ADOT’s Freeway Travel Advisory (No Holiday Weekend Closures)

Posted on by Yellow Sheet Report Staff
PHOENIX – No construction or maintenance closures are scheduled on state highways, including Phoenix-area freeways, from Wednesday afternoon, July 3, to Monday morning, July 8. While the Arizona Department of Transportation focuses on giving motorists a break from closures for improvement projects over the holiday weekend, drivers in turn should focus on safety when behind the wheel. Steps to take include checking your car’s tire pressure, engine fluid levels and getting adequate rest before starting out on a trip. Packing extra drinking water as part of an emergency travel kit is recommended, especially during Arizona’s summer weather. ADOT provides hot weather driving trips at azdot.gov/severe-weather .  While no highway closures are scheduled, drivers should expect the unexpected, which could include stopped traffic due to disabled vehicles, crashes or events such as wildfires. Delays certainly are possible over the holiday weekend due to heavy traffic during peak travel times, including Wednesday and Sunday afternoons.  Drivers should be prepared to slow down, allow extra time and use caution when approaching and traveling through existing work zones. These include ADOT’s State Route 89A rockfall mitigation project between Flagstaff and Sedona, where traffic is alternating one direction at a time at the Oak Creek Canyon switchbacks. No matter your destination, be prepared for changing weather conditions including dust storms. Additional safe driving recommendations from ADOT include:
  • Never drive while impaired. Buckle up and obey speed limits. 
  • Arrange for a designated driver or ride service if necessary.
  • An emergency travel kit for your vehicle can include extra drinking water and other items such as blankets, a first-aid kit, a flashlight, extra batteries, a fully charged cellphone and charger, snacks and a toolkit.
  • Fatigue is a serious safety risk. So taking breaks and getting enough sleep are important.
  • Avoid distractions. Don’t text while driving and make hands-free calls.
  • Don’t park in areas with grasses and brush. Hot vehicle components could start a fire.
  • Don’t let trailer chains drag along the pavement. Sparks could ignite a wildfire.
Since travel delays over the weekend are possible, don’t forget other important items such as prescription medicines. A hat, sunglasses and umbrella – to help with rain or provide shade – also are good items to remember during the summer travel season. Real-time highway conditions are available on ADOT’s Arizona Traveler Information site at az511.gov , the AZ511 app and by calling 511. ADOT also provides highway condition updates via its X/Twitter feed, @ArizonaDOT .

SR 69 project will increase capacity, enhance safety in Prescott

Posted on by Yellow Sheet Report Staff
PRESCOTT – Work is scheduled to get underway next week on a project that will widen one mile of State Route 69 in Prescott, according to the Arizona Department of Transportation.  ADOT, in partnership with the Central Yavapai Metropolitan Planning Organization, is constructing a third travel lane in each direction and a raised center median between Prescott Lakes Parkway and Frontier Village (mileposts 294-295). The $9.8 million project will also install a raised center median between Yavpe Connector and Heather Heights near the junction with SR 89. This project, which is expected to take approximately nine months to complete, also will:
  • construct curbs and gutters;
  • install new pipe culverts and storm drains;
  • remove and install a traffic signal; and
  • install signage and striping.
When construction gets underway on Monday, July 8, work will initially occur along the shoulders during the day with minimal impacts to the traveling public. Two travel lanes will be maintained during daytime hours. In addition, SR 69 will be narrowed to one lane in each direction between Prescott Lakes Parkway and Heather Heights from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. Sunday evenings through Thursday mornings.  Business access will be maintained throughout the project, though there may be brief restrictions when work takes place in front of driveways and side streets. There will be no restrictions on weekends and state holidays.  To learn more about this project and to subscribe for updates, please visit azdot.gov/SR69widening .

IKEA might have some beds to fit the budget

Posted on by Arizona Legislative Report Staff

A recent report from the Auditor General's Office indicates the East Valley Institute of Technology is at risk of not using a $10 million appropriation to construct transitional housing for foster youth as the legislature intended. The report, published June 29, states that the transitional housing facility named HopeTech is expected to open in July and the district has budgeted more than $9.5 million for construction of the facility, leaving $490,000 to furnish and complete the facility. According to the report, an estimate to furnish the 64 bedrooms would leave the district with $160,000 for the project, which is not enough to furnish the facility. The auditor general recommended the district develop and implement a formal strategic plan regarding HopeTech’s operation and potential funding sources for the facility. The district has agreed to that recommendation and district Superintendent Chad Wilson delivered a succinct response letter to the audit. “We accept this second report’s singular finding and will implement the recommendations,” Wilson wrote. HopeTech was planned in 2022 under former Republican Gov. Doug Ducey and former legislators Rusty Bowers, Michelle Udall, Steve Kaiser and Walt Blackman as a way to help foster children transition into education and a career path as they move into adulthood. The facility is designed like an apartment complex near campus with a maximum monthly rent of $500 with students also being required to work part-time during their stay.

No one was watching the $3M, but bagels do need cream cheese

Posted on by Arizona Legislative Report Staff

The Auditor General’s office published two other reports, one on June 28 concerning Mountain Institute Career and Technical Education District and one on June 27 related to Gila County’s transportation excise tax. Both the towns of Hayden and Winkelman reportedly used some excise tax monies inappropriately. Hayden spent almost $500,000 on personnel costs charged to the Highway Users Fund and lacked documentation to validate the town’s expenditures. Winkleman had the same issue with about $120,000 spent from the fund. Additionally, Winkelman spent $1,100 at Home Depot for paint supplies and a lawn mower; and an additional $394 was spent for grocery store purchases, including water, ice, Gatorade, hand soap, bleach, bagels and cream cheese. The Auditor General’s report states the grocery items may violate the public gift clause. Mountain Institute’s audit flagged about $3 million the district spent on career and technical education programs in fiscal year 2022 that didn’t have accounting and IT controls to prevent errors, fraud and data loss.

Another measure to join Ballot Mania ‘24

Posted on by Arizona Legislative Report Staff

Raise the Wage Arizona filed 354,278 signatures to qualify for the ballot on Wednesday, the Secretary of State’s Office said. The initiative, led by One Fair Wage, will ask voters if the minimum wage should be raised to nearly $18 per hour by 2027 and if lower pay for tipped employees should be eliminated. The Legislature narrowly passed a GOP-backed countermeasure, dubbed the “Tipped Workers Protection Act,” on June 13. The proposal, introduced by Mesnard, would allow an employer to pay a tipped employee up to $3 per hour less than minimum wage if they can prove that the employee will still make minimum wage on average. The SoS’s office began validating the signatures for the three citizen-led initiatives that were filed on Wednesday and will be done by Aug. 1, Fontes said. The Legislative Council will convene on Monday, where the panel of lawmakers will deliberate on summary statements for all the ballot proposals.

There’s a reason State Road 9 isn’t the ‘Highway of Presidents’

Posted on by Brian A. Howey

INDIANAPOLIS — One of our state’s political and geographic quirks spreads out across the cornfields and prairies. It is State Road 9, or “The Highway of Vice Presidents.”

Heading south from Columbia City, you find it was home to Vice President Thomas R. Marshall. Then there’s Huntington, where Vice President Dan Quayle was a newspaper publisher before being elected to Congress. Vice President Thomas A. Hendricks called Shelbyville home before he was elected governor, then senator. And then there’s Columbus, home to Vice President Mike Pence, who launched his congressional career from what he called “the amber waves of grain” that straddled the highway. 

So here’s a memo to Vice President Kamala Harris, just in case President Biden folds his presidential reelection campaign in the coming days: There’s a reason why State Road 9 isn’t called the “Highway of Presidents.”

Of Indiana’s six veeps, none were elected to the White House. Marshall came closest to power after President Woodrow Wilson suffered a debilitating stroke, but the first lady, Edith Wilson, basically shut Marshall out of the loop, and his political career faded after 1921. Quayle launched a brief presidential campaign in 1999, and Pence did last year after losing reelection bids. Both folded within six months when the money and support failed to materialize.

In fact, only 15 veeps made it to the promised land, and four of them — Andrew Johnson, Chester A. Arthur, Theodore Roosevelt and Lyndon B. Johnson — did so after presidential assassinations. Five others ascended to the White House after a president died or resigned: John Tyler, Millard Fillmore, Calvin Coolidge, Harry S. Truman and Gerald Ford.

Only four sitting vice presidents have been elected president: John Adams in 1796, Thomas Jefferson in 1800, Martin Van Buren in 1836, and George H. W. Bush in 1988. Two former vice presidents — Richard Nixon in 1968 and Joe Biden in 2020 — won the presidency after sitting out an election cycle.

For Democrats, the veep track hardly ever works in modern times, as Hubert Humphrey, Walter Mondale and Al Gore can attest after losing presidential campaigns. The Democratic Party passed on elevating Adlai Stevenson, Marshall, John Nance Garner, Henry Wallace and Alben Barkley.

Since the ratification of the 22nd Amendment, the only time a president and his vice president have held the presidency for more than two terms was 1980–1992 when President Ronald Reagan was followed by Vice President George H. W. Bush. The simple reason is that Americans tend to want change, for example voting for Sen. John F. Kennedy over Richard Nixon in 1960.

Vice presidents were once nominated by party bosses to deliver a state or a demographic slice. Once in office, they have only two constitutional duties (succeed a  dead president; break ties in the U.S. Senate), and they tend to get crappy portfolios from their bosses. Harris was put in charge of the southern U.S. border, now seen as a huge liability for a Democratic ticket, while Pence was handed the pandemic that ended up killing more than a million Americans.

A recent Morning Consult Poll showed Vice President Harris was viewed with 67% favorability among Black voters. While that poll showed that only 40% of overall voters had a favorable opinion of her (and only 34% of independents), some 74% of Democrats did.

That could be enough for her to win the Democratic nomination if it opens up, but how she will contrast with Republican nominee Donald J. Trump will be a critical question if she, indeed, cuts across the lanes of history.

Brian A. Howey is senior writer and columnist for Howey Politics Indiana/State Affairs. Find Howey on Facebook and X @hwypol.

State begins search for institutions to further research of ‘magic mushrooms’

Posted on by Jarred Meeks

The state has issued a request for information to gauge research institutions’ interest in studying the therapeutic value of psilocybin — colloquially known as “magic mushrooms.”

State lawmakers established the therapeutic psilocybin research fund earlier this year through House Enrolled Act 1259. The fund was created to financially help Indiana research institutions conduct clinical studies to evaluate psilocybin’s efficacy as a treatment for mental health and other medical conditions.

The Family and Social Service Administration’s Division of Mental Health and Addiction, which is tasked with administering the fund, plans to assess research institutions’ interest and qualifications through the RFI.

Interested research institutions are asked to verify their ability to conduct a clinical study, in addition to all required reports and updates listed under the law. Bidding on the request for information is open through Aug. 1, according to a state listing.

Depending on the outcome, the state might award grants, pending available funding. However, no contracts will be issued as a result of the request for information, according to state officials.

Psilocybin is a psychedelic chemical compound produced by fungi. New research indicates psilocybin is a promising alternative treatment for mental health and other medical conditions, health experts say.

“Utilizing a psychedelic drug for the treatment of emotional disorders may seem pretty crazy at first consideration,” former Indiana State Health Commissioner Richard Feldman told the House Committee on Public Health in February. However, he said, “This [is] in no way fringe science.”

Rep. Brad Barrett, R-Richmond, argued during the 2024 legislative session that “mental health is a staggering problem in this state” and that the research fund would allow Indiana “to capture and oversee donations, grants, federal funding for first-class academic research” that could help address it.

Contact Jarred Meeks on X @jarredsmeeks or email him at [email protected].

Kansas Supreme Court upholds abortion rights in two decisions

Posted on by Brett Stover

The Dobbs decision doesn’t “even bring into question” the Kansas Constitution’s implied right to abortion, the Kansas Supreme Court ruled Friday.

The U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs decision, which overturned Roe v. Wade, doesn’t change the way Kansas courts interpret the state’s statutes, Justice Eric Rosen wrote in the majority opinion. In oral arguments, the state argued the 2022 decision has “changed the landscape considerably.”

“The few cases it cites that have been decided since that ruling — one interpreting the federal Constitution and one interpreting the Iowa Constitution — do not control or even bring into question our interpretation of the Kansas Constitution Bill of Rights,” Rosen wrote.

The court said the state didn’t show the law was narrowly tailored to further a compelling interest of the state, affirming the Shawnee County District Court’s permanent injunction against the law.

The Legislature in 2015 passed a bill banning dilation and evacuation (or “D&E”)  abortions, a procedure often performed in the second trimester of pregnancy.

In 2019, the state Supreme Court ruled in a landmark decision that the Kansas Constitution grants a fundamental right to personal autonomy — including the right to abortion — and that the government can only limit that right in narrow ways.

Former attorney general Derek Schmidt, now a candidate for the Republican nomination in Kansas’ 2nd Congressional District, in 2021 asked the court to reconsider that ruling.

Rosen said the state argued the original Hodes decision was “flat-out wrong” and attempted to relitigate an settled issue.

“The relevant exception to the law-of-the-case doctrine requires a showing that the original decision was clearly erroneous,” he wrote. “The state has made no such showing.”

Rosen tackled the state’s other arguments, including that the state has a compelling interest in restricting abortion because Kansans have expressed through elected lawmakers that life begins at fertilization.

“That argument runs face first into the August 2022 vote of the people overwhelmingly rejecting a proposed constitutional amendment to give those same elected representatives unfettered regulatory control over abortion,” Rosen wrote.

He also took issue with the state’s characterizations of the dilation and evacuation abortions as “brutal and inhumane,” writing that the state “may have an opinion, but what matters is the evidence.”

Justice K.J. Wall didn’t participate in the 5-1 decision, and Justice Evelyn Wilson concurred and wrote that she believed the 2015 law was unconstitutionally vague. The lone dissent came from Justice Caleb Stegall, who also disagreed with the original Hodes decision in 2019.

In another 5-1 decision, the Kansas Supreme Court also ruled certain rules and regulations on abortion providers as unconstitutional. Wall again didn’t participate, and Stegall dissented.

At issue in Hodes v. Stanek was a 2011 law that imposed new licensing requirements on medical facilities that provide abortion services, along with corresponding regulations created after the law took effect. The court affirmed the Shawnee County District Court’s permanent injunction against that law and regulations.

The state can’t prove its compelling interest, Justice Melissa Standridge wrote for the majority, and the challenged laws don’t stand up under the standard of strict scrutiny.

All laws at question in the case “infringed on a woman’s fundamental right to personal autonomy” as established by the state Supreme Court’s original Hodes decision.

The 2019 ruling also requires that laws that could infringe on that right are subject to strict scrutiny. That means that if a plaintiff can prove even a slight infringement, the burden shifts to the state to prove the law protects a compelling government interest in a narrowly tailored way.

Several justices wrote concurrences in Hodes v. Stanek, including Justice Evelyn Wilson, who expressed concern that the majority opinion in the case “may be retreating from the holding that personal autonomy is fundamental. She argues the two decisions released Friday contain slightly different interpretations of the Section 1 of the Kansas Constitution’s Bill of Rights.

“In effect, Kansans now have two opinions, released on the same day, and joined by the same majority, which may interpret their rights differently,” Wilson wrote. “That’s a problem.”

Stegall, in a lengthy dissent, called the decision a “legal mess” and suggested that the majority in Hodes  “put the entire administrative state on the chopping block of strict scrutiny.”

Solicitor General Anthony Powell argued for the state in both cases, while Alice Wang and Caroline Sacerdote of the Center for Reproductive Rights, respectively, argued for the plaintiffs.

Nancy Northup, president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights, in a statement called the decisions an  “immense victory for the health, safety, and dignity of people in Kansas and the entire Midwestern region, where millions have been cut off from abortion access.”

Attorney General Kris Kobach said in a statement the decision is “as disappointing as it is unsurprising.”

“The Kansas Constitution means what the people of Kansas thought the words meant when they voted to ratify those words,” he continued. “When the word liberty was included in the constitution, no one in Kansas thought they were creating a right to an abortion.”

Brett Stover is a Statehouse reporter at State Affairs Pro Kansas/Hawver’s Capitol Report. Reach him at [email protected] or on X @BrettStoverKS.

Wake Up Call for Friday, July 5, 2024

Posted on by Yellow Sheet Report Staff
Prop. 123 education funding renewal effort falls short Arizona Capitol Times With Proposition 123, an additional education funding stream through the State Land Trust fund, set to lapse at the end of the next fiscal year, both parties brought out sweeping plans to retool and renew the measure. Childcare agency survives with tighter controls Arizona Capitol Times The Department of Child Safety was put in the spotlight again this legislative session, but the agency was granted a lifeline – tied to stipulations – despite some lawmakers’ stance that it should not be continued at all. Wrap Up with Minority Leader Lupe Contreras Arizona Capitol Times House Minority Leader Lupe Contreras, D-Avondale, rarely saw his caucus at full strength during the 2024 Arizona Legislative session with numerous resignations among House Democrats.  Hobbs scored wins, but loses some priorities Arizona Capitol Times At the annual State of the State Address in early January, Gov. Katie Hobbs laid out a list of issues she wanted to tackle during the 2024 legislative session.  Affordable housing bills pass – 3 signed, 1 vetoed Arizona Capitol Times After a major bipartisan housing legislation package fell through in the 2023 legislative session, affordable housing advocates were hoping the 2024 session would prove different.. Judges oppose ballot measure on judicial retention Arizona Capitol Times Before the Arizona Supreme Court handed down the highly controversial decision upholding Arizona’s 1864 abortion ban, and before efforts to oust judges materialized, anxiety over increasingly political judicial retention elections already existed. Broad abortion ban appears headed to November ballot Capitol Media Services Backers of a measure to guarantee the right to abortion turned in what they said was more than 800,000 signatures on July 3 to put the issue on the November ballot. 823,685 reasons why Republicans should be worried about Arizona's abortion initiative The Arizona Republic Arizonans working to ensure the right to an abortion on Wednesday put an exclamation point on their march to the November ballot. How about some respect, ESPN, for Pat Tillman's mother? The Arizona Republic And the Pat Tillman Award for Service goes to…Prince Harry. Celebrate America, but don't call it a Christian nation The Arizona Republic A former president who may once again ascend to the highest office in the land hawks a “patriotic” Bible — one that includes the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Pledge Allegiance and right there at the end of Revelation, Lee Greenwood’s handwritten lyrics in which he proclaims he’s proud to be an American.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. nears qualifying for Indiana ballot

Posted on by Tom Davies

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is on the cusp of becoming the first independent presidential candidate to make Indiana’s election ballot in 24 years.

County election offices around the state reported, as of Wednesday, certifying at least 28,000 petition signatures supporting Kennedy being placed on the November ballot.

That review of petitions submitted by July 1 will continue for several more days as the Kennedy campaign looks to file more than the required 36,943 certified signatures of registered voters to the state Election Division by the July 15 deadline.

What Kennedy supporters say

Jennifer Reinoehl, a Granger resident who has helped organize the Indiana petition drive, said Kennedy supporters turned in more than 57,000 petition signatures before more were submitted in a final batch on July 1.

Reinoehl told State Affairs she was confident that the campaign’s mix of volunteers and paid workers had gathered enough signatures. But she was bracing for possible challenges by Democrats and Republicans to block Kennedy from the ballot.

“We’ve been working hard throughout the state and, really, it’s just going to come down to if the state’s going to follow the rules,” Reinoehl said.

The Kennedy campaign’s national media staff didn’t reply to messages from State Affairs seeking comment on its Indiana effort.

Kennedy’s campaign says it has met the requirements for his name to appear on the ballot in 26 states, although not all have affirmed ballot placement. His campaign says it has an aggressive ballot access operation with a $15 million budget aimed at getting Kennedy on the ballot in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. 

Indiana’s ballot requirements

Kennedy is seeking to join presumptive Democratic and Republican candidates Joe Biden and Donald Trump, respectively, and Libertarian Chase Oliver on the Indiana presidential ballot.

Libertarian Party candidates have automatically qualified for the Indiana ballot since 1994 with the party’s secretary of state nominee topping 2% of the vote in that race every four years.

Indiana law requires other minor party or independent candidates for statewide races such as president, governor or U.S. senator to gather petition signatures totaling at least that 2% mark — which is currently 36,943 based on the 2022 secretary of state election.

But the task of collecting that many petition signatures has resulted in no such candidates making Indiana’s statewide ballot since Patrick Buchanan’s 2000 presidential campaign.

Supporters of Green Party candidate Jill Stein had fewer than 9,000 signatures certified by Wednesday to place her name on Indiana’s November ballot. No other statewide hopefuls had more than 200 signatures certified, according to state Election Division reports.

Objections to Indiana’s ballot access law

The state Legislature — made up of Republicans and Democrats, with no independents or minor party members — has ignored calls to ease Indiana’s decades-long petition signature requirement. A desire to avoid ballots cluttered with numerous candidates is among the defenses for the current law.

Voting rights advocate Julia Vaughn argues the state’s ballot restrictions contribute to Indiana having among the nation’s lowest voter turnout rates.

“Voters need to have a full array of choices beyond the two major political parties and our ballot access laws make it very difficult for independent candidates to cross that bar,” said Vaughn, executive director of Common Cause Indiana. “Republicans and Democrats over the years haven’t agreed on much when it comes to election issues, but this is one thing that they have worked together on to set a very high bar for independent candidates to have ballot access.”

A federal lawsuit filed on behalf of the Green Party and the Libertarian Party claims Indiana has one of the most restrictive ballot access laws in the country, with effective petition drives costing $500,000 or more. 

A U.S. District Court judge upheld the law last year, and the Chicago-based 7th Circuit Court of Appeals has yet to rule on an appeal of that decision after hearing arguments in April.

Reinoehl, the Kennedy campaign petition organizer, contrasted the nearly 37,000 signatures needed to place Kennedy’s name on the ballot with the 4,500 signatures required of Republican and Democratic statewide candidates to make their party’s primary ballots.

“I am an independent and I have been voting independent and writing in the names of my candidates for the past two decades here,” she said. “I, of course, agree that our laws are very biased. Republicans and Democrats have to get 4,500 signatures and for independents to have to get 37,000, [it]is ridiculous.”

Tom Davies is a Statehouse reporter for State Affairs Pro Indiana. Reach him at [email protected] or on X at @TomDaviesIND.

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