by Staff Reporter | Mar 25, 2025 | News
By Staff Reporter |
Former state representative Daniel Hernandez Jr. announced his campaign for late Congressman Raúl Grijalva’s open seat.
On Monday, Hernandez launched a campaign platform presenting a sweeping defense against the Trump administration: resisting Republican-led changes to Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, voting, abortion, and gun ownership.
“America is in trouble,” said the announcement video from Hernandez. “I’m Daniel Hernandez, and I’m running for Congress because we need leaders who will stand up and do whatever it takes for working families, for veterans, and for seniors.”
Hernandez lost his last congressional race in 2022 against Kirsten Engel in the Democratic primary. Engel lost to incumbent Congressman Juan Ciscomani.
After his loss in 2022, Hernandez became the Government Affairs Director at Stand for Children in Arizona (SCA).
SCA is the Arizona hub for Stand for Children, the advocacy arm of the progressive education advocacy nonprofit Stand for Children Leadership Center (SCLC). Stand for Children has a presence in Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Oregon, Tennessee, and Washington. It focuses on advancing “educational equity and racial justice” in children.
Stand for Children took credit for Arizona’s $1 billion increase in education funding following the court overturning of Proposition 208. The organization cited its creations of “bipartisan” coalitions of legislators, school superintendents, and education groups, in addition to a digital advertising campaign resulting in over 26,000 Arizonans urging their lawmakers to use the state surplus to fund education.
“Throughout the effort, the coalition leveraged strategic lobbying resources that led to a key Republican ally in the Senate — where Republicans hold a one seat majority — committing to vote down any budget that did not include $1 billion funding increase for public education,” said Stand for Children’s 2022 annual report.
Stand for Children also took credit for the defeat of HCR 2001 in 2022, a bill to prohibit diversity, equity, and inclusion statements in the classroom.
Currently, SCA is advocating for abolition of the aggregate expenditure limit, eliminating fees from the state’s juvenile court system, lifting restrictions on what teachers can teach, improving the number of freshmen on track to graduate high school, investing in early literature expansions, and reforming the state’s school choice program.
SCLC operates the program Center for Antiracist Education (CARE).
Hernandez made a name for himself in politics in 2011 when he provided first aid to then-Congresswoman Gabby Giffords after she was shot in the head during an attempted assassination. Hernandez was in his first week of an internship with Giffords’ office at the time. Later that year, Tucson voters elected Hernandez to the Sunnyside Unified School District governing board.
In 2016, Hernandez was elected to the Arizona House. Hernandez co-founded the LGBTQ Caucus.
Hernandez has also been the program manager for Planned Parenthood’s Latino outreach program and state director of Everytown for Gun Safety.
The primary election for Grijalva’s open seat is scheduled for July 15, followed by the general election on September 23.
Hernandez is one of 20 individuals who have filed statements of interest in the race: nine Democrats, nine Republicans, one Libertarian, and one Green Party member.
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by AZ Free Enterprise Club | May 3, 2024 | Opinion
By the Arizona Free Enterprise Club |
A strong economy is a key piece of the foundation for any society. But while the Biden administration has been busy doing anything it can to destroy the economic climate in America over the past four years, Arizona is set up for success—not just for today, but for decades to come.
Last month, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) released its latest “Rich States, Poor States” report, and the Grand Canyon State received the number three ranking for economic outlook among all 50 states. Such a high rank is impressive enough on its own, but when you consider that our state was ranked 13 back in 2021, Arizona’s dramatic rise up the chart especially shines. So, how did we get here?
Pro-Growth Policies Have Led the Way
Arizona’s high ranking is a direct result of significant pro-growth income and property tax reform that have supercharged our economy. In just the last decade, we have cut taxes on capital gains and drastically reduced the property tax burden on small businesses. Then, in July 2021, the Free Enterprise Club helped lead the charge as the Republican-led legislature passed a 2.5% flat tax, delivering historic tax cuts for every single Arizona taxpayer. And if that wasn’t enough, Republicans also included tax relief for Arizona’s families in last year’s state budget to help with the growing cost of gas, groceries, housing, and energy under the Biden administration.
Each of these pro-growth policies have set up Arizona as a leader in the country with many other states looking to mirror these reforms, but if the left had gotten its way, we never would have been here.
>>> CONTINUE READING >>>
by AZ Free Enterprise Club | May 18, 2022 | Opinion
By the Arizona Free Enterprise Club |
Push a sympathetic message. Drum up a bunch of misguided support. And then aim for a ridiculous tax increase. That was the strategy from Red4ED after it launched a little over four years ago.
In that spring of 2018, the color red was popping up all over the place—from Facebook profile pictures to protests at the state Capitol. And it was supposedly all about increasing teacher salaries and funding for K-12 education. It was a movement that had great momentum, a sycophant media, and a political class that was terrified to stand up to them. Yet they figured out how to, in four short years, go from a political juggernaut to one of the largest and most expensive failures in Arizona political history.
Of course, defeating this multiyear assault on Arizona by Invest in Ed was a huge win for taxpayers, job creators, and the future prosperity of our state. And it would not have been possible without a combination of political miscalculations and blunders by the Red4ED decision makers and a consistent, sustained opposition from key organizations and elected officials willing to stand up to the bullies behind the movement…
>>> CONTINUE READING >>>
by Terri Jo Neff | May 5, 2022 | News
By Terri Jo Neff |
The 10-year combined impact of Arizona’s recently enacted 2.5 percent flat rate income tax along with repealing the state’s progressive income tax structure with an 8.0 percent top rate included in 2020’s illegal Proposition 208 would increase Arizona’s GDP by about $11.9 billion with about 58,000 more employed workers.
That’s the conclusion from Common Sense Institute Arizona which took a deep look into the long-term effect of the Arizona Supreme Court’s rejection of Prop 208 and the signing into law of Arizona’s first flat tax.
“Generally, economists agree that high income taxes are economically harmful, particularly when they tax capital gains and other income on savings and investment at the same rate as ordinary income (as in Arizona and most other states),” the CSI report states. “This is because the tax discourages taxpayers from saving or investing ordinary income in the taxing jurisdiction, and instead spending it today on consumption locally or moving their investment to lower taxed jurisdictions.”
Arizona is one of 42 states with an individual income tax. When first enacted in 1933, the state had 11 tax rates ranging from 1.0 percent to 4.5 percent. Over the years, the tax rates have changed, bringing Arizona to its current four rates which range from 2.59 to 4.5 percent, the 40th lowest in the country.
According to Glenn Farley, CSI-Arizona’s Director of Policy & Research, Arizona is the 11th state to adopt a simplified flat tax structure. And when the state’s 2.5 percent flat rate is transitioned in, it will give Arizonans “the lowest income tax rate in the country” among the states with such a tax.
Farley added that Arizona currently has a happy revenue problem, in that the State has experienced unprecedented annual growth in income and sales tax collections since Fiscal Year 2018.
“Arizona is collecting at least $2.4 billion more per year due to the 2019 Tax
Omnbius, passed by the Arizona state legislature, than it was under the pre-2018 tax base,” the CSI report states. “The problem is best addressed by revisiting the state’s tax structure adopted in 2019, and not by trying to use one-time spending to absorb the excess cash. The 2.50% flat tax plan helps further the intended goal begun back in 2019: a revenue-neutral modernization of the state tax code, and not a permanent tax increase.”
The transition to a flat tax comes as Arizona continues to enjoy unprecedented revenue windfalls. The report notes that by FY2025, current trends and forecasts show the State General Fund adding $5.8 billion in new revenue despite all taxpayers paying in at a lower rate.
Which makes it all the more important that Prop 208 with its surcharge to a 8.0 percent rate was invalidated on constitutional grounds, the report states.
“Economic theory suggests high income taxpayers will relocate income in response to tax and other fiscal policy, without necessarily relocating themselves,” according to the CSI report. “A 77% increase in the states marginal tax rate on its highest earners would have reduced both Arizona’s long-term growth prospects and short-term revenue collections.”
by AZ Free Enterprise Club | Mar 20, 2022 | Opinion
By the Arizona Free Enterprise Club |
The State of Arizona has great reason to celebrate. In a case that the Club joined as a plaintiff, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge John Hannah ruled against Prop 208, determining that the money raised from the tax would exceed the constitutional spending limit for education. This decision followed the Arizona Supreme Court’s ruling last August that Prop 208 was unconstitutional. And now, it officially puts the nail in the coffin of the largest tax hike in Arizona history.
This is great news for taxpayers throughout our state, except if you’re House Democrat Minority Leader Reginald Bolding apparently. But while Prop 208 may be dead, the fight is not quite over yet.
>>> CONTINUE READING >>>
