In a time when confidence in our democratic institutions teeters on the edge, one principle must remain sacred: the sanctity of our elections. Our Republic is only as strong as the faith our citizens place in the ballot box. That’s why the passage of the SAVE Act (H.R. 22) is not only timely—it is essential.
The SAVE Act draws directly from the foundation laid by President Donald J. Trump’s Executive Order titled “Preserving and Protecting the Integrity of American Elections.” That order highlighted what every American knows instinctively: fair and secure elections are the bedrock of our constitutional republic. President Trump made it clear that foreign interference, voter fraud, and systemic vulnerabilities are not just possibilities—they are threats we must meet with resolve and action. (RELATED: Stephen Miller Says Democrats Just Dropped ‘One Of The Dumbest Talking Points’ Yet Against SAVE Act)
H.R. 22 codifies into law many of the critical protections championed in that executive order. From requiring proof of U.S. citizenship to vote in federal elections, to enhancing voter roll maintenance and mandating transparent election audits, the SAVE Act is a clear response to the growing concerns of voters across the political spectrum. It closes loopholes and modernizes our electoral systems to meet today’s challenges with strength and clarity.
Last Thursday, the House of Representatives passed the SAVE Act with bipartisan support. That vote sent a clear and resounding message to the American people: election integrity is not a partisan issue—it is a national imperative. Now, the responsibility lies squarely with the United States Senate. The time for debate is over. The Senate must act swiftly, pass the SAVE Act, and send it to President Trump’s desk so he can sign it into law.
But passing legislation is only half the battle.
To truly safeguard the integrity of our elections, the SAVE Act must be implemented rigorously at the state level. This isn’t merely a matter of policy—it’s a matter of national security. Every Secretary of State and every election official across the country must treat the integrity of the ballot as the solemn responsibility it is. More importantly, state attorneys general must rise to the occasion and enforce this law with unwavering commitment.
The role of a state attorney general should go beyond consumer protections and civil enforcement. In this era, a top-priority mission must be the preservation of free and fair elections. Attorneys general must be fearless guardians of our electoral process—investigating fraud, holding bad actors accountable, and defending laws like the SAVE Act in court if necessary. Anything less is an abdication of their duty to the Constitution and to the people they serve.
Inaction is not neutrality—it is complicity. And when it comes to our elections, the cost of complacency is nothing less than the erosion of the public trust and the weakening of the very pillars of our Republic.
The SAVE Act offers a rare and critical opportunity to restore that trust. It deserves bipartisan support, full implementation, and vigilant enforcement. The American people are watching. They are demanding transparency, security, and fairness. We owe it to them—and to every generation that will inherit this great nation—to deliver nothing less.
Trey Trainor is a contributor to The Daily Caller News Foundation and currently serves as Chairman of the Federal Election Commission; he was nominated as a Commissioner by President Donald J. Trump and was confirmed by the U.S. Senate in 2020. He is board certified by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization in Legislative and Campaign Law and has practiced election law for over two decades.
This past November was a good time to be a Republican, especially here in Arizona. Not only did President Donald Trump win our state in a landslide victory, but Republicans expanded their majorities in both the Arizona House and Senate—despite being outspent in every single race.
While this turn of events shocked many in the corporate media who were convinced that Arizona was on its way from being a purple state to a blue state, we knew that voter registration trends told a different story.
Over the last couple of years, the gap between registered Republicans and Democrats in Arizona widened from 3.04% in 2020 to 4.03% in 2022. By April of last year, it had increased to 5.77%. And by November, it had expanded to 6.77%, a registration increase that proved decisive in President Trump’s overwhelming victory.
Now, 5 months removed from their electoral wipeout in November, there has been a lot of discussion about whether the Democrats’ political fortunes in Arizona would be reversing after their blowout loss to Trump.
Unfortunately for them, the latest voter registration numbers poured plenty of cold water on those dreams…
March was Women’s History Month, but a quick perusal through Governor Katie Hobbs’ social media shows no mention of it.
Crickets.
I can only assume she was avoiding the backlash because she knows how the majority of Arizona voters feel about matters such as Women’s History Month.
It’s for women.
So much for being the party of women’s rights. Gov. Hobbs, a female governor, made it clear this week that she refuses to stand with women and, in doing so, she refuses to stand with Arizona voters.
Gov. Hobbs had a second chance to preserve women’s rights this year, but she vetoed HB2062, Arizona’s Stand With Women Act, an act that would have codified the original meaning of basic sex-based words like ‘woman’ and ‘female’ in order to ensure that women’s rights aren’t compromised by judicial activism and bureaucrats. It would have given power back to our elected representatives to decide how, and in which contexts, it is appropriate to separate citizens by sex.
Words matter. We can’t protect women if we can’t define ‘woman.’ I have a vested interest in making sure we do. I am a mother. I have two daughters. My first granddaughter is on the way. I am president of a public K-8 charter school where young girls come to learn.
Mother, daughter, granddaughter, grandmother, aunt, sister, girls … all words that will become meaningless if we don’t fight to stop our erasure. Activists say these words lack objective meaning. They say these words are defined by subjective feelings, rather than objective reality. The efforts of these activists to legally eradicate the difference between the sexes fundamentally erase women by depriving them of their dignity, safety, and well-being. Men and women are legally equal, but biologically different and as such should have a legal right to single-sex spaces. 86% of Americans (and even 83% of Democrats) agree. Gov. Hobbs is out of touch with the public and even those of her own party.
What about publicly collected data regarding males and females? Shouldn’t vital statistics—including statistics about matters such as violence against women—reflect biological truth? Imagine a world where all data used to promote public health, prevent crime, enforce civil rights laws, and ensure economic and social policy was subjective!
Most of the public focus on this issue has been on fairness in women’s sports, but this goes far beyond sports. Only two states—and not Arizona—ensure women’s prisons are only for women. In many states, men identifying as women, many of whom are violent sexual predators, have been transferred into women’s prisons. Unfortunately, many female inmates have already suffered physical and psychological damage as a result. This is why 91% of Americans, even 88% of Democrats, support single-sex prisons.
Women, including sexual assault survivors, are being told not to complain about having men undress next to them in their private spaces such as locker rooms. Men are invading female sororities, domestic violence shelters, and educational training programs that were created specifically to encourage women’s engagement.
What kind of a world are we setting up for the next generation if we close our eyes to this? My challenge to all Arizonans is this: make some serious noise and do not let up! Educate everyone you meet on what Gov. Hobbs has done to disadvantage women and take away our right to equal opportunity. Talk about this at church, at the gym, and yes, even in the workplace. I am convinced that once Arizonans understand the dangerous impact of this veto, they will have found their line in the sand and have the courage to do something about it.
Christy Narsi lives in Surprise, AZ. She is the national chapter director for Independent Women’s Network. Christy is passionate about developing and empowering women who make an impact in their communities.
Donald Trump has promised to create millions of new high-paying jobs.
One easy first step to doing that is to repeal Biden-regulations on America’s 4 million business partnerships (sometimes known as S-corporations) that are prolific job creators. The latest estimates find 10 million Americans employed by these business partnerships, with $800 billion paid in worker salaries and benefits.
For example, “95 percent of Microsoft’s commercial revenue flows directly through” its “partner ecosystem.” The profits from these enterprises are passed through to the 4 million partners, who make tax payments based on their share of those earnings.
These have been the tax rules governing partnerships for many decades. The Biden administration didn’t like the tax rules, so instead of asking Congress to change them, Biden’s Treasury Department worked through the back door to unilaterally modify the rules, as part of its “fairness” agenda.
The precise tax target is a technique used by partnerships to lower their tax liability called “basis shifting.” While technically complex (because everything with the U.S. tax code is complicated), it is also entirely legal and has been used by partnerships for decades to adjust the value of their assets during a transaction or transfer. Whatever one thinks of basis shifting, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) doesn’t have the unilateral authority to change the tax laws — only Congress does.
The Biden crackdown treated business partners as tax cheats. When they hired 87,000 agents to harass companies and individuals, nearly 4,000 of these IRS tax collectors were hired to among other things, “expand enforcement focusing on complex partnerships.”
The more than four million business partnerships became an overnight suspect class, as did the tax returns of millions of partners.
To pry money out of these partnerships, the Biden team wanted to create a retroactive tax (which should be illegal) by changing the rules and apply them going back six years in time. So a tax structure that may have been perfectly legal in the past could now trigger investigations, fines, and litigation.
Biden Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen also created a new investigative office to oversee and harass partnerships. That should be shutdown.
So a tax structure that may have been perfectly legal in the past could now trigger investigations, fines, and litigation.
More than 90% of partnerships are small businesses, according to an Ernst and Young study prepared for the Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council (SBE Council) last year. The business partnership arrangement allows these firms to have ready access to needed capital to expand their operations. In all these companies generated $1.3 trillion to our GDP.
These partnership arrangements allow promising small companies to grow into large ones. This uniquely American business structure is a hallmark of U.S. entrepreneurial success — a path for businesses to go from good to great.
It isn’t broken. The system works. That’s why the Trump Treasury Department needs to immediately command the IRS to cease and desist the Biden witch hunt against these partnerships.
It’s a war on wealth. A war on U.S. businesses. And it’s a direct assault on the Trump promise to “make America great again.”
Stephen Moore is a contributor to The Daily Caller News Foundation, a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation, and a co-founder of Unleash Prosperity. His latest book co-authored with Arthur Laffer is “The Trump Economic Miracle.”
It was just about 2 years ago that a fury ran through the Mesa Public Schools community over a controversial document that had gone largely unnoticed. That document is titled “Support Plan for Transgender and Gender Nonconforming Students” (also called “Guidelines for Support of Transgender and Gender Nonconforming Students.”) This plan allows a student who “consistently asserts at school a gender identity that is different from the student’s sex assigned at birth” to “participate in such activities and access such facilities consistent with their gender identity.” (Notice there’s no mention of a parental consent requirement.) This means restrooms, locker rooms, and showers.
There were multiple concerns raised to district leadership regarding the plan. How would non-transgender students be protected and affirmed when someone of the opposite biological sex is now allowed to enter their private spaces such as bathrooms, locker rooms, and showers?
Numerous stories surfaced reporting females were not eating or drinking during the day to avoid having to use the restrooms, which they were now compelled to share with biological boys. Why was their “safe space” suddenly being violated? Why were they suddenly denied any expectation of privacy that matched their values? Why is there allowance in the document for the district to conceal a student’s transgender ideation and the district’s course of action affirming that ideation from their parents? Does this concealment violate ARS 1-601, Parents Rights Protected? Does this plan amount to providing behavioral health services as defined by the Arizona Behavioral Health Board? District leadership has successfully danced around providing clear, unambiguous answers to these questions. Why? What are they trying to hide from parents?
Even though Superintendent Dr. Andi Fourlis issued carefully worded, yet vague assurances to the contrary, there still remains within the plan/guidelines, allowances to NOT notify parents of their child’s transgender ideations as the district personnel provide “gender affirming care” for the child. A Public Records Request in early 2023 exposed a school counselor who was maintaining a spreadsheet of trans students along with notation as to whether parents knew.
This counselor was informing other staff how to avoid “outing” students to parents when speaking with them. The plan originally included a checkbox for the student to indicate if their parents were to be told.
Additionally, the plan expressly states that although changes to the student’s “preferred name/pronouns” may be made in district records, “parental consent is not required.”
At the governing board meeting on May 9, 2023, (begin at 3:35:25), board member Rachel Walden asked leadership, “What is the criteria for a student to be put on this Transgender Support Plan?”
District general counsel, Kasey King, responded “…there’s not specific criteria. It’s a student who’s requesting to use the restroom of their choice or to designate the pronouns or names of their choice. Also, as a tool to help the student and the school process how that information is going to be shared, IF AT ALL!”
It is student-initiated, primarily. Notice the complete absence of any parental involvement or even notification here.
Mrs. King continued, “I’m thinking at the younger grades, it might be a situation where the student simply starts asking for some accommodations. And as a way to make sure everybody is on the same page, their teacher or counselor might suggest they put it into writing.”
Are you following this? A student at the “younger grades” might ask for transgender accommodations from the school, and the teacher or counselor will suggest putting that student on a Transgender Support Plan! No parental consent or notification required. Mrs. Walden continued to press for transparency into what is occurring: “There’s nothing in these guidelines about notifying the parents. Isn’t there an opportunity for parental notification process in this?”
Mrs. King: “Parents always have the right under FERPA (Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act) to inspect and review their child’s education records.”
Mrs. Walden responded, “How would they know to ask that?”
Then-board President Marcie Hutchinson chimed in, “I guess they would ‘check in’ with the school.”
So, moms and dads, the only way to know for sure if your child has been placed on a Transgender Support Plan at Mesa Public Schools is for you to “check in with the school.” Since you don’t know the day that this might happen, I suggest you “check in” every day. Don’t expect to be notified otherwise. This is akin to child abuse in many people’s minds, yet the district refuses to make suitable provisions for parental notification, even to this day.
There is, in the old version of the plan/guidelines, a provision for parental notification “if changes are made in Synergy.” But apparently otherwise, mum’s the word.
OLD VERSION
The district has since revised the wording to make sure staff inform students “…that IF they request to change information in Synergy, parent(s) will be notified.”
When I see this, I read “SHHHH! Nobody has to know. Just don’t request a change in Synergy, and it’ll be our secret.”
The other concerning change explicitly states that parental/legal guardian consent “is not required” for a student to request district personnel provide gender affirming care to them.
These changes occurred in July 2024.
NEW VERSION
In a further assault on parental rights, the district has modified the guidelines from the verbiage previously, which stated, “Disclosing confidential student information to others may violate privacy laws” to a more intimidating and yet ambiguous, “Disclosing confidential student information to…parents…may violate privacy laws.”
Are teachers or counselors more likely or less likely to notify parents with this threat of violating privacy laws looming over their heads? I say less likely.
OLD VERSION
NEW VERSION
Then, as if that is not sufficient means for the district to usurp parental authority, Dr. Fourlis and Kacey King have now decided that the transgender plan/guidelines, which have for years resided on the Legal Services webpage on the district website, should be moved to a private internal location, away from public/parent access. When I asked the Governing Board President, Courtney Davis, why the district would make such a move as to lessen transparency, her answer allayed no concerns. “It was moved because it is a tool for school personnel to use to work with transgender students.”
It was always that Mrs. Davis! The only difference is, the public, and more importantly parents, no longer have access to documents describing what could potentially be happening to their child at Mesa Public Schools without their knowledge or consent.
After calling them out on this, Dr. Fourlis and Mrs. King have restored the document to the website, with an interesting change in title. They went from “Guidelines” to “Guidance.” Why that subtle change? For the record, contrary to the wording of Dr. Fourlis’ email, I did not request anything. I simply noted that hiding the document from public view was a “terrible decision.” Apparently, she agreed.
Interesting to note, since this document is considered a “guideline,” or now “guidance” and not a policy, it has not gone before the governing board for approval.
In an attempt to restore parental rights as defined under ARS 1-601, board member Sharon Benson proposed a policy at the April 8, 2025 board meeting which would require parental notification anytime a student indicated to a district employee any transgender ideations. During public comment (starts at 1:59:30), dozens of trans activists showed up in protest. Their overarching message was along the lines of, “If you ‘out’ students, they will be victims of abuse from their parents,” and “School personnel are much better equipped to deal with these issues than parents,” and “It’s not necessary for parents to know about their child’s mental distress.” All patently false statements.
Now, self-proclaimed members of the Communist and Socialist parties weighed in, trying to advance the narrative that children belong to the state, not parents (i.e. parents have no need to know about their child’s mental or emotional distress because the school is taking care of it). This is happening in Mesa folks! Are you paying attention?
It’s time to get involved. Attend district governing board meetings and make your voice heard. It’s critical that we stand for students and for parents.
Ed Steele is a husband, father, grandfather, and Mesa resident with a passion for helping the younger generation succeed in education.
Americans are getting fed up with their government. Why not remove some useless government-provided “stuff” from our lives? It would be cheap and easy.
For example, Daylight Savings Time (DST) can’t compete for attention with issues like inflation, immigration, and geopolitical threats, so it just hangs around. We would be better off without it.
DST was implemented during World War I to help conserve fuel and extend the working hours for which there was sunlight. Some of the early objections to DST were that it was a bad idea to tinker with God’s time and that it upset cows’ digestion to be fed earlier in the day. We blew past these, but no compelling replacement rationale for DST has ever developed.
Although it has been marketed as a fuel saving strategy, an Energy Department study in 2008 showed no effect on overall vehicle gas consumption attributable to DST. Other academic studies also found no benefit in crime statistics, travel times, or trade due to DST, while school and work attendance suffer slightly during the shifts.
Two states, Hawaii and most of Arizona, don’t observe DST anyway, so we have only to endure badly timed phone calls from the East Coast and remembering to adjust the times of televised sports broadcasts. Twenty states have petitioned to go on DST permanently but lack the required federal permission to do so. So, the semi-annual shifts persist as an unattractive irritant with little constituency, which exist mainly because of political inertia.
Then there’s our old friend, the humble penny. Americans have considerable nostalgia for the little guy: a penny saved is a penny earned and all that. Plus it has a picture of Lincoln on it. But cumulative inflation over the years has left the penny less than valueless. In 2024, it cost the U.S. 3.7 cents to produce and distribute a penny, something so colossally stupid only government could even contemplate it.
Moreover, pennies make cash transactions more cumbersome and thus more time-consuming. The average American makes about one cent every two seconds, so if it takes her more than two seconds to fish out and spend a penny, you’re losing money there too.
All these small injuries add up more than you might think. Last year, the U.S. minted 3.2 billion pennies, mostly because they are so worthless that they’re often not returned to circulation, ending up “under the couch cushions.” Do the math.
This is a true no-brainer. There isn’t a significant pro-penny political constituency, and it is logistically simple for Congress to simply order the U.S. Mint to stop making pennies. We eliminated the half-penny in 1857, and life went on. The retail economy is going over to credit cards anyway, so the nickel should also be slated for elimination before long.
HOV lanes were created in the 1970s and 80s in an effort to reduce the total number of cars on the road and (again) reduce fuel consumption. Their creation was part of the great surge of interest in reducing hydrocarbon emissions in the belief that eliminating greenhouse gases would be a feasible way to save the planet.
HOV lanes have never come close to achieving the anticipated result. According to the Reason Foundation, HOV lane miles have gone from 1,500 in 1985 to over 4,000 today. Yet carpooling among commuters dropped from 19.7% in 1980 to under 9% by 2019. The number of people who commute solo has actually risen from 64% to 80% in spite of all the inducements.
The massive investments in transit by our centralized transportation planners have also been fruitless, actually reducing the number of commuters using transit from 6.4% in 1980 to 5.0% in 2019.
Why have HOV lanes failed? Mostly because drivers just aren’t that interested. But enforcement is costly and ineffective. Studies have found that up to 84% of vehicles in HOV lanes are there illegally.
Moreover, during peak periods when freeways are slowed by overutilization, HOV lanes can contribute to the problem by taking a much needed but underutilized lane out of commission. The added freeway congestion meanwhile contributes to the emissions problem HOV lanes are supposed to ameliorate.
It’s time. Just do it.
Dr. Thomas Patterson, former Chairman of the Goldwater Institute, is a retired emergency physician. He served as an Arizona State senator for 10 years in the 1990s, and as Majority Leader from 93-96. He is the author of Arizona’s original charter schools bill.
