by AZ Free News | May 22, 2021 | News
On Friday, Governor Doug Ducey today signed legislation, sponsored by Rep. Jeff Weninger, that allows bars, liquor stores and restaurants to sell cocktails to-go. The bill is intended to mitigate the damage done to businesses due to the governor’s draconian shut down order due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
In March 2020, Ducey issued his draconian Executive Order restricting enforcement of regulations that prohibit sale and delivery of alcoholic beverages with the purchase of food to help mitigate the disasterous financial consequences of the pandemic-related pause on certain business operations.
House Bill 2773 permanently allows Arizona businesses the opportunity to offer to-go cocktails beyond the pandemic.
by Corinne Murdock | May 21, 2021 | News
By Corinne Murdock |
Senators Mark Kelly (D-AZ) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) both voted against an amendment prohibiting the cancellation of the border wall contracts back in February. Yet, both senators have since lamented President Joe Biden’s policymaking for initiating the border crisis and promptly neglecting it. They went so far as to say that the federal government failed Arizona. Sinema even urged the Biden Administration to take “bold action.”
Not only would the amendment have prohibited the cancellation of contracts – it would have prevented the Biden Administration from assuming the penalties for cancelling the contracts, and repurpose the wall-building funds for paying off the penalties. Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) introduced the amendment, numbered 542. The Senate split on the vote, 50-50.
“To establish a deficit-neutral reserve fund relating to protecting American taxpayers and the border, which may include prohibiting the cancellation of contracts for physical barriers and other border security measures for which funds already have been obligated and for which penalties will be incurred in the case of such cancellation and prohibiting the use of funds for payment of such penalties,” reads the amendment’s summary.
In total, the legislation saw nearly 900 amendments introduced.
Kelly has consistently been against a border wall since his campaign. In a debate last October with former Republican Senator Martha McSally, Kelly called border walls “17th-century solutions for 21st-century problems.” Kelly instead called for an investment into more technology and border patrol agents.
Although Kelly didn’t specify what he meant by technology, it is likely he was referring to an expansion of current technologies – such as cameras, radars, imagers, and sensors.
Similarly to Kelly, Sinema has said that increasing the amount of border patrol agents was a more “practical, realistic solution.” In the same interview, Sinema acknowledged the importance of border walls, but said they weren’t enough.
During her campaign trail, Sinema said that immigration and securing the border were her top priorities. She repeatedly called the border wall a “waste of taxpayer money.”
Not long after she was elected, Sinema abstained her vote when it came to Trump’s proposed spending plan totaling $5 billion for a wall.
As of April, U.S. Customs and Border Protection has tracked nearly 180,000 enforcement encounters. Those numbers mark an unprecedented surge in illegal border crossings over the last few administrations.
Corinne Murdock is a contributing reporter for AZ Free News. In her free time, she works on her books and podcasts. Follow her on Twitter, @CorinneMurdock or email tips to corinnejournalist@gmail.com.
by AZ Free News | May 21, 2021 | News
On Thursday, Sen. T.J. Shope, a Republican, joined all the Senate Democrats to kill HB 2190, a bill intended to protect individual medical privacy rights. The bill, sponsored by Rep. Bret Roberts, would have made it a misdemeanor to refuse services to individuals who do not provide proof they are vaccinated for COVID-19.
HB2190, which would have preserved fundamental medical privacy rights, came to be referred to as the “Show Me Your Papers” bill. After the vote, #shopemeyour papers was trending on social media sites.
Sen. David Gowan offered a full-throated defense of the bill:
Shope, according to sources, would settle for nothing less than a codification of an Executive Order issued by Governor Doug Ducey on the subject of vaccine passports. Roberts even allowed Sen. Tyler Pace to amend his bill that weakened individual rights to some extent, but said his bottom line was a prohibition of businesses refusing service to the unvaccinated. Shope refused to afford Arizona that modicum of medical privacy protection.
The ACLU has called the vaccine passports “troublesome,” yet not one Democratic legislator voted to preserve individual medical privacy rights.
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Sen. Sonny Borelli voted against the bill at the last minute in order to preserve his right as someone who voted with the majority to bring it back for reconsideration by the Senate. However, in these final days of the Legislative Session, it is unlikely the matter will be brought back.
by azfreenews1 | May 20, 2021 | News
By Terri Jo Neff
An executive order issued by Gov. Doug Ducey is temporarily protecting Arizonans from having to reveal their COVID-19 vaccination status in order to shop, attend public events, or receive government benefits. But Ducey’s executive orders issued under the state’s emergency powers laws cannot last forever, so Rep. Bret Roberts is pushing his fellow legislators to provide ensure permanent protections.
On Thursday, Roberts will be watching as the Senate considers HB2190. The bill started out as criminal justice legislation sponsored by Roberts but later became the subject of a strike-everything amendment by Sen. Kelly Townsend to prohibit businesses and government agencies in Arizona from demanding citizens provide proof, or what is referred to as a vaccine passport, of their vaccination status.
Many communities across the country are supporting the use of a vaccine passport policy, despite what Roberts called the risk of creating “a second-class society” of people who will not -or cannot- receive the COVID-19 vaccine. HB2190 seeks to protect the rights and private medical data of Arizonans while ensuring citizens are not forced to prove their vaccine status in order to shop for groceries, enter a bank, or visit their child’s school.
According to Roberts, the bill would also prohibits the government or private businesses from seeking information about a person’s post-transmission recovery if they ever fell ill from COVID-19.
Under HB2190, a business entity, a ticket issuer, or the state, a county, or local government entity or official is prohibited from basing access to a good or service or benefit on whether a person has received a vaccine. The bill also prohibits the state, a county or local government entity or official from requiring a person to receive a vaccine.
One thing Ducey’s temporary executive order and HB2190 do not address is the employee – employer relationship. That means a boss could possibly terminate an employee who won’t, or can’t, take the COVID-19 vaccine. Another thing HB2190 does not do is interfere with healthcare professionals who need to ask a patient’s vaccination status as a matter of public health concern.
Roberts has waited several weeks to see HB2190 get on the Senate calendar. He tweeted Wednesday evening that anyone seeking office should “give serious thought to their position” on vaccine passports.
“I could be wrong but I don’t think this…one will be forgotten,” he tweeted.
If HB2190 passes, it would make a violation of the new law a Class 3 misdemeanor. It would also allow a state court to suspend any state or local business license, permit, or certification for up to 30 days if the business violates the statute. The bill must receive at least 16 ayes from the 30 senators.
by B. Hamilton | May 20, 2021 | Education, News
By B. Hamilton |
The Scottsdale Unified Governing Board canceled its meeting on Tuesday, May 18th, 2021, according to Board President, Jann-Michael Greenburg, because of “a belligerent mob.” Greenburg was referring to the parents who had come to the meeting hoping to be heard on the subjects of masks, and Critical Race Theory-based curriculum.
Even though the Board was, admittedly, well aware and prepared for the number of parents that came to attend the meeting, they still chose to recess the meeting after three minutes. The Board then opened the meeting again just long enough to scold parents before gaveling it to an end.
In an interview on the James T. Harris show on KFYI News Talk 550 AM, one attendee, Amy Carney, stated that while she had never attended a school board meeting before, the pandemic opened up many parents’ eyes to what is happening in schools and what is not happening in schools.
Carney said questions about the Scottsdale district due to the fact that private schools and religious schools were able to open classrooms while Scottsdale schools were shuttered. She noted that the private schools have not seen any more cases of COVID than her kids’ schools, leaving her and other parents to wonder why.
Carney explained that more and more parents began asking the same questions and before anyone knew it, parents are “now awake.” That “wokeness” is fueling the increase parent participation on the school board level.
Carney was shocked by the Board’s decision to shut the meeting down as the parents were neither belligerent nor out-of-line. According to Carney, the parents went from determined to defeated after the Board exerted their power. They may have felt defeated, but it was only momentary. Carney vowed future engagement as have parents across the state once they experience the heavy hand of bureaucrats.
That parental population is growing. The Scottsdale Unified School District Governing Board isn’t the first board that has decided not to hold a meeting because they disagreed with the parents that showed up. Just recently the Vail school board shut down a meeting rather than allow parents to speak.
Across the state, groups of parents are organizing to take back the education of their children, ensuring that the Scottsdale Board was not the first to face a “mob,” of mid-mannered parents, nor will it be the last.
by AZ Free News | May 20, 2021 | News
On Wednesday, the Phoenix City Council approved in a 5-4 vote, the creation of a police oversight office. Last November the Council considered the same plan, which is described as “radical” by City Councilman Sal DiCiccio, but rejected it in a 5-4 vote.
DiCiccio and other opponents believe the creation of the office is the end of well-funded police force as the money will be shifted away from policing and to projects and activists determined to reduced policing.
Councilmembers Laura Pastor, Betty Guardado and Yassamin Ansari and Mayor Kate Gallego joined Garcia in voting yes on the plan. Councilmembers Ann O’Brien, Jim Waring, Debra Stark and Sal DiCiccio voted no on the measure.
