-3 vote; and then the full Senate giving the green light with a 16-13 tally (with one member not voting).
Rogers had a dozen co-sponsors for the bill – all Republicans. Senators Ken Bennett, Sonny Borrelli, David Farnsworth, David Gowan, Jake Hoffman, Steve Kaiser, John Kavanagh, Anthony Kern, Sine Kerr, JD Mesnard, (President) Warren Petersen, and Janae Wadsack were the co-sponsors.
Representatives from the City of Chandler, the City of Avondale, the Town of Paradise Valley, the City of Mesa, the Arizona Chapter National Safety Council, the Arizona Public Health Association, and the League of Arizona Cities & Towns noted their opposition to the bill as it moved through the two legislative chambers.
Governor Hobbs is expected to veto this piece of legislation.
Daniel Stefanski is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.
On Monday, the Maricopa County Superior Court dismissed Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake’s case. Tuesday, Lake announced the launch of the “largest ballot chasing operation” in state history, which she clarified was a voter registration initiative for the upcoming election year.
Leading the initiative, backed financially with the Save Arizona Fund, will be longtime grassroots activist Merissa Hamilton.
Lake asserted that her team had proven “beyond a shadow of a doubt” to the Maricopa County Superior Court the brokenness of the state’s election system. However, despite her court loss, Lake pledged to continue to fight for election wins. Lake said that left-wing political actors shouldn’t be the only ones that conduct voter registration.
“We’ve got to work in this rigged, corrupt system, and we can do it,” said Lake.
Lake said that while she opposes mail-in ballots, she believes that the current election system requires participation to win. She claimed that about 500,000 Republican and independent voters combined were sent a mail-in ballot that they didn’t return.
“If this is the game we have to play, if this is their rigged system, we’ll work in their rigged system,” said Lake.
The Arizona Supreme Court granted a review of Lake’s challenge in March.
In Monday’s ruling, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Peter Thompson explained that Lake failed to prove that election officials engaged in misconduct that affected the results of the gubernatorial election. Thompson ruled that Lake’s presentation of evidence that the signature review process was unlawful didn’t provide certainty that a specific number of ballots were impacted by the allegedly quick review.
Thompson cited several testimonies presented by Lake’s witnesses, who reported a preference for a more hasty and thorough signature review process but admitted that the multiple signature reviews required by law were completed. He said it was Lake’s own witnesses that confirmed the counties had abided by election law concerning signature processes, and rejected Lake’s argument based on Reyes v. Cuming that proper elections administration wasn’t adhered to and therefore hindered their ability to argue on a specific number of affected ballots.
“[T]his review was done hastily and possibly not as thoroughly as [complainants] would have liked — but it was done,” wrote Thompson. “This evidence is, in its own right, clear indicia that the comparative process was undertaken in compliance with the statute, putting us outside the scope of Reyes. There is clear and convincing evidence that the elections process for the November 8, 2022, General Election did comply with A.R.S. § 16-550 and that there was no misconduct in the process to support a claim under A.R.S. § 16-672.”
Lake’s team argued that the ballot signatures were processed much too quickly — under one second — to be in compliance with the spirit of the law. Thompson dismissed this argument, saying that time constraints weren’t outlined in the Election Procedures Manual (EPM) and therefore weren’t a standard that could be held against the counties.
“Plaintiff argues that this is so deficient for signature comparison that it amounts to no process at all. Accepting that argument would require the Court to rewrite not only the EPM but Arizona law to insert a minimum time for signature verification and specify the variables to be considered in the process,” stated Thompson. “Plaintiff asks the Court to interpret the word ‘compare’ in A.R.S. § 16-550(A) to require the Court to engage in a substantive weighing of whether Maricopa County’s signature verification process, as implemented, met some analytical baseline. But there are several problems with this. First, no such baseline appears in Section 16-550. Not one second, not three seconds, and not six seconds: no standard appears in the plain text of the statute. No reviewer is required by statute or the EPM to spend any specific length of time on any particular signature.”
Thompson stated the Lake’s witnesses were truthful in their testimonies.
“The Court makes no finding of dishonesty by any witness — and commends those signature reviewers who stepped forward to critique the process as they understood it,” said Thompson.
Thompson declared that no further matters remained on the case, save costs sought by the state and county election officials. Thompson issued a 5:00 pm Tuesday deadline for proposed form of judgment from the defendants, with a 5:00 pm Wednesday deadline for objection to those proposals by Lake’s team.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
