by Staff Reporter | Oct 22, 2026 | Must Read, News
By Staff Reporter |
The Maricopa County Superior Court ruled on Monday that the Arizona Department of Water Resources (ADWR) will face final judgment for violating the law to establish water supply rules.
The superior court ruled against ADWR back in April. The Home Builders Association of Central Arizona (HBACA), who sued ADWR, has requested the court invalidate and enjoin the challenged rules by ADWR and award any further relief the court determines to be just and equitable.
ADWR’s assured water supply rules caused a housing moratorium for developers, prompting HBACA to challenge its rulemaking authority in court.
Prior to the Hobbs administration, state law required developers to prove 100 years of assured water supply for their developments before beginning construction. ADWR, under the Hobbs administration, expanded that requirement to require developers to prove 100 years of assured water supply for the water management area surrounding their developments.
The Goldwater Institute represented HBACA in this case. The organization said at the start of the case early last year that the rules defied logic as well as the law, and exacerbated the state’s housing crisis.
“Arizona law is clear: major policies like the ‘unmet demand’ rule require formal rulemaking and legislative approval,” stated the Goldwater Institute. “Lawmaking is the job of elected representatives — not unelected bureaucrats.”
Judge Scott Blaney, the Maricopa County Superior Court judge in this case, ruled that ADWR had not only violated the law but effectively attempted to rewrite it to suit the Hobbs administration’s preferred water usage agenda.
“The Legislature created two paths to establish an assured water supply to develop a subdivision: obtain a certificate; or obtain a designation,” said Blaney. “Through the implementation of its moratorium and its nearly simultaneous promulgation of a rule that demands more water than the statute requires, ADWR has in effect attempted to rewrite the governing statute at the agency level.”
Despite losing in court, ADWR recently requested that its rules not be invalidated and enjoined.
Blaney stated in Monday’s ruling that ADWR has failed to establish good cause for withholding enforcement against them, and that to allow the water rules to continue to exist would be allowing ADWR to continue violating the law.
Blaney said the rules concerning assured water supply would return to what they were before the Hobbs administration.
“Defendant’s concerns are not consistent with the facts — the Court’s April 21, 2026 ruling on Plaintiff’s claims merely returns the parties to the status quo ante,” said Blaney.
AZ Free News reported earlier this month that the Hobbs administration awarded the outside counsel contract for this case to Coppersmith Brockelman PLC, a law firm with close ties to the governor, earlier this year. The contract listed an initial estimated cost of up to $600,000.
As reported, the administration justified competition in this contract as impracticable because ADWR’s in-house attorneys were reportedly busy with other litigation and Hobbs’ policy priorities.
The administration previously awarded the firm another outside counsel contract concerning groundwater rules and regulations. That contract quoted an estimated cost of $120,000 per year.
AZ Free News is your #1 source for Arizona news and politics. You can send us news tips using this link.
by Staff Reporter | Oct 19, 2026 | News
By Staff Reporter |
Pima County voters will decide on Election Day in November whether to increase the spending cap by 75%, from $817 million to more than $1.4 billion.
Proposition 425 would increase the county’s permanent base, or expenditure, limit that aids in calculating the county’s spending limit under state law.
Arizona law requires all counties, cities, and towns to limit how much local revenue may be spent. Counties and municipalities calculate expenditure limits by multiplying the amount spent in fiscal year 1979-80 by the estimated growth in population and a measure of inflation.
The county spent $1.8 billion and accrued a revenue of $2.1 billion in fiscal year 2026-2027. Estimates from the county show that it has utilized at or near 100% of its expenditure limit since 2001.
The county FAQ page states that the approval of Proposition 425 would add $70 million to its 1979-80 expenditure base. As noted by Scott Day Freeman, an attorney with the Goldwater Institute, a Phoenix-based public policy and litigation firm, the $70 million was based on 1980 dollars rather than 2026 dollars.
According to the ballot language, the $70 million is actually more than $610 million when adjusting each future year for population and inflation growth since 1980.
In the proposition, the county stated that it doesn’t anticipate approaching full utilization of the increased expenditure limit for another 20 years at least.
Pima County Supervisor Rex Scott told KOLD that the county will continue to run out its expenditure limit in the years to come. Scott said that the expenditure limit by design has failed to keep up with modern budgeting needs.
“What we know from looking at our own expenditure and revenue projections is that we’re going to bump up against that expenditure limit in the next two to three years,” said Scott.
The county also stated that the spending cap increase would not authorize any new tax or raise any existing tax, and would be allowing the county to spend existent revenue that it cannot legally touch.
Pima County Supervisor Steve Christy told The Center Square that he had concerns with how the board plans to spend the money, which he called a “blank check,” if the proposition is approved. Christy said he believes the board has failed to target spending on “core foundational matters,” citing infrastructure, road repair, public transportation, and public safety.
“They want to have the ability and flexibility to spend more money by removing these cap restrictions,” said Christy.
Some citizens believe the county’s ask is too great.
A coalition of these citizens formed the bipartisan “No on Prop 425” campaign to try to dissuade voters from approving an expenditure limit increase. The campaign’s co-chairs, State Sen. Sally Gonzales (LD-20), a Democrat, and Jay Tolkhoff, a former Republican candidate for Tucson City Council, believe the spending cap increase is too large.
Despite what the county promised, Tolkhoff said he worries the increase would eventually cause property taxes to be raised.
“They can say, you know, no taxes,” said Tolkhoff. “You start spending more money; that money’s going to come from some place, and it’s going to come from higher property taxes.”
AZ Free News is your #1 source for Arizona news and politics. You can send us news tips using this link.
by AZ Free Enterprise Club | Oct 9, 2026 | Opinion
By the Arizona Free Enterprise Club |
There are some principles we like to think America settled a long time ago. Racial discrimination is wrong. Government should not treat people differently because of the color of their skin. And our public institutions should judge individuals based on their merit and character – not their race. Unfortunately, those previously settled principles have been completely undermined by the radical “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” (DEI) program.
This November, Arizona voters will have an opportunity to reaffirm that principle by voting YES on Proposition 142. The measure would strengthen Arizona’s constitutional protections against race-based discrimination and preferential treatment, close an existing loophole tied to federal funding, and prohibit some of the craftier ways public institutions have used to preserve race-based DEI policies and practices.
Isn’t Racial Discrimination Already Illegal?
Most people already believe it is unlawful for the government to discriminate based on race – and didn’t Arizona already prohibit it anyway?
Arizonans certainly thought they had.
In 2010, voters passed Proposition 107 by an almost 20-point margin, amending the state constitution to prohibit the state from discriminating against, or granting preferential treatment to, any person based on race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in public employment, public education, and public contracting.
This should have closed the door on government-sanctioned racial preferences in Arizona.
Unfortunately, it didn’t…
>>> CONTINUE READING >>>
by AZ Free Enterprise Club | Oct 1, 2026 | Opinion
By the Arizona Free Enterprise Club |
Over the last four years Governor Katie Hobbs, the teachers’ unions, and their allies in the corporate media have been relentlessly attacking Arizona’s Empowerment Scholarship Accounts (ESAs) program, the most popular and successful school choice program in the country. Over 106,000 kids are currently using an ESA scholarship, with thousands more signing up each year.
Their most recent assault began last March, when the unions filed their ballot initiative in an attempt to gut ESAs. If passed, over 30,000 kids would have immediately lost their ESA scholarship or had their scholarship funds revoked because of the new restrictions. Another 400,000 children would have been permanently barred from participation in the program. The National Education Association (NEA) poured $7 million into this fight, hiring an army of paid circulators that were willing to say, and sometimes do, just about anything for a paycheck.
Interestingly, there were two different responses to this most recent threat. The response from most of Arizona’s school choice organizations and ESA families was a full-throated defense of the program. Within days, the AZ school choice coalition launched a countercampaign and made clear that ESAs would not go undefended. They fundraised, developed messaging, deployed grassroots “decline to sign” efforts, and crafted legislative countermeasures to put the unions on their heels.
And after the initiative was filed with the Secretary of State in July, a petition review was launched by the Goldwater Institute, which our organization helped support. That petition review revealed that thousands of signatures were either invalid or unlawfully collected by convicted felons. The result was that we proved in court that the NEA and Save our Schools was short of qualifying by nearly 15,000 signatures, and we knocked them off the ballot.
It was a pivotal victory in a long line of big wins for school choice in Arizona.
However, during this battle against the radical left, an alternative response to this attack emerged from the shadows: a belief that the only way to save the ESA program was to enact punitive regulations on the families that use the program. Rather than fighting back against the false attacks being levied against ESAs by the unions and the media, they preferred to make concessions that would make the program politically “attack-proof” in the future.
Sadly, this strategy has been tried in the past when dealing with the unions, and it almost resulted in irreversible disaster for our state.
Conceding the Issue to the Left Is the Quickest Way to Defeat
Our organization has seen this coordinated attack from the left before. Different issues, different talking points, but the same trajectory that involves goading us into accepting the other side’s terms of surrender…
>>> CONTINUE READING >>>
by Matthew Holloway | Oct 1, 2026 | News
By Matthew Holloway |
The Goldwater Institute is demanding that Pima County rescind its 120-day moratorium on new data center development, arguing that the county has failed to meet Arizona’s legal requirements for suspending otherwise lawful development and could face property rights claims.
Goldwater announced the demand earlier this week, following a letter sent to county leaders. Its challenge focuses on the evidence supporting the moratorium and whether existing regulations could address the county’s concerns.
The Pima County Board of Supervisors approved Resolution 2026-56 on Sept. 22, imposing the pause while officials develop new zoning requirements for data centers.
The measure passed 3-2, with Supervisors Steve Christy and Rex Scott opposed. Before approval, supervisors amended the measure to apply to development for which permit applications had not yet been submitted.
“Arizona law only allows moratoria if there’s strong evidence of an imminent risk to the public,” Goldwater Institute Vice President for Litigation Jon Riches said. “It does not allow the county to freeze otherwise lawful property uses just because county leaders want more time to consider new rules.”
Under A.R.S. § 11-833, counties must provide public notice, hold a hearing, and make written findings before imposing a development moratorium. Goldwater’s challenge centers on the statute’s compelling-need standard, defined as “a clear and imminent danger to the health and safety of the public,” and additional requirements governing rural land, which the statute defines to include unincorporated county property.
In its letter to the board, Goldwater argues that the county has not demonstrated an essential public facilities shortage and cannot establish the compelling need required under the alternative provision.
Goldwater also contends that the county has failed to show why existing regulations cannot prevent irrevocable public harm, why alternative approaches would be inadequate, or why the moratorium is sufficiently limited geographically.
Much of the dispute centers on the county’s August public health review. The review identifies potential effects involving air quality, water use, noise, heat, and other conditions, while acknowledging a lack of direct empirical evidence measuring health effects in communities near data centers.
The review stated, “Overall, this report emphasizes the need for site-specific data, fenceline monitoring, and equity-centered impact assessments on any proposed data center projects. It also highlights a critical limitation due to an evidence gap: current literature provides modeled environmental exposures but highlights the lack of direct empirical evidence on health impact in communities near data centers, underscoring the importance of proactive monitoring and mitigation if development proceeds.”
In an accompanying Aug. 26 memorandum, County Administrator Jan Lesher cautioned that the review should not be read as a prediction that data center development would produce specific adverse health outcomes. The memorandum calls for additional project-specific information and describes the framework as a tool for monitoring, evaluation, and potential mitigation.
Goldwater argues those limitations undermine the county’s justification for suspending development.
County Board Chair Jennifer Allen disputed that interpretation. Allen said Goldwater was misconstruing the health framework’s role and maintained that the county had evidence supporting a moratorium consistent with state law.
The county’s agenda materials cite concerns about emissions, water scarcity, energy reliability, noise, and heat. They describe the pause as time for an accelerated zoning code amendment process.
Goldwater also raised potential compensation claims under Arizona’s Private Property Rights Protection Act. A.R.S. § 12-1134 provides for compensation when a land use law enacted after an owner acquired property reduces existing property use rights and the property’s fair market value, subject to statutory exemptions. The statute includes exemptions, including for health and safety protections, and places the burden of establishing an exemption on the government.
Riches said that Goldwater would consider representing an affected property owner but did not yet have a case.
Goldwater argues the county cannot establish that exemption here and warns that affected property owners could challenge the moratorium and seek compensation.
“There may be legitimate concerns about infrastructure and resources from the construction of data centers—as with any other development—but these can be addressed through clear, generally applicable rules that apply consistently to similar land uses,” Riches said. “What Pima County cannot do is arbitrarily ignore, pause, or trample on property rights.”
Matthew Holloway is a senior reporter for AZ Free News. Follow him on X for his latest stories, or email tips to Matthew@azfreenews.com.
