27-05-2025
When will Arizona voters get wise to Arizona's sorry excuse for a Legislature?
The Arizona Senate reportedly returns to the state Capitol this week after a chock-full month of doing, well nothing much, actually.
This, following four arduous months of doing … well…
I say senators "reportedly' are returning on May 28 because the Arizona House returned on May 20 after a two-week break wherein House Speaker Steve Montenegro promptly announced another two-week recess.
It seems budget negotiations – those conversations that take place among a select few with absolutely no public input – aren't going so well.
Heaven forbid our leaders get themselves to the Capitol and hear from the public before deciding how to spend our money.
Or address a few of the bigger issues plaguing our state.
Like a shortage of houses that people can actually afford.
Or our crying need to protect what water we have and to find new sources of the stuff.
Or the fact that $300 million in dedicated education funding will disappear on June 30, as Proposition 123 expires.
For several years, our leaders have kicked that particular can down the road and now we've reached the end of it. Lawmakers will either have to find the $300 million in lost Prop. 123 funding elsewhere (as they have pledged to do) or stiff the schools.
Republicans want to tie an extension of Prop. 123 to school vouchers. Basically, they want to hold Arizona's public schools hostage unless voters agree next year to protect Empowerment Scholarship Accounts, declaring that parents have a constitutional right to public money to pay their kids' private school tuition tab.
Still, it's not like legislators haven't done anything in the first 134 days of what is supposed to be a 100-day session.
They did pass a bill mandating that high school students be taught about the Gulf of America — a bill that Gov. Katie Hobbs promptly vetoed.
And they established a Turquoise Alert system for missing Indigenous people, a bill that Hobbs signed.
But they, with Hobbs' help, also trampled the constitutional rights of Scottsdale voters so that Axon, which makes Tasers, can build the state's largest apartment complex, voiding a successful campaign to put the issue to a public vote.
And they spent a fair amount of time scheming to cut care for the state's most seriously disabled children, though in the end they didn't have the votes to discontinue to the Parents as Paid Caregivers program.
Opinion: It took a seventh-grader to break Arizona's fight over disabled funding
Fortunately, the Legislature still has a month to consider the affairs of state.
Like the growing number of working Arizona parents who can't afford decent daycare and are on the Department of Economic Security's waitlist to get a childcare subsidy. The Legislature will either help those 4,500 children as part of their secret budget negotiations or tell their parents to suck I'm thinking the latter is likely.
You know who will have no trouble getting help? Ken Kendrick, the bazillionaire owner of the Arizona Diamondbacks and one of the state's biggest contributors to Republican politicians.
Look for our leaders to pony up a massive subsidy to fix up Chase Field. The only real question is whether they will use only tax money generated by the team or reach more deeply into our I know. It is our sacred obligation to provide the team with $500 million — possibly double that once interest is factored in — to renovate the publicly owned ballpark built for a team that now worth $1.6 billion, according to Forbes.
One that Kendrick, bought for $238 million in 2004.
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We either pay up or lose the team and the Valley will become a sports wasteland and little children will suffer because they want to be taken out the ballgame, but alas, there won't be one.
Yeah, don't lay awake tonight worrying about the baseball team.
Our leaders have their priorities, after all, and I'm confident that before June is out, they'll come up with a way to help the D-backs.
The kids, not so much.
Reach Roberts at Follow her on X (formerly Twitter) at @LaurieRobertsaz, on Threads at @LaurieRobertsaz and on BlueSky at @
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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: AZ Senate returns. Will housing, school issues be fixed? | Opinion
