Mayes got behind Arizona for Abortion Access in their suit against the Legislative Council for their initiative’s portrayal on the publicity pamphlet that will go out to voters ahead of the election. The entire lawsuit centers around three words: “unborn human being,” a term which is used instead of “fetus” once in the first sentence of the proposition description, to the dismay of backers of the proposition, which would permit abortions up to fetal viability. In an amicus brief, Assistant Attorney General Luci Davis wrote that the Council failed to meet their statutory requirement to prepare an impartial summary of the proposition by using the GOP-backed phrase. Davis pointed to a portion of the Legislative Council proposition analysis hearing where Toma said both the phrases “unborn human being” and “fetus” are “charged depending on which side you’re on,” thus arguing that including both was “sort of balancing the two.” “In short (and assuming the premises above), the Council took a two-wrongs-make-a-right approach; it justified including ‘unborn human being’ as necessary to cancel out ‘fetus’ and make for an impartial analysis overall,” Davis wrote. She closed the brief by suggesting the three-word phrase be replaced with either “fetus” or “pregnancy.” Republican lawmakers on the Legislative Council responded to Arizona for Abortion Access’ motion for an injunction. Attorney for the GOP lawmakers on the Council, Thomas Basile, contended in their response that the motion should be denied because “unborn human fetus” was a direct quotation of terms that are regularly used in state statute and “medical acceptability” of a term is not as relevant when “it is the perspective of a voter—not a physician—that controls.” The Council’s analysis should “be written in clear and concise terms avoiding technical terms whenever possible,” Basile wrote, and continued that “unborn human fetus” is a legal term that is commonly used. He acknowledged that both phrases carry an “ideological valence” and continued that “even if the Council were tasked with analyzing the issue of abortion, rather than merely summarizing relevant legal texts, there is no one word or phrase to denote the object of an abortion that commands anything approximating a consensus among voters.” The case will have an evidentiary hearing on Thursday.

The first JLBC monthly fiscal report of FY25 published Tuesday, indicating that June 2024 revenue collections were $248 million above the JLBC January baseline forecast, but most of the revenue was generated from non-tax sources, including unclaimed property deposits, interest earnings and Medicaid reimbursements. Only $24 million above the forecast was generated from tax sources. Revenue collections in FY24 totaled $15.8 billion. The recently passed budget assumed collections would be $151 million above the January baseline but early data shows collections are $412 million above the baseline. “Any forecast gains are beneficial since the enacted budget’s 3-year plan only had an ending FY 2027 cash balance of $8 million,” analysts wrote in the report. Sales tax collections saw a $49 million gain in FY24 from the baseline, individual income tax had a $156 million gain, corporate income tax had a $92 million gain and insurance premium tax had a $51 million gain. While revenue was down through the year, the baseline underestimated the state’s revenue.

The National Conference of State Legislatures is scheduled Aug. 5-7 and some legislators confirmed they will be attending. Both Cook and Stahl Hamilton told our reporter today they are going, and Cook spoke highly of the conference. Cook said he attended a NCSL conference when he was first put on House Ed and he found the conference informative because it focused on workforce education and testing rates rather than ESAs or public school teachers. “There’s not an organization or a movement there that’s pushing an agenda,” Cook said. “They’re about data.” Stahl Hamilton said her upcoming trip to the conference will be her first one as a legislator. “Folks love NCSL so I thought you know what, I think I’ll go,” she said. Cook also said the conference is a good opportunity for legislators to learn about the job. The conference is formatted like an expo, with various sessions and tours occurring at the conference venue over its three days.

Rogers’ campaign listed a Tempe address that she and her husband sold in April 2023 when reimbursing her $19,209 for mileage, lodging and fuel fees in first quarter campaign finance reports. Rogers came under scrutiny by our reporters last year after she bought a home in Chandler and stated in property documents that she lived at a home she owned outside of her district. Rogers did not respond to our reporter’s inquiry by our deadline. Her residency is an issue that her Republican primary opponent, Cook, has undertaken in his campaign. He regularly closes his X posts about Rogers with “#FromHereforHere” and reposted a post that showed a manipulated photo of a traffic sign that read “Wendy Rogers Doesn’t Live in Flagstaff.” Cook finished the pre-primary campaign finance reporting period, which went through July 13, with $62,416 on hand while Rogers fell behind with $30,243. But Rogers significantly outspent Cook in the period of less than two weeks. She spent $124,397, according to the report, but $114,665 of it went to Go Right Strategies, a consulting company owned by her nephew, Spence Rogers. In total, she has spent $658,360 of her campaign funds this cycle on consulting services from Go Right Strategies. The report says the money was used on mailers and advertisements. Cook spent $80,385, most of which went to mailers. In a single expense, he paid the consulting company Tipping Point LLC $35,000 for flyers and door hangers.

Ortiz and Schwiebert held a press conference Tuesday to “call out Kari Lake’s dangerous abortion record” ahead of the primary election. Lake got flak from both sides of the issue in April when abortion became a top issue as Democrat lawmakers worked to repeal the near-total ban. “If Kari Lake gets elected to the US Senate, she would work with her MAGA Republican colleagues to take us backwards,” Schwiebert said. The speakers brought up Lake’s convoluted stance on abortion, which has changed since 2022 when she was running for governor. In 2022, she called the 1864 near-total ban on abortion “a great law,” but she backed lawmakers in repealing the law in April, when she called the Supreme Court’s decision “out of step with Arizonans.” “She can't flip-flop at this point in the game,” Ortiz said. Francesa Martin, an ASU student who spoke with the panel, said she thinks Vice President Kamala Harris will appeal more to young voters than President Biden did as a presidential candidate. “We've already seen a change in the energy that's brought in young people who really get excited to get behind Kamala Harris,” Martin said.

WASHINGTON – The U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 8812, the Water Resources Development Act (WRDA) of 2024 , with overwhelming bipartisan support. The legislation includes $50 million in funding secured by Rep. Ruben Gallego (AZ-03) for five water infrastructure projects across Arizona. “Arizona’s continued success depends on securing our water future, and that means investing in modern water infrastructure,” said Rep. Gallego. “I’m proud to have secured $50 million for Arizona communities in this legislation. From wastewater treatment, to water recycling, to drainage improvements, this funding will have a positive impact on the day-to-day lives of Arizonans.” The projects secured by Rep. Gallego are:

• $5 million to Flagstaff for an advanced wastewater treatment facility.
• $10 million to Page for a new raw water intake pipeline from Lake Powell upstream of the Glen Canyon Dam.
• $20 million for Tucson to expand its Reclaimed Water System and develop needed infrastructure in the fastest-developing area of Tucson: the Southlands.
• $3 million for Winslow to install a storm drainpipe, catch basins, and storm drain manholes in the downtown area.  
• $12 million for Buckeye to update its Wastewater Treatment Facility to keep it online in the case of a 100-year flood event.

To learn more about Rep. Gallego’s work to protect Arizona’s water, see his report: Securing Arizona’s Water Future .  ### A Permission Slip to Learn About Lincoln? Arizona AG’s Illegal Attack on ESA Families Parents shouldn’t need a permission slip to buy their children a biography of Abraham Lincoln, or a copy of The Federalist Papers , or an edition of Wilfred McClay’s textbook The Land of Hope: An Invitation to the Great American Story . Yet the Goldwater Institute has uncovered that under the absurd logic of the office of Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes, such materials constitute educational purchases only if a parent can produce a “curriculum” explicitly calling for their specific use. Perhaps worse, the AG’s office has also used its power to threaten State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne and the staff of the Arizona Department of Education (ADE) into complying with its theory through a demand letter to the agency earlier this month, forcing the rollback of parental rights established under the state’s Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) program. In a new letter sent today to Superintendent Horne, the Goldwater Institute has revealed the radical reinterpretation of state law necessary to justify this attack on parents and the program. The letter highlights AG Mayes’ attempt to overrule state lawmakers, the members of the state board of education, and the practices established by administrations of multiple successive state superintendents of public instruction from both political parties. Specifically, the AG’s office has proclaimed that any purchase of “supplementary materials” (including things like textbooks, workbooks, flash cards, study guides, and more) using ESA funds is illegal unless accompanied by a written curriculum specifically calling for use of that specific material. Yet this reflects neither the intent nor letter of state law, nor common sense. Over the past decade, Arizona legislators have repeatedly refined the language of state law to make clear that the ESA program is intended to support not only materials directly called for in prepackaged curricula, but also “supplementary materials” more broadly. But despite this statutory direction, years of department history and practice, and explicit rules from the state board of education all allowing the purchase of such items, the AGs office has chosen to wage legal war to the contrary. It is all the more ironic that parents are now vilified for the purchase and use of supplemental materials for their children, when many public schools use supplemental materials more often than officially approved textbooks. And remarkably, the same activists on the left who oppose basic academic transparency within government-operated public schools now wish to force parents to justify even the most self-evidently educational materials they use in the ESA-supported instruction of their own children. As noted by Arizona Speaker of the House Ben Toma, the unprecedented intrusion and second-guessing by the AG’s office into ADE’s administration of the ESA program is just the office’s latest attempt to advance a novel legal theory in order to hijack the legislative deliberations and decisions of state lawmakers. Indeed, just days before firing off its attack against ADE for its application of state statute, the AG’s office was forced to concede and drop its efforts to override the provisions of the recent bipartisan state budget agreement. The AG’s demands against the ESA program should similarly be rejected by the state department of education, the state board of education, and the judicial system of Arizona. The department of education should administer the ESA program in accordance with state law. It is not for political activists or allies of an attorney general or governor who are committed to dismantling and undermining school choice to simply invent new obstacles or radical reinterpretations of statute. Rather, it is essential that the sovereignty of state lawmakers to establish law be preserved and protected from ideologically driven animus and opportunism. Tens of thousands of Arizona families have gained access through the ESA program to educational opportunities they had found lacking in the public school system. The objective of our elected officials should be to help ensure the efficient operation of this program, not to devise arbitrary obstacles intended to chill families from its use, nor intimidate members of other branches of government into submission to their political crusades. You can read our letter here .

 

Phoenix, AZ — Chispa Arizona, a program of the League of Conservation Voters (LCV), announced its site-based voter registration program in Arizona has registered 33,000 eligible voters to date in 2024 in communities historically excluded from voter registration efforts, including in communities of color and rural communities, and is well on its way to meeting its goal of 40,000.   The Chispa Arizona program is part of one of the nation’s largest programs to register eligible voters. This national effort to register historically underrepresented voters includes programs in California, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Idaho, Montana, Utah, Washington, and Wisconsin, and focuses on communities of color registering and engaging historically disenfranchised communities ahead of the 2024 elections. The overall goal is 350,000 voter registrations in 2024, including 40,000 in Arizona.    “Without a strong healthy democracy where all our citizens participate, we cannot advocate for mama Earth,” said Chispa AZ Democracy Director Nicole Morales. “Organizing at the local level and meeting constituents in their own neighborhoods helps break down barriers to voting and ensures communities who are too often left out of the electoral process have their voices heard at the ballot box. All eligible voters should have the opportunity to be part of the democratic process.”   “The communities who have historically faced barriers to voting are the same communities who are facing the worst impacts of the climate crisis, pollution, and environmental injustice,” said Hilda Nucete, LCV Senior Director of Civic Engagement. ”We’re working in these communities to help ensure every voter in every community, no matter their language, ability, income, or zip code is able to access their fundamental right to vote.”   Chispa Arizona and LCV’s nonpartisan civic engagement efforts aim to strengthen community engagement in the electoral process and help ensure more eligible voters can participate in and be equitably represented in our democracy.  

PHOENIX (July 23, 2024) – While there may be many misconceptions about what probation and surveillance officers do, their impact can go a long way in altering the trajectory of people’s lives. Probation staff are instrumental in fostering behavioral changes that help people complete their probation terms and assist in turning their lives around to become law-abiding citizens.   National Pretrial, Probation, and Parole Supervision Week, observed during the week of July 21, honors the significant contributions of probation, juvenile detention and surveillance officers nationwide. Probation Week provides an opportunity to join in celebration with the more than 100,000 community corrections professionals across the nation who diligently work to maintain our community’s safety.   The Maricopa County Adult Probation Department serves more than 51,000 individuals. Recently, the department updated its mission, vision and values to mirror the organization’s dedication to innovation and ongoing enhancement. Enhancing community safety is one of the department’s primary goals and in the fiscal year 2023, the department reported that over 76% of individuals on probation completed their terms successfully. Probation staff work to provide resources that assist individuals in effecting change while ensuring accountability. Adult Probation staff will be celebrated throughout the week through various activities and gatherings.   “After 25 years in this field, I am more convinced than ever that community corrections hold the keys to permanent reductions in crime and enhancement of community safety,” said Chief Adult Probation Officer Michael Cimino. “We are fortunate in Maricopa County to have the professionals we do in adult and juvenile probation leading these efforts from juvenile detention to probation and pretrial supervision to resourcing the Court’s initial appearance and presentence decision-making. They are national leaders in our field, and I could not be prouder of the work they do for our Court and the residents of Maricopa County. We are proud to participate in National Pretrial, Probation, and Parole Supervision Week and see their important public service celebrated.”   In fiscal year 2023, the Maricopa County Juvenile Probation Department received 8,903 referred offenses. Over half of all referred offenses were sent to a diversion program and managed without filing a formal petition to the court. About 95% of the youth that had been diverted in the previous year did not have a subsequent felony referral.   An example of the department’s continued effort to innovate is the use of an online platform where youth can complete assigned modules to satisfy diversion consequences. Since its introduction, 25 youth have used the mobile platform resulting in 150 completed modules, focused on strengthening families, making good choices, avoiding substance use, and other topics. For those youth requiring additional supervision, in fiscal year 2023, 88% of the youth that had been placed on probation in the previous year did not have a subsequent felony referral following their completion of probation. Officers’ work of ensuring accountability while supporting opportunities to change makes a difference. An additional level of community protection occurs through the 24/7 care provided by juvenile detention officers. Detention provides an opportunity to re-kindle educational interests, participate in behavioral health services, recreational activities and positive programming.   “Every year we get the opportunity to celebrate and recognize the challenging and rewarding work of our profession and the professionals who are a critical component of our public safety system. Our work with juveniles and families includes having to confront past traumas, emotional and physical abuse, self-harming behaviors, and occasional deaths,” said Juvenile Probation Chief Eric Meaux. “These realities and events have an impact on our professionals. I’m excited about this year’s theme: ‘Wellness Unveiled: Navigating the Journey.’ This year’s theme shines a spotlight on this element of our work and is an opportunity to encourage our officers and support staff to focus on their physical and mental well-being. Our JPD staff have rewarding jobs, however it comes with stress and can take an emotional toll. With this year’s theme, we will highlight the significance of daily selfcare by sharing daily tips on best practices for physical and mental health. I am looking forward to celebrating all our juvenile justice professionals and all they contribute to ensuring safer communities and brighter futures for the youth and families they serve.”

PHOENIX (July 23, 2024) – Whether a person is looking to change their name, receive child support, or start the process to get a divorce, the Law Library Resource Center has forms available at no cost to start these court processes.   While many people visit the Law Library Resource Center seeking help, others in need of assistance may not be able to travel to one of the four library locations in Maricopa County. To bring the resources of the Law Library closer to the communities we serve, the Law Library Resource Center, part of the Judicial Branch of Arizona in Maricopa County, is hosting free Legal Information and Navigation Clinics (LINC) at public libraries around the Valley.   The clinics are open to any member of the public who needs assistance in navigating the court system. While there, members of the public can receive help in English and Spanish with court forms such as divorce, paternity, child support, guardianship and more.   Upcoming clinics include:  

• July 24 from 11 a.m. – 2 p.m. at the Southwest Regional Court Center, 10420 W. Van Buren Street in Avondale.  

   While court staff can assist with court forms, they cannot provide legal advice. For those interested, the Law Library Resource Center staff can provide guidance and information about free or low-cost legal resources available in the community.      Superior court forms are available in English and Spanish in a fillable pdf format by visiting: https://superiorcourt.maricopa.gov/llrc/   For more information, contact the Law Library Resource Center at https://superiorcourt.maricopa.gov/llrc/ , by phone at 602-506-7353 or via email at [email protected] .

PHOENIX – If you’ve driven down the highway and seen a creative traffic safety message on one of the overhead signs and wanted to write one yourself … now is your chance.  For the eighth year, the Arizona Department of Transportation is inviting the public to submit their engaging and creative traffic safety messages for its popular Safety Message Contest. Submissions are open through July 29 at azdot.gov/SignContest .  The contest gives Arizonans the opportunity to see their unique safety messages displayed on ADOT’s Dynamic Message Signs across the state, encouraging motorists to make better decisions behind the wheel.  “Safely connecting people is our top priority,” ADOT Director Jennifer Toth said. “This contest is an engaging way to remind everyone about the importance of being alert so everyone can get home safely.”  After members of the public submit their suggestions, ADOT will review the entries and select at least 10 finalists for the public to vote on. The two messages that get the most votes will be crowned the winners and appear on overhead boards along Arizona’s highways.  There’s no limit to the number of entries someone can submit. Keep these guidelines in mind when crafting a message: 

• The message must relate to traffic safety.
• Signs accommodate 3 lines, 18 characters per line. 
• #Hashtags, phone numbers and website addresses are not allowed.
• No emojis. 
• The ampersand (&) is your friend!

ADOT displays traffic safety messages as part of a campaign to engage Arizonans about making better decisions behind the wheel. National crash data shows more than 90% of vehicle crashes are caused by driver decisions, which include drivers choosing to drive impaired, distracted, aggressively or at unsafe speeds. According to statewide crash data, 1,307 people were killed in crashes on Arizona’s roads in 2023 and many of these deaths were preventable. For example, in 2023 in Arizona, 446 people were killed in speed-related crashes, 332 people died in alcohol-related crashes and 361 people died who were not using a safety device, like a seatbelt or motorcycle helmet. Avoiding these unsafe behaviors makes travel safer for everyone.