A last minute bill which could give voters the chance to significantly increase the pay for Arizona’s 90 lawmakers and double the length of terms for state senators is set to be heard Monday.
The Arizona Legislature is in session at least 100 days each year starting in early January. Under current law, voters have the final say in setting the annual salary for the state’s 30 senators and 60 representatives.
That rate is $24,000 a year which has not changed for nearly 25 years.
However, Sen. David Gowan and Rep. Regina Cobb are supporting legislation under Senate Bill 1180 which would ask voters in November to set legislators’ pay at 60 percent of the governor’s salary. The governor’s annual pay is currently $95,000, meaning lawmakers would be paid $57,000 a year starting in January 2023.
But it is not only pay that would double for a state senator like Gowan, who represents all of Cochise and Greenlee counties, as well as southern Graham County and a portion of Pima County.
SB1180 includes language asking voters to change the length of Senate terms from two years to four years. And although state representatives would still serve two-year terms, all lawmakers would be allowed to serve up to 12 years in each chamber, for a total of 24 years if a lawmakers runs between the two chambers.
The current limit is eight years in each chamber, or 16 years total as a lawmaker.
To get the bill heard at this point in the session, Cobb has introduced an amendment to strike all the language of Gowan’s current SB1180, which was a COVID-19 expenditure reporting bill already passed by the Senate. The “strike everything amendment” is 25 pages that if cleared by the Legislature would put the provisions in front of voters in November as Senate Concurrent Resolution 1018.
Among the provisions is an overhaul the reporting system for lobbyists who make campaign contributions or expenditure on behalf of a state lawmaker.
According to SB1180, the current quarterly reporting of such expenditures would be replaced with a new mandate that those expenditures be reported within five business days. It also significantly increases the type of gifts to a state officer or employee or a member of the officer’s or employee’s householdwhich would have to be publicly reported.
Currently there is a long list of exemptions to the gift rule, allowing some public officials and employees or their families to accept travel, lodging, and speaking engagement fees without the “gift” ever being reported to the public.
The new transparency rules related to lobbyist activity would also require a new web-based digital platform application to allow for real-time entry of information and public accessibility. SB1180 would allocate $10 million to the Arizona Secretary of State to cover that cost.
On Monday, Cobb’s House Appropriations Committee will hear SB1180’s strike everything amendment. If it passes, the new version of the bill would go back to the Senate for approval because the language varies from what the Senate passed last month.
Gowan has been a strong advocate for ensuring more Arizonans can afford to run for the Legislature, particularly those who live hours away from Phoenix.
In the 2021 legislative session, he spearheaded a bill to change the per diem rates for lawmakers from outside Maricopa County. Those rates -which had equaled $60 a day for housing and food since 1984- were raised to $207 a day for the first 120 days of session.
Future rates will be adjusted based on the federal winter per diem rates set annually by the U.S. General Services Administration. Per diems are separate from pay or travel reimbursement.
The per diem bill became law when Ducey utilized a rare procedural maneuver to allow the legislation to take effect without a governor’s signature.
Following approval by the Arizona House on Thursday, the legislature as a whole passed SB1165, a bill preventing transgender athletes from competing against those of the opposite gender. If the governor signs the legislation into law, it will impact transgender girls and women; males have biological differences to females that give them advantages in sports, and there are many more boys and men competing in girls and women’s sports. However, the legislation doesn’t address women who take testosterone as part of their hormone therapies, which may give them an advantage over their non-doping peers — a concern posed in the case of transgender wrestler Mack Beggs.
State Representative John Kavanagh (R-Fountain Hills) pushed back against arguments against the bill, namely those that claimed individuals would be banned from competing in any sports entirely, or that sports aren’t really about competition but inclusion. Kavanagh cited the recent incident in which the NCAA awarded William Thomas, who goes by the name Lia Thomas and claims to be a woman, the gold medal in one race within their national D1 collegiate swim competition. The state representative argued that the years of hard work, sacrifice, and dedication committed by the women were for naught in the face of Thomas’ robbery.
“This bill allows everybody to participate in sports. It simply says that you have to go on the team that aligns with your biological gender because quite frankly, puberty conveys significant physical advantages on males. And I think it’s very unfair to make biological female athletes compete at that disadvantage. And it recently came to light in the NCAA swimming area. I think that those biological females have been cheated and robbed of a lifetime of effort,” said Kavanagh. “Clearly, there are many good things that come out of school sports besides competition. It’s fun, there’s physical fitness, there’s health. But competition is one of the major things about school sports, and anybody that doubts that might ask themselves, ‘Why are they keeping score?’ if that’s not the case.”
Democrats insisted that males competing in female sports isn’t and won’t be an issue.
State Representative Melody Hernandez (D-Tempe) claimed that transgender women aren’t dominating women’s sports.
“We talked about whether or not this is actually a problem. Trans youth are not coming in and just dominating women’s sports and switching genders because they want to go dominate sports,” said Hernandez.
State Representative Sarah Liguori (D-Phoenix) claimed that Republicans were merely scared of change and due to their ignorance. Liguori cited Harvey Milk, the historic gay rights activist accused of pedophilia and rape.
“We do not need to be afraid. We do not need to be afraid of transgender people, we do not need to be afraid of children,” said Liguori.
“Your vote today shows what side of history you are willing to be on…your willingness to lead with courage or foster the flames of fear and ignorance.” Rep. @SarahKLiguori votes no on anti-transgender #SB1165. Every Republican chose the wrong side of history. #AZLegpic.twitter.com/WZ9tjgh1fH
Certain Democrats even challenged the idea that males have any physical advantages over females. State Representative Mitzi Epstein (D-Chandler) argued that the males who dominate are merely exceptions to a rule, and that they succeed because of their hard work and discipline — not their biological advantages.
“When we hear of one trans athlete making great success, it is due to the hard work and discipline she applied to her sport,” wrote Epstein. “One example does not mean all trans people are better at sports than cis people.”
"Zombies might attack the members' lounge! That's an unfounded fear. We should not make laws based on unfounded fears, fears of zombies or fear of unfair competition with trans girls. Trans girls would be banned from girls sports teams in school- with SB1165. I voted No. …🧵 pic.twitter.com/JCI4spa0nR
An internal conflict appears to be brewing over state legislation which passed through the House and the Senate on March 3 on combined votes of 85 to 0 and was immediately signed into law the same day.
House Bill 2839 was intended to address concerns with statutory deadlines for candidates to qualify to run in Arizona’s 2022 primary elections, the first based on the state’s recently redrawn 30 legislative and 9 congressional districts.
HB2839 was written as an emergency law to provide new rules for this year’s primary election nominating petitions. Passage required a bipartisan, supermajority margin of at least two-thirds of both the 60-member House and 30-member Senate to be become immediately effective once Gov. Doug Ducey affixed his signature.
Yet within 48 hours of the emergency law taking affect, questions began to be asked about one of the four sections of the new law. By Monday morning, the majority of legislators who voted for HB2839 conceded they either misunderstood Section 4 or had not read the bill before casting a vote.
Section 4 contains a new, this-year-only nominating petition requirement which allows candidates for political party precinct committeemen (PCs) to skip signature gathering. But it also gives a political party’s local county committee sole authority to decide which one candidate must be appointed by the county board of supervisors to every PC position for that party.
In Arizona, a PC’s minimum duties under state law involve assisting their political party in voter registration and also providing voter assistance during an election. But a key PC duty involves a vacancy in a county or state office. In most instances, it is a county’s PCs of the party of the prior officeholder who nominate the candidate(s) to fill the vacancy.
The new law also contains other provisions in Section 4 which are confusing, such as providing for only one PC for each precinct, when some precincts currently have several PCs.
Senate President Karen Fann admitted on Sunday that Section 4 resulted in an unintended change in state law. She spent the weekend and Monday working with members to design a plan to repeal Section 4 while also ensuring the thousands of Arizonans interested in serving as a two-year terms as party precinct committeemen will be able to get their names on August’s primary election ballot.
Myriad reasons have been put forth by legislators for why they voted in support of HB2839 without questioning the drastic changes to PCs. Some privately admitted they did not read the bill’s language due to its support by legislative leaders. Others say the text of Section 4 was not capitalized, leading them to believe there was nothing being changed to PC-related laws.
Still others say they read the bill but believed Section 4’s reference to selection of PCs by the local party committee applied only to new precincts recently created under the once-a-decade statewide redistricting process.
New bills were introduced Monday in both chambers – HB2840 and SB1720 – to fully repeal Section 4. However, there are not enough votes yet to pass either bill by the necessary supermajority margin to take affect immediately.
In addition, many lawmakers say they will not vote to repeal Section 4 unless there is new legislation to properly address the PC nomination petition deadline.
“I’ve been pushing for a full repeal of this language all weekend,” Rep. Jake Hoffman said Monday. “The section dealing with PC elections that was snuck into the emergency bill last week will be removed.”
Hoffman (R-LD12) also called on Monday for a thorough review of how the PC language was added to the bill without a full disclosure to legislators.
“In my meeting with leadership today I also made it exceedingly clear that there must be accountability for this abhorrent breach of trust and legislative process,” he said.
Earlier this month the Arizona Supreme Court agreed with a lower court’s ruling that parts of 4 of the 11 budget bills signed into law by Gov. Doug Ducey this summer are unconstitutional on procedural grounds. The reaction from business owners and community leaders was swift, with many left wondering when and how lawmakers will address the dozens of provisions dropped from those budget bills.
Among those provisions was a prohibition on a county, city, or town from issuing COVID-19 ordinances that impact private businesses, schools, churches, or other private entities, including mask mandates. Other prohibitions would have kept K-12 schools from requiring vaccines with an emergency use authorization for in-person attendance and ensured public universities and community colleges could not mandate COVID vaccines and vaccine passports.
The Arizona Free Enterprise Club (AFEC) describes the Justices’ recent opinion as “devastating” and “a big blow to the people of Arizona.” The organization has drawn attention to the uncertainty and frustration across Arizona at a time when the pandemic impacts are still being felt in the state’s economy, and as individual freedoms are under attack.
As a result, the AFEC is leading the call for the Arizona Legislature and the Governor to immediately address the critical reforms that the Supreme Court struck down.
“They must exhaust every option possible, including special session, to protect Arizonans from more COVID mandates and the bigoted teachings of Critical Race Theory,” according to AFEC. “But make no mistake, while this ruling is devastating, it will not stop the battle over these critical issues. There’s just too much at stake. Because if the uncertainty and frustration caused by these issues are allowed to continue, it would be the most devastating news of all.”
Efforts to fill the vacancy created by Tuesday’s resignation of Sen. Otoniel “Tony” Navarrete (D-LD30) in the face of child molestation charges will take a bit longer than expected, after it was discovered there are not enough Democrat LD30 precinct committeemen to make the nomination.
At least 30 elected precinct committeemen are required, but there is only 29, according to information obtained from the Maricopa County Recorder’s Office. That means the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors will have to appoint a citizen’s panel which will be tasked with nominating three Democrat candidates.
The board of supervisors will then vote to appoint one of the three candidates as LD30’s senator. The process could take two weeks or more if a rift occurs among within the party and interested candidates.
Navarrete announced his resignation five days after his Aug. 5 arrest on seven felonies involving sexual misconduct with minors. He had his initial court appearance the next day and was released from jail Aug. 7 to await trial after posting a $50,000 secured bond.
Numerous public officials called on Navarrete to resign as soon as word of his arrest became public, including Gov. Doug Ducey, Senate President Karen Fann, and Rep. Raquel Teran, chair of the Arizona Democratic Party.
The one-sentence resignation letter to Fann and Senate Minority Leader Rebecca Rios was followed by a written statement in which Navarrete “adamantly” denied “all allegations that have been made.”
Navarrete’s resignation put the brakes on an effort by Sen, Kelly Townsend for an ethics investigation. Sen. Sine Kerr, chair of the Ethics Committee, previously confirmed receiving Townsend’s complaint about Navarrete, but on Tuesday she dismissed the complaint as moot.
Court records show two boys, ages 16 and 13, told detectives with the Phoenix Police Department of being sexually molested by Navarrete in the past. The older boy alleged multiple incidents of abuse over several years. Among the evidence described in a probable cause statement is a confrontation call between Navarrete and the younger boy during which the then-senator reportedly admitted to engaging in sexual misconduct.
Confrontation calls are utilized by investigators in hopes of getting an alleged perpetrator to provide a confession or other incriminating evidence.
Navarrete has been ordered to have no-contact with the two victims named in the charges. He is also required to comply with electronic monitoring. If convicted of all charges, Navarrete faces a mandatory prison sentence of nearly 50 years.
