A proposed constitutional amendment aimed at reshaping Arizona’s election system passed its first major legislative hurdle in a hearing on Wednesday, as the Arizona House Committee on Federalism, Military Affairs & Elections (FMAE) approved Rep. Alexander Kolodin’s (R-LD3) Arizona Secure Elections Act.
The Committee advanced House Concurrent Resolution 2001 with a 4-3 vote. It now heads to the House Rules Committee. If approved by both chambers of the Arizona Legislature, the measure would be referred to voters on the November 2026 general election ballot.
Kolodin announced the committee hearing on social media ahead of the meeting.
Arizona’s elections can set a new standard for our nation. You’re one step closer to the power to make it happen! pic.twitter.com/VDg7DyXzi9
According to supporters, HCR 2001 is intended to address concerns about voter confidence following recent election cycles. If approved by voters, the constitutional amendment would establish several requirements for statewide election administration.
Those provisions include limiting voter registration and participation to U.S. citizens, prohibiting foreign contributions to candidates or ballot initiatives, and requiring government-issued identification in order to vote.
Additional requirements would mandate that early voting concludes no later than 7:00 p.m. on the Friday preceding a Tuesday general election, prohibit the acceptance of ballots after polls close on Election Day, preserve in-person voting options at accessible polling locations, and require mail-in voters to verify their address each election cycle.
Committee Debate
During the hearing before the committee, Kolodin described HCR 2001 as an effort to overhaul Arizona’s election system by drawing comparisons to reforms adopted in Florida after the 2000 presidential election.
“This year the Arizona State Legislature will give the voters of Arizona the opportunity to transform our system of elections from a national embarrassment to a national model,” Kolodin told committee members, arguing that Florida’s reforms improved election security, sped up results, and increased voter satisfaction.
Kolodin urged lawmakers to advance the measure, saying the proposal would allow voters to address longstanding concerns about election administration.
Democrats raised concerns about voter access and election logistics. Rep. Aaron Márquez (D-LD5) argued that the proposal would effectively end the active early voting list and push large numbers of voters back into in-person voting without funding for additional polling locations, potentially creating longer lines on Election Day.
Kolodin rejected that characterization, emphasizing that HCR 2001 is a constitutional ballot referral rather than a statutory change.
“You have mistaken assumptions right off the bat,” Kolodin said. “It’s not a piece of legislation. It’s not modifying statutory law. This is a constitutional ballot referral.”
Kolodin explained that constitutional amendments are intended to establish broad governing principles, while election administration details are left to statute.
“In a statute, you want to be prescriptivist,” he said. “With a constitutional amendment, you must refrain from being overly prescriptivist,” noting that constitutional provisions are designed to endure for generations.
Addressing concerns about early voting, Kolodin said the proposal would not eliminate early or mail-in voting but would require voters to confirm their address each election cycle before automatically receiving a ballot.
Kolodin also defended the proposal’s voter identification requirements, arguing that the current signature verification system is imprecise and can result in lawful ballots being rejected.
“Our current system of signature verification, which is incredibly imprecise, leads to a large number of valid votes sometimes be[ing] rejected. It’s a very imperfect system. A more precise system, where a definite match can be obtained, where you don’t have to squint at the loops and the squiggles to try to figure out the signatures match, or if a ballot should be sent to curing, and potentially rejected, but where there’s something where it’s binary: it’s either a yes or no. There’s no matter of opinion there [that] will actually lead to fewer votes cast by lawful voters being rejected in the system,” Kolodin said.
Advocacy Groups Weigh In
The Arizona branch of the American Civil Liberties Union, represented by Katelynn Contreras, opposed the Resolution during the public comment period, stating, “HCR 2001 does not improve election integrity. Instead, it will restrict access for eligible voters to create confusion and rigid, unworkable rules in the Arizona Constitution. This resolution significantly curtails early and non-voting options that most Arizonans rely on.“ The ACLU representative cited what she described as survey data, claiming that 70 percent of Arizona voters say elections are fair and that roughly 80 percent vote by mail or early, and suggested that the ballot measure would “ban a method of voting that is widely used in the state.”
The figures cited by the ACLU couldn’t be independently verified by AZ Free News.
Asked to clarify the claim, Contreras said the measure would create “new discretionary areas that could be used to restrict mail voting for future.” Kolodin responded, “Mr. chair, I just wish to point out that that is untrue. OK, I just want to put that very clearly.”
The Arizona Freedom Caucus has promoted the proposal on its social media channels since the resolution’s prefiling in November, identifying it as a legislative priority and encouraging public engagement ahead of committee consideration. Arizona House Republican accounts have also circulated prior statements from Kolodin outlining the proposal’s intent.
Arizona Freedom Caucus Chairman Jake Hoffman (R-LD15) urged legislative leaders to advance the proposal following committee review.
“The Arizona Freedom Caucus is grateful that AFC Member Representative Alexander Kolodin has once again provided much-needed leadership in the critical mission to secure Arizona’s elections today and into the future,” Hoffman said. “Once it is heard by the FMAE Committee this week, I urge House Leadership to move it quickly to a floor vote and then send it to the Senate.”
Kolodin criticized the objections raised during the hearing, saying opponents had failed to cite provisions supporting claims that the measure would end early voting.
“We have now reached the point where the opposition to this measure has become truly silly,” Kolodin said, arguing that the proposal would expand, not restrict, voting opportunities.
He added, “It is time for the people of Arizona to have the opportunity to get their kids and their grandkids, my kids and your kids, an election system that we can be proud of, an election system that actually works, instead of inconveniencing and disenfranchising voters, and an election system that provides more opportunities for community participation by casting one’s vote at the polls or to return you ballot to the polls as you prefer. And it’s time, in other words, to take this choice out of the hands of politicians and put it in the hands of the people who actually deserve to have it: you, the voters of Arizona, and that’s where we’re sending it, despite the opposition.”
AZ Free News previously reported on Kolodin’s election integrity proposals and related legislative efforts, including the prefiling of HCR 2001 and its Senate mirror measure, SCR 1001, in November 2025. The Senate resolution, introduced by Sen. Shawnna Bolick (R-LD20), passed a hearing with the Senate Judiciary Committee 4-3 on Wednesday and will be heard next by the Senate Rules Committee.
The resolution must be approved by both the Arizona House and Senate before it can be referred to voters for consideration in 2026.
Despite the fact that the Senate Appropriations committee approved Democratic legislation to help with Arizona’s housing and diabetes crises, the Arizona Senate’s Democratic Caucus offered a pejorative nickname for the Senate Appropriations Committee, calling it a “garbage can.”
The Senate's own garbage can Appropriations Committee starts today at 9am. See the agenda here: https://t.co/uhM2t2XbB7
— Arizona Senate Democrats (@AZSenateDems) March 29, 2022
The caucus’ discontent may concern the fact that the committee schedule included bills that were rewritten to include language from other bills killed previously in the House. This included HB2637, prohibiting financial institutions from discriminating against others based on their “social credit score” — it took on the language of HB2656, a controversial bill killed on the House floor by Democrats with the help of two Republicans.
Insults aside, the committee passed several bills from Democrats on that day unanimously. These included HB2528, appropriating $100 million from the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (ARPA) to the Housing Trust Fund (HTF); and HB2083, requiring the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System (AHCCCS) to cover costs of up to 10 annual program hours of diabetes self-management training (DSMT) services.
The caucus then referred followers to the committee agenda for that day: 39 bills, and another two that were struck from the agenda.
Noteworthy bills included HB2633, requiring hospitals to develop visitation policies for daily, in-person visitation; HB2637, prohibiting banks from discriminating against individuals based on their political affiliation or “social credit scores” including their environmental, social, governance, or similar values-based or impact criteria; HCR2001, altering the state constitution to prohibit compelled or solicited beliefs constituting critical race theory (CRT) tenets from K-12 and collegiate institutions; HB2493, establishing a $12 million election integrity fund; HB2278, eliminating Algebra II as a required course for high school graduation and instead requiring an alternative course such as personal finance, computer science, statistics, or business math; and HCR2027, asking voters to approve the difference of $1 million plus death benefits to the surviving spouse or defendant of a first responder killed in the line of duty.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
A contentious bill to enshrine a critical race theory (CRT) ban in the state constitution, HCR2001, passed the Senate Appropriations Committee on Tuesday. No committee Democrats spoke up during their vote, save for one who repeated the same claims made by her party: that CRT tenets were not only supportive of historical fact but critical to K-12 education.
State Senator Raquel Terán (D-Phoenix) said that CRT properly informed children of both the good and the bad of American history. Terán shared that she taught her kindergartener son about the “ugly truths” of this nation’s racial relations with Latinos as a supplement to what he’d learned in school during Black History Month.
“Every child deserves an accurate and honest and quality education no matter the color of their skin or where they call their home,” said Terán.
State Senator Vince Leach (R-Tucson) cited an AZ Free News report of how over 200 Arizona teachers pledged to teach CRT regardless of what the law or school board determined.
“To some degree, I commend them because they signed up and said the truth. Anyone in this room that thinks K-12 education is gaining kids would be mistaken. We’ve lost 40,000 kids [from public schools] through COVID. And they’re not coming back. There’s a reason they’re not coming back. Parents are pulling their kids left and right. Just check your emails, or if you don’t get those emails, talk to me,” said Leach. “And yes, there are spots in our history that are blemished. Some would even go so far, and maybe I would be included, that they are rotten [spots]. And as we see them we take care of them. Granted, not soon enough, but we are a deliberative country set up by our founders and we don’t do things quickly. That annoys people on both sides.”
Goldwater Institute Director of Education Policy Matt Beienburg cited studies that teacher candidates have been screened on their beliefs of CRT tenets as part of their qualifications to teach.
After the vote, State Senator Kelly Townsend (R-Mesa) dispelled a rumor that the resolution would ban educators from teaching specific parts of hard, “ugly history.” She bemoaned that her Democratic colleagues were accusing Republicans of thwarting efforts to teach history.
“What it does say is that you can’t teach that one race or ethnic group is inherently, morally, or intellectually superior to another race. Cause that’s racism,” said Townsend. “If you could sum this up, it says that you can’t teach racism. You can’t be racist in the way you teach. It doesn’t say that you cannot teach history. Every year it seems like now we’re going through this, where we’re being accused of trying to stop kids from learning our history. That is not the case. We are saying that you cannot guilt a kid because of the color of their skin. You cannot say one race is better than the other. I’m growing weary of it, and I would like some honesty in our discussions, especially from what we’ve heard today. It’s pretty shameful, and if that’s what we’re doing is saying that this bill is about denying history, then I think we need to look at the language of the bill.”
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
Legislation banning critical race theory (CRT) was switched out with a bill to offer corporations a tax break in what may be a welcome respite from the lasting effects of the 2020 pandemic. State Representative Michelle Udall (R-Mesa) championed original legislation banning CRT from K-12 schools, which passed the House last month. Then last week, the Senate Finance Committee erased it all with a strike-everything amendment to instead offer a $4 million tax break for corporations.
Now, HB2112 requires the amount of any federal deposit insurance corporation premiums that are disallowed as a deduction for federal income tax purposes to be subtracted from a corporation’s gross income in this state. Senate Finance Committee Chairman David Livingston (R-Peoria) introduced the striker.
“This will benefit small Arizona banks the most,” claimed Livingston.
Udall didn’t speak on the bill during the committee hearing after the striker was announced. Nobody offered an explanation as to why the CRT bill was done away with, or who caused its demise. AZ Free News reached out to Udall and Livingston with these questions; they didn’t respond by press time.
An Arizona Bankers Association spokesman explained that the bill was necessary because the state failed to decouple its tax cut from changes to the federal tax cut in 2019. Livingston noted that failure to establish the tax cut put Arizona at a competitive disadvantage to other states.
A previous version of the bill failed to pass the Senate Ways and Means Committee. This time around, the amended bill was approved without discussion.
Apparently, parents didn’t get the memo that the CRT ban was no longer in question. Several mothers in support of the bill signed up to speak on the bill; one mother began to speak, only to be informed by Livingston that the bill no longer existed.
A different bill may be the reason for the original HB2112’s eradication — this one, a resolution that would have voters decide whether the state constitution should ban any individual or entity from “compelling or soliciting” belief of CRT tenets, as well as imposing preferential treatment based on them. The resolution would encompass all levels of public education, from K-12 through higher education.
State Representative Steve Kaiser (R-Phoenix) introduced the resolution.
The bill, HCR2001, also passed the House last month along party lines, several weeks after Udall’s bill passed. It passed the Senate Education Committee last week, and will be considered in the Senate Appropriations Committee on Thursday.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
Perhaps no issue has taken our nation by storm during the past year quite like Critical Race Theory (CRT). This cleverly disguised Marxist indoctrination uses words that sound harmless enough like “diversity,” “equity,” and “inclusion.” But floods of parents caught on early last year. And many made it their mission to stop CRT’s invasion of school districts across the nation.
Some people even believe it may have been the central issue that swung Virgina’s gubernatorial election to Republican candidate Glenn Youngkin. But right here in Arizona, the battle is not over.
As you may recall, Arizona lawmakers and Governor Ducey took important steps to prevent children from being indoctrinated in public schools by CRT through a budget reconciliation bill this past July. But in November, the Arizona Supreme Court struck down that ban, ruling that it was integrated in a bill that was a violation of the single subject requirement of the state constitution.
With the Arizona legislature back in session for the past two months, Republicans have made CRT a top priority. Earlier this month, the House already took an important step forward…
