by Matthew Holloway | Jan 19, 2026 | Economy, News
By Matthew Holloway |
Arizona House Majority Whip Julie Willoughby (R-LD13) has introduced legislation to temporarily suspend the state gasoline tax in Maricopa and Pinal counties during the summer months, citing higher fuel costs tied to air-quality regulations.
According to a release from the Arizona House Republican Caucus, Willoughby’s House Bill 2400 would suspend the state’s 18-cent-per-gallon gas tax on the special Cleaner Burning Gasoline blend required in Maricopa and Pinal counties from May through September.
“Because of federal requirements, families in Maricopa and Pinal counties are forced to pay more at the pump than the rest of Arizona,” Willoughby said in a statement. “During the summer, these counties can only sell Cleaner Burning Gasoline—a boutique fuel blend refined in limited quantities, primarily in California. That limited supply drives up costs, and Arizona drivers pay the price.”
“In 2023, Phoenix drivers paid higher gas prices than Los Angeles,” she continued. “As California refineries shut down, supply constraints will increase—pushing prices higher at a time when families are struggling with rising costs. Arizona now ranks as the sixth most expensive state in the nation for gas.”
Because of the added production and transportation costs, drivers in Maricopa and Pinal counties often pay more for gasoline than motorists elsewhere in Arizona, according to the House GOP. The release cited comparisons showing Phoenix-area gas prices exceeding those in Los Angeles during parts of 2023.
Willoughby said lawmakers have previously worked with federal officials to explore lower-cost fuel alternatives, but federal environmental requirements have limited available options. Her proposal includes a provision to backfill lost revenue to the Highway User Revenue Fund, which supports transportation infrastructure and is shared by state and local governments.
“Republicans are focused on affordability,” Willoughby said. “Our Majority Plan is about upholding the American Dream and making sure the cost of living doesn’t keep climbing out of reach for working families.”
In addition to the state tax suspension, Willoughby is advancing House Concurrent Memorial 2008, which urges Congress to suspend the federal gas tax on Cleaner Burning Gasoline during the same May-to-September period.
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.
by Ethan Faverino | Jan 9, 2026 | News
By Ethan Faverino |
Maricopa County Elections’ latest newsletter, released January 1, 2026, delivered key updates for upcoming elections, including precinct boundary changes, opportunities to support upcoming elections, and important dates for the 2026 election cycle.
The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors recently approved 235 voting precinct changes, which took effect on January 2, 2026, eliminating precincts with zero voters, aligning boundaries with major freeways, reducing overall precinct sizes for better manageability, and minimizing splits across cities, towns, and school districts.
These adjustments aim to accommodate ongoing population growth across the county and ensure sufficient precinct capacity to support efficient in-person voting operations. Additionally, the Board established a new Justice Court District in the West Valley, named Canyon Trails.
Maricopa County Elections also continues its search for community partners willing to host Vote Centers for the 2026 election season. By providing a suitable space, hosts play a direct role in strengthening election access and supporting participation in the community.
Ideal Vote Center locations must meet the following requirements:
- Minimum room size of 1,600 square feet
- Full ADA accessibility
- Reliable power and air conditioning
- Ample parking to handle high voter traffic
Hosts may commit to one of several durations: 27 days, 12 days, 4 days, 2 days, or 1 day, depending on the election period and location needs.
For the City of Tempe, Maricopa County Elections will conduct an all-mail election on March 10, 2026. Under Arizona law, eligible voters will automatically receive a ballot by mail. The voter registration deadline for this election is February 9, 2026.
Replacement ballots will be available for in-person voting starting March 3, 2026, at the Tempe History Museum.
Maricopa County Elections serves as the filing officer for a range of countywide elected offices, including Justice of the Peace, Constable, Judges seeking retention, Special Taxing Districts, and Precinct Committeemen.
To assist prospective candidates, Maricopa County Elections will host the following virtual training sessions:
- January 13 and February 5, 2026 – General candidate training
- January 15 and February 3, 2026 – Precinct Committeeman training
Ethan Faverino is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.
by Staff Reporter | Jan 4, 2026 | News
By Staff Reporter |
Corporate media is making the case that the state’s largest sheriff’s office still needs federal oversight for racial profiling.
ABC 15 aired a segment criticizing a court filing requesting an end to the decade-long federal oversight of the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office (MCSO). The oversight emerged from the Melendres v. Arpaio case, a class action complaint against allegedly racially motivated detentions that occurred during illegal migrant sweeps.
FOIAzona caught reporting errors made within a report by ABC 15 that no longer appears to be published, including the claim that MCSO filed the court motion.
However, it was the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors (MCBOS) who submitted that court filing earlier this month. MCBOS has budgetary power over MCSO.
In their court filing, MCBOS made the case that MCSO had long ago achieved 100 percent compliance in remedying issues of racially motivated detentions. The county argued that further federal oversight would only divert critical funds for public safety.
In a video explaining the filing, MCBOS Chairman Thomas Galvin said the end to federal oversight was long overdue.
“After 14 years, four sheriffs, and hundreds of millions of spent tax dollars, it is essential to defend taxpayer money if federal oversight is no longer warranted,” said Galvin. “All that’s left to enforce are matters unrelated to discriminatory policing which should be left to the sheriff who was elected by you: the Maricopa County residents.”
The 14 years of oversight have cost the county over $300 million in compliance. Around ten percent of those payments went to the court monitor, Robert Warshaw.
Leading up to MCBOS filing were months of allegations that Warshaw has a financial incentive to continue federal oversight of MCSO. Warshaw has earned over $30 million in monitor fees since taking on oversight of MCSO in January 2014 — around $3 million annually.
Warshaw faces similar accusations of exploiting federal oversight orders for personal gain in connection to his 15-plus years of monitoring the Oakland Police Department in California. There he earns over $1 million annually.
Warshaw has also earned millions from federal monitor assignments in New York, Michigan, and Louisiana.
Warshaw formerly served as the deputy drug czar for the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy under former President Bill Clinton.
Almost a decade ago, Judicial Watch reported on allegations that Warshaw allegedly employed “harsh” tactics that distracted from the county’s law enforcement activities.
Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell said Warshaw’s presence is no longer warranted.
“There is no defense for this ‘federal monitor,’” said Mitchell. “One more reason I like to get my news from the non-fiction section.”
Mitchell has been a vocal critic of Warshaw’s continued presence.
“It’s time we stop talking about Joe Arpaio — he is long gone and has been replaced by 3 different sheriffs from both political parties — and start talking about why the federal monitor, Robert Warshaw, is dragging this on and on,” said Mitchell in a May post. “Maricopa taxpayers should be outraged that we are at $350 million. Warshaw has no incentive to wrap this up.”
Back in October, Congressman Andy Biggs also asked Attorney General Pam Bondi to lift MCSO’s federal oversight. Supervisors Mark Stewart and Debbie Lesko, along with Mitchell, offered their support for the letter.
AZ Free News is your #1 source for Arizona news and politics. You can send us news tips using this link.
by Jonathan Eberle | Nov 29, 2025 | News
By Jonathan Eberle |
Maricopa County officials are asking a federal judge to rein in what they describe as years of mission creep by the court-appointed monitor overseeing reforms within the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office (MCSO), arguing that the agency has fully complied with the policy changes required under a landmark racial-profiling case.
In a new legal filing submitted last week in Sheridan v. Melendres—a case that began nearly two decades ago over civil-rights violations during traffic stops—Board of Supervisors Chairman Thomas Galvin and Vice Chair Kate Brophy McGee contend that the county has long met the terms of the court’s orders and that continued federal intervention is no longer justified.
The filing points to a central argument: since the court issued its first injunctive order, MCSO has undergone sweeping reforms, leadership changes, and years of federal scrutiny. “Since the issuance of the Court’s first injunctive order, fourteen years have passed, three new Sheriffs have taken office (from both political parties), MCSO has achieved 100% compliance with required policy changes, and there have been zero new allegations of targeted immigration enforcement by MCSO,” the document states.
At the heart of the county’s challenge is the work of federal monitor Robert Warshaw, who has overseen MCSO’s compliance efforts for nearly 15 years. According to the filing, Warshaw and his team have collected more than $30 million in fees during that time. County leaders say they have been increasingly frustrated with what they describe as an expansion of Warshaw’s role—particularly his recent “audit” of county spending related to the case. They argue that federal oversight was intended to ensure constitutional policing practices, not to scrutinize local budgeting decisions.
“In today’s legal filing, we highlight how far the federal monitor has strayed from his original charge,” Galvin and Brophy McGee wrote in a joint statement. “Digging into county finances and trying to minimize the cost of Melendres compliance is not just an insult to taxpayers, it’s beyond the federal court’s jurisdiction.”
County attorneys note that nothing in the county’s budgeting practices violates state or federal law. For that reason, the Board says it will not participate in further disputes over compliance-related costs. The county’s brief argues that questions about staffing, budgets, and administrative costs fall squarely within local authority. Citing Supreme Court precedent, the filing asserts that “federal-court decrees must directly address and relate to the constitutional violation itself.”
The county maintains that because MCSO has reached full compliance with all policy reforms stemming from the Melendres orders—including the creation of 209 positions tied directly to those requirements—the original purpose of the decree has been fulfilled. “It would be a complete waste of taxpayer money to engage the federal courts in a back-and-forth over what is clearly an issue of local jurisdiction,” the statement reads.
Galvin and Brophy McGee say the Board’s priority is protecting taxpayers and ensuring resources are directed toward public safety needs determined at the local level. The Board of Supervisors represents roughly 4.5 million residents. “We’ll keep standing up for transparency, common sense, and your right to self-govern,” they wrote.
The federal court will now determine whether the county’s arguments warrant narrowing or ending the monitor’s authority—a decision that could significantly reshape the long-running oversight of one of the nation’s most closely watched law-enforcement reform cases.
Jonathan Eberle is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.
by Staff Reporter | Nov 23, 2025 | News
By Staff Reporter |
Maricopa County leadership is dissatisfied with the rejection rate of ballot signatures.
Following Wednesday’s canvass of this month’s election, Board of Supervisors Chairman Thomas Galvin said the new signature verification policy was problematic for having yielded a much higher rejection rate compared to years past.
“At this rate, 15,269 ballots would’ve been rejected in ‘24 prez election,” said Galvin. “Only 7,220 were rejected in ‘24.”
About 30,000 ballots were subject to further review, and of those 15,000 went through the curing process. Altogether, about 5,900 ballots were rejected following the curing process out of about 700,000 total cast ballots. An additional 1,000 ballots were rejected for having no signatures and the voter failing to respond to the county’s curing attempts by deadline.
The rejection rate rose to .8 percent this go around. Last year and in 2023, the rejection rate was .3 percent. It was .1 percent in 2022.
The recorder’s office also clarified that this was the first election in decades to send mailed ballots to all voters, which they say also contributed to the higher rejection rate.
Heap responded to Galvin’s criticism by accusing the chairman of deflecting from the county’s election bungles with fabricated, nonexistent issues in his office.
“Instead of holding his own staff accountable for misplacing thousands of Election Day ballots and illegally seizing control of the Recorder’s statutory responsibilities, Chairman Galvin chose to attack the only part of the process that worked flawlessly,” said Heap.
Heap was referencing the misplacement of two sealed transport boxes with nearly 2,300 ballots by election workers this month. The ballots were discovered several days after the election occurred, on the day of the ballot curing deadline. This forced the recorder’s office to complete ballot processing in record time, and attempt to cure ballots in a matter of hours.
Galvin acknowledged the 2022 election was a disaster in private, sources say, but publicly he defended the county’s administration.
The Heap administration implemented certain changes to ease and strengthen signature verification efforts: side-by-side screen viewing of a voter’s on-file signature and their cast ballot signature, rather than having a worker scroll up and down; and requiring three separate levels of review rather than relying on the same person double-checking their work.
During Wednesday’s board of supervisors meeting, Heap repeatedly defended his position that the signature on the cast ballot must match the voter’s historic signatures on file in their record.
“In the end, if we have a signature, and the signature on the envelope does not match the signatures we have on file, and it’s now been reviewed through multiple phases, we cannot accept that signature unless that person calls,” said Heap. “We can make all diligent efforts to reach out but, in the end, the signatures either match or they don’t.”
The supervisors were divided on Heap’s approach — and whether the changes were worth it — although they did agree that the bipartisan review was a good step.
Supervisor Debbie Lesko approved of Heap’s signature verification process.
“I’ll give you credit when credit’s due, and I think if you’ve done it faster and it’s still accurate and you’re able to make it easier for the people, it sounds like a good thing,” said Lesko.
Supervisor Steve Gallardo questioned how time-consuming the process was in comparison to Heap’s predecessor, Stephen Richer. Heap responded that the signature verification has sped up due to the bipartisan team setup, and that they concluded their work the day after the election.
Some familiar voices chimed into the social media chatter over the bristling interactions between select supervisors and Heap.
Maricopa County’s former recorder, Stephen Richer, said Heap’s approach went against the state’s signature verification law.
“That’s not even how statute works,” said Richer.
Richer told KJZZ that election fraud through stolen mail-in ballots in an off-year election was so far-fetched as to be humorous.
“It’s laughable to think 5,000-plus people stole ballot envelopes and forged signatures so they could cast one more vote in a school bond election,” said Richer.
ABC15’s Garrett Archer said Heap’s multiple levels of review was problematic because matching signatures has a certain level of subjectivity that can cause individuals to disagree on what they’re seeing.
“In the old process, private information was on screen that could be used as a second check. This has been stripped to allow observers to be closer to the process,” said Archer. “If they so choose to proceed this way, there will likely be 80,000+ signature elevations in 2026. They need to staff accordingly or this could become a major problem.”
An elections advocate, Merissa Hamilton, countered that signature verification is “ultimately subjective,” and that the elimination of the private information component allows for a more unbiased review of the ballot.
AZ Free News is your #1 source for Arizona news and politics. You can send us news tips using this link.
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