by Corinne Murdock | Oct 12, 2022 | News
By Corinne Murdock |
On Tuesday, former Vice President Mike Pence came to Phoenix to celebrate Arizona’s universal school choice.
Pence attended a forum hosted by the Club for Growth, a conservative nonprofit based out of Washington, D.C. The forum was the third in their “National Campaign for School Freedom” series. Pence praised Ducey for making universal school choice possible. He predicted that universal school choice would be the standard for all states.
“I don’t think you can overstate or over-commend the leadership of Governor Doug Ducey in creating universal school choice in America for the first time,” said Pence.
Ducey also spoke at the event, explaining that the experiences of parents and students throughout the pandemic accelerated the growth in support for school choice. Ducey stated that it took 8 years to achieve universal school choice. He thanked activists who pushed for school choice expansion, including the Black Mothers Forum and Love Your School founder Jenny Clark.
Ducey compared the refusal of school choice opponents’ refusal to empower families with educational freedom to the refusal of the anti-segregationists in the 1950s.
“50 years ago, politicians stood in the schoolhouse door, and wouldn’t let minorities in. Today, union-backed politicians stand in the schoolhouse door and won’t let minorities out,” said Ducey. “These children are trapped in failing schools.”
That explanation by Ducey was backed by data presented by Chris Wilson, CEO of an Oklahoma-based market research agency called WPA Intelligence. Wilson explained that a poll of over 4,000 voters from last July to last August determined that COVID-19 shutdowns changed attitudes on public schools and teachers’ unions.
Wilson explained further that voters had a negative perspective of the phrase “school choice” on its own, but adopted a positive view once a definition of the phrase was provided. He explained that those activists and unions opposed to school choice successfully branded the word “choice” as a negative. Wilson suggested that politicians adjust their presentation and terminology concerning school choice, though cautioned that there was no single “silver bullet” for phrasing.
Wilson pointed out that terms like “school freedom,” “school choice scholarships,” and “education freedom” had positive feedback, whereas “parental choice” and “school choice” had negative feedback.
Wilson added that advancing school choice requires identifying the right opponents and avoiding rhetoric around the wrong ones.
READ THE FULL SCHOOL CHOICE POLLING REPORT
Republican Senate candidate Blake Masters also came to the event. Masters discussed how he and his wife chose homeschooling for their children. Masters derided modern education for prioritizing equity-based curricula like the 1619 Project and Critical Race Theory (CRT).
“That feeling of being in charge of your child’s education, that is a feeling that I wish for every parent in this state and every parent in this country,” stated Masters. “When parents are left free to choose — surprise, surprise — parents will choose reading, and writing, and arithmetic, and history. Guess what they won’t choose? Critical race theory, are you kidding me?”
The forum also featured several testimonies from young adults and their families who benefited from school choice.
Saturday is the deadline to apply for universal school choice through the Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) Program.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
by Corinne Murdock | Oct 12, 2022 | News
By Corinne Murdock |
Race and class-based power structures appear to be a lifelong theme for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Katie Hobbs.
On Monday, the Daily Mail published an exclusive investigative report revealing that Hobbs helped organize a “Slave Day” at Seton Catholic Preparatory High School. The annual tradition was part of a spirit week characterized by slave-themed hazing between classes, including an auction where senior students were “sold.”
The report comes just a month before the anniversary of the second court ruling determining that Hobbs committed racial and sexual discrimination against a former Senate employee, Talonya Adams, while the Senate minority leader. Next Monday will mark the third anniversary of the first ruling against Hobbs.
Hobbs avoided issuing an apology to Adams. Rather, Hobbs gave the Arizona Mirror an exclusive interview to defend her firing of Adams. Hobbs claimed that, regardless of what the courts decided in both lawsuits, she fired Adams based on performance issues. Hobbs further stated that Adams was paid less because she was a Democrat.
Following the community outrage in response to that article and other public statements defending her firing of Adams, Hobbs changed her tune. Hobbs blamed “systemic racism” for her errors, saying that the inequities faced by Adams were invisible to her.
“My response to the jury verdict was short-sighted, unnecessarily defensive, and failed to meet the moment,” said Hobbs.
As part of her apology, Hobbs pledged to recruit, campaign, and hire women of color to leadership positions; create a Chief Equity Officer to enforce government diversity, such as through the Office of Equal Opportunity to improve human resource protocols; and create a position within each agency dedicated to people of color and marginalized communities.
Hobbs ignored the report of her involvement in Slave Day activities; she never responded to Daily Mail inquiries about it. Hobbs didn’t respond to other outlets’ inquiries, either.
Instead, Hobbs focused her Monday messaging on her proposed policies, celebrating Indigenous Peoples Day in lieu of Christopher Columbus Day, the alleged Republicans who will cast their vote for her, celebrating World Mental Health Day, and reminding Arizonans that Tuesday is the last day to register to vote.
Republican opponent Kari Lake said she wasn’t surprised by Hobbs’ “Slave Day” activities, calling her opponent a “twice-convicted racist.” Lake said that Hobbs cost taxpayers $2.75 million, the amount awarded to Adams through the second verdict, but Adams only received around $300,000 according to a maximum set by federal law. The state paid Adams last September.
Hobbs and Lake have essentially tied according to the latest polling. Hobbs has a slim lead of .2 points.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
by Corinne Murdock | Oct 8, 2022 | News
By Corinne Murdock |
On Tuesday, the state of Arizona reached an $85 million settlement with Google over profiting on a deceptive acquisition of users’ location data. It is the most per capita that Google has paid out for this type of lawsuit.
In a press release announcing the settlement, Attorney General Mark Brnovich shared that the legal battle constituted one of the biggest consumer fraud lawsuits in state history.
“When I was elected attorney general, I promised Arizonans I would fight for them and hold everyone, including corporations like Google, accountable,” said Brnovich. “I am proud of this historic settlement that proves no entity, not even big tech companies, is above the law.”
Brnovich launched a two-year investigation into the Big Tech giant in 2018 after the Associated Press reported that users were misled and deceived about the collection and use of their Android smartphone’s location data — even if the user disabled their location history. The Big Tech giant would collect location data through other phone settings without consent in order to sell ads.
Brnovich stressed these facts when he sued Google in 2020. In all, the investigation and litigation took about four years.
“While Google users are led to believe they can opt-out of location tracking, the company exploits other avenues to invade personal privacy,” said Brnovich. “It’s nearly impossible to stop Google from tracking your movements without your knowledge or consent. This is contrary to the Arizona Consumer Fraud Act and even the most innovative companies must operate within the law.”
Over 80 percent of Google’s revenues were generated through advertising.
While Google misled users on how it would collect and profit off of their personal location data, they would purport to err on the side of transparency through initiatives like their “Transparency Report.” The company continues to raise concern about how governments and other corporations engage with individuals’ data.
They also used to publish an annual report, “Android Security Year in Review,” which discussed their efforts to protect Android users’ data. The last report of that kind was issued in March 2019, about 7 months after the AP report.
Google petitioned the courts to seal Brnovich’s complaint and exhibits in the case, prompting widespread backlash from transparency advocates. Some aspects of the documents are unredacted, though the remainder are redacted.
READ THE REDACTED COMPLAINT AND EXHIBITS AGAINST GOOGLE
Most of the $85 million will go to the state’s general fund, with $5 million set aside for attorney general education programs.
Joseph Kanefield, Brunn Roysden, and Michael Catlett handled the case for the attorney general’s office. Outside counsel included Kevin Neal and Ken Ralston of Gallagher & Kennedy, and Guy Ruttenberg and Mike Eshaghian of Ruttenberg IP Law.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
by Corinne Murdock | Oct 5, 2022 | News
By Corinne Murdock |
Last Thursday, the Arizona Auditor issued a report finding that the state’s Medicaid agency, the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System (AHCCCS), failed to fulfill four major aspects of its services, including a year delay on average to investigate over half of fraud or abuse incidents.
AHCCCS provides health care coverage to over 2.4 million Arizonans: about 33 percent of the population.
In all, the audit report determined that AHCCCS also failed to: review health plans every three years as required, make correct eligibility determinations, ensure that health plans oversaw providers in two key areas, and establish oversight processes for its Housing Program and Administrator.
In order to remedy these issues, Auditor General Lindsey Perry issued 22 distinct recommendations. AHCCCS agreed to implement all 22 of Perry’s recommendations without contest.
AHCCCS explained that no federal or state regulations mandated the completion of preliminary investigations within 3 months, like Perry recommended, but agreed it was best practice and would adopt that protocol. Likewise, AHCCCS explained it would adopt a self-auditing process to review eligibility determinations, despite there not being any federal or state regulations for such quality assurance reviews.
AHCCCS also noted that its lack of eligibility reviews was due to understaffing caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The audit may also result in a change to state law. AHCCCS noted that it wasn’t able to create a monthly report as required by statute. This report — which was to be sent to the governor, the house speaker, and the senate president — was meant to include Title XIX and non-Title XIX categories that outlined the persons served, the units of service, and the amount of funding provided for client services and the amount provided for regional behavioral health authority administration and case management expenses.
In addition to the negative findings of the audit report, AHCCCS is facing a lawsuit filed by several federally-qualified health centers. The community health centers claim that AHCCCS is wrong to deny reimbursements for dentists, podiatrists, optometrists, and chiropractors. Earlier this month, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a decision dismissing the lawsuit.
Arizona Alliance for Community Health Centers sued AHCCCS, joined by Canyonlands Healthcare, Chiricahua Community Health Centers, Desert Senita Community Health Center, Mariposa Community Health Center, Marana Health Center, Mountain Park Health Center, Native Health, North Country Healthcare, Sun Life Family Health Center, Sunset Community Health Center, and United Community Health Center-Maria Auxiliadora.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
by Terri Jo Neff | Oct 3, 2022 | News
By Terri Jo Neff |
Arizona will have just one personal income tax rate of 2.5 percent instead of four rates as of Jan. 1, Gov. Doug Ducey announced last week. That is an effective date one year sooner than was originally expected when the governor signed legislation in 2021 for what was designed as a three-year phase in.
“It’s time to deliver lasting tax relief to Arizona families and small businesses so they can keep more of their hard-earned money,” Ducey wrote to Arizona Department of Revenue Director Robert Woods on Sept. 29. “This tax relief keeps Arizona competitive and preserves our reputation as a jobs magnet and generator of opportunity.”
It is Arizona’s thriving economy and record revenues which allows for full implementation of the flat tax now instead of January 2024, according to Ducey. The Joint Legislative Budget Committee and the Governor’s Office of Strategic Planning and Budgeting jointly informed the governor last week that Arizona’s General Fund revenues, excluding the beginning balance for Fiscal Year 2022, were at $16.7 billion.
This exceeded the statutory economic condition phase-in triggers written into the flat tax law in 2021. In addition, Arizona’s Rainy Day Fund is at its highest level ($1.4 billion) in state history and economists are forecasting Arizona will report at least a $4 billion budget surplus through 2024.
“It’s no secret that Arizona’s economy is booming,” Ducey added in his letter to Woods. “Over the last eight years, we’ve made responsible decisions to live within our means, reduce burdensome government regulations, lower taxes every year and ensure our state remains a great place to live.”
Arizona House Majority Leader Ben Toma was instrumental in getting personal income tax reform passed during the 2021 legislative session to eventually replace the state’s four-rate system of 2.59 to 4.5 percent with the 2.5 percent flat rate.
“I am happy to report that revenue thresholds have been exceeded one full year in advance, enabling the implementation of a single flat rate of 2.5% a year earlier, providing Arizonans with significant economic relief when they need it most,” he said in response to the governor’s announcement.
Several business groups and economic development organizations lauded the news, which will give Arizona the lowest flat tax in the country when it takes effect Jan. 1.
Americans For Prosperity – Arizona:
“This is a historic win for Arizona that couldn’t come at a better time,” said State Director Stephen Shadegg of AFP-Arizona. “Over time, Arizonans will continue to reap the benefits of more tax relief and the state will become even more attractive to businesses and investors, growing the state’s economy while letting hardworking taxpayers keep more of their paychecks.”
Common Sense Institute Arizona, a non-partisan research organization dedicated to the protection and promotion of Arizona’s economy:
Arizona Chamber of Commerce:
