by Daniel Stefanski | Jan 28, 2024 | News
By Daniel Stefanski |
An Arizona Republican legislator is looking to present voters with an upcoming opportunity to help protect their state’s sovereignty.
Earlier this week, freshman State Representative Austin Smith announced that he had introduced HCR 2040, which is a concurrent resolution to enact and order “the submission to the people of a measure relating to public monies.”
In a comment to AZ Free News, Smith said, “The public policy of this state, political subdivisions, and universities should be – public monies are not spent to join organizations that promote anti-freedom agendas listed in HCR2040. This HCR aims at the heart of what the World Economic Forum and the UN Climate Council are working to implement globally. HCR2040 is about protecting freedom. Period.”
The definition of the prohibited expenditures of public monies was laid out in the bill, as follows:
1. REDUCING THE CONSUMPTION OR PRODUCTION OF MEAT OR DAIRY PRODUCTS OR REPLACING ANIMAL-BASED PROTEIN WITH INSECT OR SYNTHETIC PROTEIN.
2. REDUCING OR REPLACING MOTOR VEHICLE TRAVEL WITH WALKING, BIKING, OR PUBLIC TRANSIT.
3. REDUCING OR LIMITING TRAVEL BY AIRPLANE.
4. LIMITING THE NUMBER OF ARTICLES OF CLOTHING AN INDIVIDUAL MAY PURCHASE OR OWN.
5. REUSING WATER THAT HAS TOUCHED HUMAN FECES AS A SOURCE OF MUNICIPAL DRINKING WATER.
6. REDUCING GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS OR TRACKING AND COLLECTING OF ANY INFORMATION OR DATA FOR DETERMINING CONSUMPTION-BASED EMISSIONS.
7. LIMITING THE INCREASE OF THE AVERAGE GLOBAL TEMPERATURE OR PRODUCING OR ADOPTING A CLIMATE ACTION PLAN.
8. REPLACING PRIVATE OWNERSHIP WITH SHARED OR RENTED GOODS AND SERVICES TO PROMOTE A CIRCULAR ECONOMY.
9. FURTHERING MARXIST IDEOLOGIES, INCLUDING STAKEHOLDER CAPITALISM.
10. IMPLEMENTING MASS SURVEILLANCE SYSTEMS TO MONITOR MOTOR VEHICLE TRAVEL.
The resolution was cosponsored by Representatives Biasiucci, Carbone, Carter, Chaplik, Diaz, Dunn, Gillette, Griffin, Heap, Hendrix, Jones, Marshall, Martinez, McGarr, Montenegro, Parker, Parker, and Payne; as well as by Senators Hoffman and Wadsack.
If the resolution were to pass the Arizona House and Senate, it would be transmitted to the Secretary of State to be offered to the voters in the November General Election.
Daniel Stefanski is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.
by Daniel Stefanski | Jan 9, 2024 | News
By Daniel Stefanski |
An Arizona Republican lawmaker is warning his state about what it could experience if Democrats were to control the legislature.
Last week, freshman State Representative Austin Smith highlighted a handful of bills that had been pre-filed by his Democrat colleagues, referring to those proposals as “DEMOCRAT EXTREMISM 2024.”
Smith summarized four Democrat bills, which included the following:
- Allow changing genders on birth certificates after undergoing surgical, hormonal, psychological treatments.
- Banning unmarked police vehicles.
- Repealing no duty to retreat law.
- Repealing drug possession paraphernalia laws.
The Republican legislator from the Southwest Valley sounded the alarm that these bills could become reality for Arizona “in one year under the rule of an extremist Democrat controlled legislature.”
Representative Joseph Chaplik, one of Smith’s fellow Republicans in the chamber, echoed the sentiments, writing, “We are in the front row seats seeing these ideas. Most voters have no idea how radical the democrats are with trying to destroy our society.”
The warning from Smith comes at the start of a pivotal election year for the Grand Canyon State, with both the Arizona House and Senate hanging in the balance for 2025. Republicans have razor-thin majorities in both chambers, giving them very little leeway in conducting business. In addition, Democrat Governor Katie Hobbs occupies the Ninth Floor of the State Executive Tower, which means that many conservative policies are vetoed. As Smith alluded to, should Democrats take over the legislature, they would be able to enact many leftist reforms into law with the support of Hobbs.
Many Republicans have also warned about greater restrictions to the state’s school choice opportunities (like the Empowerment Scholarship Account program) or to Arizonans’ Second Amendment freedoms if legislative Democrats have free rein in the House and Senate.
Arizona may undergo another significant makeover before Democrats even could have an opportunity to pass unfettered legislation. Special interest groups are attempting to refer several issues to the November ballot, including an abortion access amendment and a change to the state’s elections systems. Voters’ passage of those initiatives would save political capital for Democrats in 2025 and beyond, while accomplishing the work they might attempt anyway if they simultaneously controlled the legislature and the Governor’s Office.
With Republicans now in control of the Arizona Legislature, though, the Democrats’ transformative policies are likely dead on arrival. Republican leaders and Hobbs will have to negotiate compromises on select items, such as the state’s budget.
Daniel Stefanski is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.
by Corinne Murdock | Nov 30, 2023 | Education, News
By Corinne Murdock |
Democratic lawmakers staged a last-minute boycott of the joint committee on free speech at Arizona’s universities.
On Monday, hours before the hearing began, House and Senate Democrats announced their boycott in a joint statement. They claimed that the Joint Legislative Ad Hoc Committee on Freedom of Expression at Arizona’s Public Universities had no purpose other than to allow lawmakers to grandstand and to sow misinformation and division.
GOP legislators formed the committee following a controversy earlier this year concerning Arizona State University (ASU) faculty members and a T.W. Lewis Center event featuring prominent conservative speakers.
The Democratic lawmakers also accused their Republican colleagues of furthering lies, and of endangering university students and faculty. Specifically, the caucuses cited an altercation last month between ASU professor David Boyles and Turning Point USA journalists.
“It was made clear that Republican elected officials continue to prop up falsehoods and possibly undermine the safety of students and faculty, as happened when an alt-right camera crew subsequently harassed and assaulted a professor who is a member of the LGBTQ community on the ASU campus,” said the caucuses. “We do not think that this committee will objectively help ASU to take the necessary steps to ensure respect for all speakers to be heard.”
One of the Barrett Honors College (Barrett) professors who opposed the conservative speakers earlier this year, Alex Young, praised the Democratic lawmakers’ boycott. Young indicated that right-leaning lawmakers and other public figures had engaged in hypocrisy by similarly opposing an event featuring Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) earlier this month.
“Good call. The far-right forces waging a disinformation campaign against Barrett faculty in the name of ‘free speech’ never had any credibility, but their cheering the cancellation of @RepRashida definitively revealed their attacks to be nothing but a politically motivated farce,” said Young. “This hearing, as ridiculous as it was, should clarify for everyone what the entire disinformation campaign being waged against Barrett faculty is all about: an attempt to restrict free speech on campus, not an effort to protect it.”
ASU issued a 75-page report summarizing its investigation into the state of free speech on its campus, namely concerning the controversy that occurred earlier this year, in compliance with the legislative committee’s directive issued at its last meeting in July.
The committee asked ASU to investigate whether Barrett faculty or administrators ran a national condemnation campaign, violated policy with actions in the classroom, censored speech or interfered with advertising or attendance, or publicly attacked T.W. Lewis Center donors. The university said it couldn’t find evidence to support the accusations.
Monday’s hearing lasted nearly three hours. The committee heard testimony from Tom Lewis, the principal donor of the now-dissolved T.W. Lewis Center, the entity behind the controversial event featuring conservative speakers that prompted the committee’s creation; as well as Lin Blake, the former events operator for ASU Gammage Theater; Brett Johnson on behalf of ASU; Jake Bennett, a policy director with the Israeli American Coalition for Action; and an ASU student identified as “Zack.”
Lewis noted that he began giving his millions to ASU years ago in the hopes of establishing a center to teach courses about success and entrepreneurship, but he reportedly discovered that faculty were reluctant to teach the content and that leaders were more interested in increasing enrollment than ensuring curriculum quality.
“I’ll say about the universities that they don’t take any responsibility for the classroom, but they are willing to sign gift agreements where they receive significant amounts of money from donors,” said Lewis.
In her testimony, Blake linked her termination from ASU with her involvement in allowing two conservative-oriented events to occur at the Gammage Theater. Blake claimed that the theater’s leadership reprimanded her for allowing those events, and that following the events her responsibilities were slowly sapped until she was fired. Blake said the fact that the controversial event still occurred didn’t mean the existence of free speech at ASU.
“If free speech was truly free at ASU, producing events with unpopular viewpoints would not have cost me my job,” said Blake.
Johnson disputed that claim entirely. Johnson also disputed the claim that Ann Atkinson, formerly the head of the T.W. Lewis Center, was let go from her position due to her arranging the controversial speaker event. Johnson indicated there was an impasse over Atkinson’s retainment on condition of her T.W. Lewis Center salary of over $300,000.
Atkinson didn’t testify at this meeting, but she did testify at the previous meeting.
In his testimony, Bennett touched on the trend of local and college student activists engaging in pro-Hamas activity. He suggested the employment of anti-terrorism statutes to defund and deactivate student organizations providing material support to Hamas, which is the designated terrorist organization that governs Gaza. Bennett also suggested the deportation of those terrorist sympathizers on student and temporary visas, as well as the enforcement of Civil Rights laws to secure college campuses.
In closing, the ASU student and self-described conservative political activist “Zack,” claimed that pro-Palestine students protesting the Israel-Hamas War were making general death threats to him and others protesting on behalf of Israel. This included threats like how Adolf Hitler “should have finished the job gassing the Jews,” and students mimicking throats being slit. Zack said that his Jewish friends reported these instances to campus police. Lawmakers encouraged Zack to bring copies of the police report(s) during their next meeting on Jan. 4, 2024.
State Rep. Austin Smith (R-LD29) said that this entire ordeal has made him lose faith in the Arizona Board of Regents’ (ABOR) ability to oversee the universities, which he called “a rubber stamp” for ASU President Michael Crow.
“Our job is not to have to govern the universities. Our job is to implement the laws that the board of regents enforces at these universities. I don’t think that they do,” said Smith. “The Democrats specifically do not want competition. You’re gonna go exactly where we tell you to go to school, and you’re gonna learn, and you’re gonna sit down and you’re gonna shut up and you’re not gonna question anything. And Michael Crow, who thinks he knows better than the Founding Fathers.”
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
by Daniel Stefanski | Aug 1, 2023 | News
By Daniel Stefanksi |
Reaction was mixed to the news that the Arizona Legislature passed a Prop 400 compromise on Monday, after an agreement was forged with the Governor’s Office.
Republican Senate President Warren Petersen claimed victory after his chamber gave the proposal the green light, calling it “the most conservative transportation plan in our state’s history.” Petersen added, “The guardrails, taxpayer protections and funding allocations in the text of this bill reflect the priorities of voters, to reinvest their tax dollars in the transportation modes they use most.”
Democrat Governor Katie Hobbs was diplomatic in her statement, saying, “Today, bipartisan leaders invested in the future of Arizona families, businesses, and communities. The passage of the Prop 400 ballot measure will secure the economic future of our state and create hundreds of thousands of good-paying jobs for Arizonans. I am glad we were able to put politics aside and do what is right for Arizona.”
Some legislative Democrats took the legislation’s approval to point political fingers at their Republican counterparts. Senate Democratic Leader Mitzi Epstein wrote, “As is customary, Republicans have waited until the very last minute to pass widely popular legislation that invests in the daily lives of Arizonans….Our state should not have had to wait until July 31st to see this measure, which has had legislative support since the start of session, get sent to the ballot. However, with the support of Arizonans cities and towns, I am proud to join my Democratic colleagues in delivering the key votes needed to send the extension of the regional transportation tax back to the voters of Maricopa County.”
Members of the Arizona Freedom Caucus were adamantly opposed to the bill since the weekend, when they appeared to have read a draft of the legislation. After Prop 400 passed, the Freedom Caucus tweeted, “Legislative conservatives near unanimously opposed this horrible bill. Conservative watchdog groups unanimously opposed it. The bill may have been better than the communists at @MAGregion’s horrific plan, but that’s a ludicrously low bar for success. This bill was antithetical to conservatism.”
Freshman Republican Representative Austin Smith, who has become one of the leading voices in the Arizona Freedom Caucus this legislative session, was one of the most-outspoken members against the bill since the weekend. He explained his vote on Twitter, posting, “I voted NO on the prop 400 transporation excise tax for Maricopa County. Taxpayer dollars are not ours to dish out haphazardly – especially to the tune of 20 BILLION dollars with potential consequences that ruin valley transportation.”
Some legislative Republicans, including Representative Jacqueline Parker, were already thinking about messaging against the ballot measure in hopes that voters could stop the plan from becoming finalized. Parker tweeted, “Now it’s up to the voters in Maricopa county to read the 47 page bill & see if it’s worth $20 Billion. I recommend looking at provisions on pages: 8, 15, 16, 18, 21, 22, 34, & 35, which absolutely allow plenty of leeway for cities to implement their road diet, & transit expansion.”
The breakthrough on the Prop 400 compromise took place after Governor Hobbs vetoed a Republican proposal in June. At that time, Hobbs stated, “I just vetoed the partisan Prop 400 bill that fails to adequately support Arizona’s economic growth and does nothing to attract new business or create good-paying jobs.”
In May, the governor created unrest over ongoing negotiations, allegedly sending out a tweet that highlighted her fight with Republicans at the Legislature at the same time she was meeting with Senate President Warren Petersen.
Petersen, one of the most conservative members in the state legislature, championed the importance of the bill, asserting that officials had “secured a good, responsible product for the citizens of Arizona to consider in 2024, giving voters the option to enhance critical infrastructure that our entire state relies upon.”
Daniel Stefanski is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.
by Daniel Stefanski | Jul 31, 2023 | Education, News
By Daniel Stefanski |
A coalition of Arizona lawmakers are pushing back against the recent ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court on President Joe Biden’s student debt cancellation efforts.
Earlier in July, a group of Arizona Democrat legislators wrote a letter to President Biden, calling on his administration to “deliver its campaign promise to cancel student debt.”
The legislators, led by Representative Cesar Aguilar, expressed their collective outrage over the Supreme Court opinion in June, which overturned the president’s student debt cancellation plans. They wrote, “While members of the Court’s majority enjoy vacations paid for by billionaires, this ruling shows blatant disregard and disrespect for the 43 million American borrowers being crushed by student debt and desperate for relief.”
In their letter, the lawmakers included information about Arizonans who were in line to benefit from the president’s debt cancellation scheme that was thwarted by the nation’s high court, stating, “Nearly 900,000 Arizonans stood to benefit from your Student Loan Cancelation Plan – 12.4 percent of our state’s population. The average student loan debt in Arizona is $33,396. Your Student Loan Cancellation Plan could cancel $10,000 for those making less than $125,000 and up to $20,000 for those who are Pell Grant Recipients. Arizona has the 15th highest number of borrowers in the country and would have seen a significant financial release and economic impact.”
The Democrats warned of the consequences that could come with the Court’s decision, adding, “Without relief Arizonans will have less money in their pockets to pay for bills, goods and services strained by inflation. Less consumer spending reduces economic growth and moves the American Dream further out of reach for millions. … We urge you to act as swiftly as possible so Arizonans still recovering financially due to the pandemic can get back on their feet.”
On the last day of its recent term, the U.S. Supreme Court released its opinion in Biden v. Nebraska, striking down the president’s student loan cancellation program. Chief Justice John Roberts authored the opinion, and he was joined by Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett.
The majority opinion stated that “the ‘economic and political significance’ of the Secretary’s action is staggering by any measure. Practically every student borrower benefits, regardless of circumstances. A budget model issued by the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania estimates that the program will cost taxpayers ‘between $469 billion and $569 billion,’ depending on the total number of borrowers ultimately covered.”
At that time, freshman Republican Representative Austin Smith reacted, “Cancelling student loan debt is and always will be an irresponsible and brainless ‘policy’ proposal. It deserved this fiery death at SCOTUS. Do not take astronomically large loans for a career with a salary you will never be able to pay off.”
Daniel Stefanski is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.