When Arizona legislators are not legislating, what are they doing? Well, at least some effort is spent undoing the initiatives that Arizona voters overwhelmingly support. I’ve taken a look at three measures of Arizona’s legislative performance; fiscal responsibility, educational achievement and finally, respect for the will of Arizona voters – particularly when the will of the voters has been clearly conveyed at the polls.
Budget
A key function of any legislature is passing a budget that funds vital public services like public safety, health care and education. The Arizona legislature started this fiscal year with a $2.5 billion surplus, all of which was allocated to one-time projects. Now the state has an estimated $850 million budget shortfall for the current and coming fiscal years. The shortfall can be attributed to a massive income tax cut, lower than projected sales tax revenue and higher than expected spending on the new universal school voucher program. Governor Hobbs has proposed a required minimum of 100 days of prior public school attendance to qualify for ESA funding which would reduce the FY 24 budget shortfall by an estimated $244 million. Speaker Ben Toma has called the Governor’s proposed ESA measures “unserious” – although $244 million in savings seems to be serious, at least to this taxpayer. According to the Senate Appropriations Committee Chair John Kavanagh, budget cuts are coming.
Education
Funding K-12 education has been an issue in Arizona for years. Even though Arizona voters overwhelmingly rejected an effort to expand the state’s school voucher program in 2018, Senator Paul Boyer introduced legislation authorizing a universal Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) Program that was signed into law by former governor Doug Ducey. According to the Grand Canyon Institute, the state is projected to spend about $600 million on private school subsidies in 2022-2023 with about 45% of ESA applicants coming from the wealthiest quarter of students in Arizona. Legislative leaders have broadly panned Governor Hobbs’ proposal to implement ESA accountability measures. It is still early days for the ESA Program, but how is Arizona student achievement compared with other states? In 2023, US News & World Report ranked Arizona 45th among the states.
Transparency – Campaign Finance & Dark Money
In 2022, about 70 percent of Arizona voters approved Proposition 211, a constitutional amendment requiring disclosure of the original source of political campaign media spending. Arizona House Speaker Ben Toma and Senate President Warren Petersen have filed suit to have the law overturned claiming that the Act unconstitutionally delegates key legislative functions to the Arizona Citizens Clean Elections Commission. Keep in mind that just a few years ago, Arizona Public Service spent millions of campaign dollars to get two utility-friendly commisioners elected to the Arizona Corporation Commission. In the intervening years, nary a peep has been heard from the Arizona legislature about beefing up campaign finance disclosure laws.
Are Arizona’s legislators legislating? Sometimes, selectively, but for whose benefit?
1“Republican Legislative Leaders Face First Budget Crunch in Nearly a Decade.” Bob Christie, Arizona Capitol Times, October 16, 2023.
2FY 2025 JLBC Baseline with Executive Comparison, January 16, 2024.
3US News & World Report criteria include pre-K enrollment, 8th grade standardized test scores, high school graduation rates and college readiness.
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