A bill to protect children on the internet is nearing the finish line in the Arizona Legislature, though some partisan opposition puts its fate in jeopardy with Democrat Governor Katie Hobbs should it reach her desk.
SB 1503, sponsored by Senator Wendy Rogers, “directs a commercial entity to verify that any person attempting to access an internet website containing a substantial portion of material harmful to minors is at least 18 years old.” The bill “authorizes the age verification to be made through a commercially available database that is regularly used by businesses or governmental entities for the purposes of age and identity verification; or any other commercially reasonable method of age and identity verification.” It “subjects a commercial entity that violates the verification requirement to civil liability for damages, including attorney fees and costs, resulting from the minor’s access to the material.”
Rogers was joined on her bill by co-sponsors (and fellow Senators) Ken Bennett, Sonny Borrelli, Frank Carroll, David Farnsworth, Jake Hoffman, Steve Kaiser, John Kavanagh, Janae Shamp, T.J. Shope, and Justine Wadsack.
The bill first cleared the Arizona Senate Transportation and Technology Committee in February with a bipartisan vote of 5-2. Democrat Senator Christine Marsh joined four other Republicans to advance the legislation out of committee. After a Rogers’ amendment was adopted on the floor, the full chamber approved the bill with a bipartisan 19-11 vote, though Marsh did not vote in favor.
Senator Rogers cheered the passage of her proposal after the Senate vote, tweeting, “Need to be age 18 to view ‘content harmful to minors’ (pornography) on the internet. My SB 1503 passed the Arizona Senate. #ProtectChildInnocence”
SB 1503 was then transmitted to the Arizona House of Representatives where it was assigned to the Regulatory Committee. In March, the Committee took up and considered this bill, passing it with a party-line 4-3 vote. It awaits the green light from the House before it travels to the Governor’s Office for her final decision.
During the House Regulatory Committee hearing, Representative Nancy Gutierrez explained that she thought this legislation was “an infringement on our First Amendment rights,” and she found it “ridiculous” that anyone would suggest that a company would be at fault for a child looking at inappropriate websites. Gutierrez was baffled that anyone would also suggest that “there is a mechanism that would even be able to verify age.”
Her Democrat colleague, Representative Alma Hernandez, agreed with these sentiments. Before Hernandez voted against SB 1503, she first stated that she didn’t want children looking at pornography on the internet, but that this was “almost impossible to actually enforce.” She argued that the United States is “not North Korea, China, or Iran, where those countries have internet censorship,” and she challenged her Republican colleagues to return to their freedom-loving roots when coming up for solutions of problems that are perpetrated on the internet. Hernandez stated that she believes “it should be up to the parents to decide if they want to put screening mechanisms on their children’s phones.”
Daniel Stefanski is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.
The Arizona House unanimously passed a bill Friday ensuring veterans will receive in-state tuition rates, following unanimous support in the Senate last month. The bill, SB1115, also eliminated requirements that veterans needed to enroll in a college or university within three years of their discharge.
Out-of-state students pay tens of thousands more for tuition: around $18,000 at Arizona State University, over $24,000 more at University of Arizona, and nearly $15,000 more at Northern Arizona University.
The bill now heads to Governor Doug Ducey to become law.
Ducey proposed that veterans’ spouses should receive a higher education tuition-free as well.
Currently, veterans may receive free tuition if they have a 50 percent or more disability rating, received a Purple Heart medal, and was a resident of Arizona or stationed in Arizona at the time of their injury. Spouses of military members who died in the line of duty or from injuries obtained while serving are also eligible.
In Arizona, we celebrate and honor our veterans. Veterans in Arizona can attend in-state universities and community colleges free of charge. Now, let’s extend the same courtesy to their dedicated husbands and wives. #AZUnstoppablepic.twitter.com/mT2dhnUCwB
A total of seven out of election integrity bills considered by the Arizona Senate Government Committee on Monday were passed; due to time constraints, an additional six bills were held for later discussion. The committee passed the bills 4-3, every time along party lines, with the exception of State Senator Martín Quezada’s (D-Glendale) vote for SB1411.
Among those passed were SB1362, requiring every county recorder to tabulate early ballots at a polling place or voting center by 2024; SB1404, repealing the Active Early Voting List (AEVL) and limiting early ballot voting eligibility to those who expect to be absent from their precinct at the time of the election, are physically unable to go to the polls, are 65 or older, whose residence is over 15 miles from the polling place or precinct, can’t attend to polls on election day due to their religion, have a visual impairment, or qualifies as eligible via the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act; SB1411, requiring counties with over 100,000 citizens provide an early ballot tracking system for their citizens by 2024; SB1357, prohibiting elections machines or devices that were certified by laboratories not accredited at time of certification; SB1358, requiring ballots from counties with voting centers to be separated and grouped by precinct; SB1457, requiring the Secretary of State (SOS) to ensure election machines meet standards such as no internet access, ability to sustain and track multiple users with unique credentials, and updated operating systems and software that match U.S. Department of Homeland Security standards; and SB1474, declaring primary and general election days as state holidays, prohibiting voting locations from being used as on-site early voting, and establishing voting on election day only.
For SB1357, State Senator Hatathlie said she couldn’t vote for the bill because nobody had answered whether or not the machines that were used during the last election were certified.
State Senator Kelly Townsend (R-Mesa) reminded the floor that there was testimony addressing Hatathlie’s concerns; she said that she also learned the EAC missed members so that they couldn’t vote.
“I’m not sure if that’s why they let the accreditation lapse for some of these groups, but at the time that they certified these machines they did not have a valid accreditation. Therefore it’s in question whether or not they certified [the machines] legally,” said Townsend.
The Arizona Association of Counties (AACo) spoke out against several bills, including: SB1358, SB1457, and SB1474.
AACo Executive Director Jennifer Marson argued that SB1358’s requirement to separate ballots by precinct would take counties backwards. Townsend rebutted that vote centers made it more difficult to weed out “bad actors” stuffing ballots and overvoting, versus tabulations that take place at the precinct level. Marson then argued that centers have the ability to access precinct totals and other pertinent organizational information through election management software. Townsend responded that compiling all the ballots together without separation for precinct would make review of them difficult if not impossible after initial counting, especially for audits. She used the example of her time at the retail clothing chain, Miller’s Outpost, prior to electronic filing, meaning she relied on an expansive paper filing system to check customers’ credit card information. Similar to ballots, Townsend argued, the necessity of breaking down all of that stored information into categories and subcategories made it easier to locate and review.
As for SB1457, AACo Senior Legislative Associate Megan Kintner informed the committee that their equipment wouldn’t allow for their operations to create individualized codes for every single poll worker. She added that the bill’s requirement for additional observers would be difficult to satisfy because they already had a hard time securing volunteers. Kittner also noted that the bill didn’t address what counties should do when volunteers don’t show up. Townsend responded that Kittner’s colleague, Marson, told her that the unique log-ins were possible to do, with the exception of volunteers checking people in for poll books, and suggested that Kittner check back in with Marson on that information. Majority Whip Sonny Borrelli (R-Lake Havasu City) ignored Kintner’s concerns of logistics, emphasizing the greater need for accountability. Borrelli also challenged the general notion that no backdoor access was possible with election machines.
“Nothing is ‘not hackable,’ so let’s put as much prevention in it as possible. I’ve said this before: keep locks on your doors, keep honest people honest,” insisted Borrelli. “The intent is, whoever’s going to log into the system, we need to know who they are,”
SB1457 may receive some additional language; Borrelli was open to a suggestion from Townsend on adding an accountability aspect for video streams that get interrupted, such as a requirement to stop counting. Borrelli noted that even the legislature has to pause its operations when their streaming system goes down.
Townsend said that the bill would ward off bad actors relying on ease of access through community log-ins. She referenced the Miller’s Outpost operations again, noting that they had unique log-ins for their employees.
Marson said that voting machines have existed in America since 1881, and that states back then could select their own election day. The referenced voting machine relied on push button and interlock mechanics to select only single candidates per race and then reset for a new vote after the voter left the booth. When Townsend asked how long it took precincts to count votes when they counted by hand only, Marson said she didn’t know and couldn’t find the answer. However, Marson said that records reflected that states had several months to file their results, meaning they didn’t have a rush to complete their work in a day.
“I think this just underscores the idea that we should do a lot of research to see what can be restored, and what makes sense and what doesn’t,” said Townsend.
Although the committee denied Quezada’s amendment to SB1474 removing language about prohibiting voting locations from being used as on-site early voting, Townsend revealed that some within the Republican caucus oppose the bill, meaning she’ll have to make inroads with
“I still think that precinct voting on the day of and having a holiday is better, but we have to get it on the governor’s desk,” said Townsend.
Marson spoke up again to question how the elections would be conducted if public bodies were ordered to be closed, and asked when elections officials running the elections would have time to vote. Her questions weren’t addressed. Committee Democrats insisted that there wasn’t evidence of widespread fraud that necessitated this bill.
Due to time constraints, Townsend held the other bills for review another day: SB1058, prohibiting drive-up voting and voting through a drop box outside of a polling place, voting center, or the offices of either the county recorder or elections department; SB1343, requiring all early, provisional, and conditional provisional ballots to be separated, tabulated, and recorded by their precinct and category; SB1359, requiring all elections workers to have a unique password for accessing any election system, which would be changed every two weeks; SB1360, expanding rights for election observers such as documenting their observations, appealing an ejection from the election location, and asking questions of election officials; SB1380, requiring county recorders to use USPS National Change of Address (NCOA) information to weed out voters whose address changed; and SB1477, requiring the Secretary of State (SOS) to notify county recorders of relevant felony convictions every month.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
While the public awaits the Arizona Senate’s report on how Maricopa County conducted the 2020 General Election, one senator is demanding Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich investigate the actions of the county’s board of supervisors in connection to the audit.
On Tuesday, Sen. Sonny Borelli (R-LD5) formally called on the attorney general to launch an investigation of the county board’s refusal to fully comply with Senate subpoenas issued in January and July as part of the audit. State law obligates Brnovich, also a Republican, to determine within 30 days whether the county has violated state statutes.
Should a violation of state law have occurred, Maricopa County could lose its portion of Arizona’s shared sales taxes. As of June 30, the county had benefited from shared sales taxes to the tune of $700 million, according to public records.
Borelli was not the only state lawmaker upset Tuesday by Maricopa County’s official attitude toward the Senate audit.
Rep. Jake Hoffman (R-LD12) accused the board of supervisors of engaging in “one of the most divisive and dangerous subversions of government” ever witnessed in Arizona.
“The Board’s blatant disregard for the Constitution and public mockery of the lawful oversight of elections by the Arizona legislature is not only disrespectful, it undermines the very fabric of our Republic,” Hoffman added. “Through its obstructionism, lack of transparency, and outright trampling of the Constitution, the Board of Supervisors has effectively spit in the face of every voter in Maricopa County and this state.”
Hoffman’s statement was in response to ongoing comments by Jack Sellers, the Republican chair of the county board, who has been openly critical of the Senate’s audit.
On Monday, Sellers chastised the Senate for hiring auditors with “no experience and little understanding” of how elections are run. He also characterized the audit as an “adventure in never-never land.”
“If you haven’t figured out that the election in Maricopa County was free, fair, and accurate yet, I’m not sure you ever will,” Sellers wrote. “There was no fraud, there wasn’t an injection of ballots from Asia nor was there a satellite that beamed votes into our election equipment.”
Sellers also called on elected officials “to tell the truth and stop encouraging conspiracies” and he challenged the Senate to be prepared to defend any accusations of misdeeds by the county.
“It’s time to move on,” Sellers wrote at the end of his letter.
Sellers’ tone and tenor is the norm for public comments issued by county officials about the audit, including a July 16 tweet by @MaricopaCounty which called the audit contractors “unqualified and untrained.” The tweet also repeated a common county mantra about the unreliability of any data put forth by Cyber Ninjas, the company Fann hired to conduct the Senate’s audit.
In other audit-related news, Judge Michael Kemp of the Maricopa County Superior Court issued an order Tuesday mandating Fann to comply with a request submitted in May for audit-related documents.
American Oversight sued Fann and the Senate after Fann and the Senate’s attorneys denied the non-profit advocacy group access to several audit-related documents via a public record request. The Senate turned over a number of documents, but several were denied on the basis that those documents were in the possession of Cyber Ninjas and its subcontractors, thus not qualifying as public records.
Kemp turned away Fann’s efforts last month to dismiss American Oversight’s lawsuit. Then on Tuesday, the judge ruled Arizona’s public records law requires the disclosure of the remaining documents.
According to Kemp’s ruling, Cyber Ninjas and its various subcontractor are private companies -not officers or public bodies- but are “clearly agents of the Senate Defendants.” Thus the Senate has a duty “to keep and maintain all records relating to this audit,” including all records of Cyber Ninjas and its subcontractor.
“Whether these public documents are in the actual physical control or possession of Senate Defendants is irrelevant to their duties and obligations,” under Arizona’s public records law, the judge ruled. Kemp added that claims that the senators have not seen the requested Cyber Ninjas documents does not carry water.
“Willful blindness does not relieve Senate Defendants from their duties and obligations” under the public records law, he ruled.
It is expected that the Senate will file with the Arizona Court of Appeals for review of Kemp’s ruling.
