A six-figure fight
Chamber spends big to defeat Prop 414 … Vanishing signs … And Musk vs Kelly (and Kelly).
We finally know how much has been spent so far to fuel the nonstop barrage of Proposition 414 mailers, text messages, TV ads, and the giant campaign signs on nearly every street corner.
Well, at least we know the spending from the largest group opposed to the measure.1
The Tucson Metro Chamber’s political action committee, which has spearheaded the business community’s opposition to Proposition 414, recently filed reports with the Arizona Secretary of State’s Office.
Other groups politically involved in the measure are expected to file in about a week with the City of Tucson.
The Chamber reported spending nearly $165,000 so far on the race, with the largest single expense — $74,995 — going to a local advertising agency to buy TV, radio and online ads.
The Chamber spent another $44,872 to send out mailers to Tucson households and another $20,000 for the design and printing of the various mailers.
As for the rest of the money flowing into the Prop 414 debate, voters won’t know who’s putting their thumb on the scale for at least a week.
If you’ve already voted, don’t blame us, the elected officials make the rules when it comes to the campaign finance disclosure deadlines.
What makes things even more complicated is the Tucson Metro Chamber PAC and The Yes on Prop 414 - Safe & Vibrant City PAC have different filing deadlines.
The chamber PAC is a standing committee that files regular reports with the Arizona Secretary of State.
They are required to file within five days after spending more than $15,000 on media in a local race as part of the state’s Voters Right to Know Act.
The Yes on Prop 414 - Safe & Vibrant City PAC falls under the city’s jurisdiction as a single-issue committee and files reports with the City of Tucson’s election department.
The deadline to file campaign finance reports for the Yes on Prop 414 is March 1, two weeks after the city sent ballots to voters. It’s the date set by city leaders for all campaigns, not just this special election.
We’ll tell you more about who’s spending big bucks to sway your vote once the reports are available.
So who is bankrolling the No on Prop 414 campaign? A series of filings with the Arizona Secretary of State show the Tucson Metro Chamber PAC received $120,000 to fight Prop 414 in the last month. The deep pockets those donations came from include:
$40,000 from the Arizona Lodging and Tourism Association
$40,000 from the Arizona Multihousing Association
$25,000 from the Tucson Association of Realtors
$7,700 from Royal Speedway, part of the Royal Automotive Group
$7,000 from car dealer Jim Click
This doesn’t add up to the $165,000 the chamber has spent so far on the race, so the rest of the money is coming directly from the Chamber - or more accurately its PAC - for the time being.
Separate filings required by the Federal Communications Commission show the Chamber has paid $9,780 for a total of 27 ads with KVOA, with almost all tied to local news broadcasts.
They also bought four spots during the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon at $200 a pop.
If the sweet spot in your media diet is watching local political ads and Jimmy Fallon at the same time, your next opportunity is Wednesday, Feb. 26.
If any of our wonderful Agenda readers have $200 they want to give us, we’d definitely take it. But really, we’d be thrilled if you showed your support in a less costly way, by upgrading to a paid subscription.
The Yes on Prop 414 campaign says nearly 80 of its signs have gone missing since local firefighters started putting them up on street corners roughly a month ago.
While the campaign finance reports aren’t out yet, both the Tucson Fire Fighters Association (TFFA) and the Yes on Prop 414 PAC have publicly acknowledged their support of the measure, including helping to pay for and distribute the Prop 414 signs.
Adam Kinsey, who works on the Prop 414 campaign, admits there is no smoking gun to link the missing signs to any single organization.
He did note that some of the street corners where their signs have gone missing didn’t stay vacant for long, with signs from the No on Prop 414 showing up in their place.
Complaints about sign theft are nothing new. Every election cycle, candidates and campaigns routinely accuse their opponents of stealing or vandalizing campaign signs.
However, such claims are rarely substantiated. Incidents of "sign theft" are more often the result of random vandalism, a combination of windy days and crappy zip ties, or individuals using the signs for shelter, rather than intentional sabotage.2
Gun ordinance jammed: Pima County’s ordinance requiring gun owners to quickly report a lost or stolen gun was blocked by a Pima County Superior Court judge following a lawsuit from the conservative Goldwater Institute, the Tucson Sentinel’s Paul Ingram reports. The ordinance, approved by the county supervisors last March, was meant to make it harder for “straw buyers” to buy guns for people who aren’t allowed to own them. The judge said counties are barred from passing firearm-related ordinances “unless expressly allowed by state law.” County lawyers said the ordinance should have remained in effect because it “did not affect anyone’s right to possess a gun.”
Pushing pause: Housing construction in Tucson is slowing down as builders wait to see how political policy shakes out, particularly with the price of labor and materials, the Arizona Daily Star’s Gabriela Rico reports. The slowdown comes as the average new home price in Tucson topped $500,000 and city officials try to encourage more infill development in vacant lots and parking lots (the city is hosting a public hearing on Wednesday to discuss the infill-oriented Community Corridors Tool).
Funding restored: Migrant children won’t see their legal aid cut off, now that the Trump administration backtracked on a directive last Tuesday to stop funding for a program that provides legal representation for unaccompanied children at the U.S.-Mexico border, NBC News reports. Roxana Avila-Cimpeanu, the deputy director of the largest provider of legal aid to immigrants in Arizona, the Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project, said the news was “unequivocally good” for the thousands of unaccompanied children who cross the border in Arizona, the Arizona Mirror’s Gloria Rebecca Gomez reports. But she was still wary of what else the Trump administration might try to do.
“We are clear-eyed that this is not the last threat to funding for legal services for detained immigrant children, and we will remain vigilant in protecting the rights of immigrant children here in Arizona,” Avila-Cimpeanu said in a written statement.
Boring emergency: Despite rhetoric from the Trump administration that there is an “emergency” and “invasion” at the U.S.-Mexico border, not many people are crossing the border in Arizona right now, the Star’s Emily Bregel reports. A humanitarian aid station near Sasabe was empty last Wednesday, largely due to a drop in crossings that started in early 2024. One aid volunteer said “It’s been quiet. There’s nothing going on.”
Maybe there is such a thing as a free lunch: A Tucson lawmaker is trying to set aside $3.8 million in state funds to make school lunches free, the Arizona Luminaria’s Kyra Berg reports. Democratic Rep. Nancy Gutierrez says she’s seen food insecurity up-close with the high school students she teaches. Her bill, HB2213, focuses on low-income students, but eventually she’d like all Arizona students to be eligible for free lunches. The bill already has some bipartisan support, including from the chairman of the House Education Committee, Republican Rep. Matt Gress.
It’s not just about DEI: The recent decision by University of Arizona officials to remove “committed to diversity and inclusion” from the UA’s land acknowledgment, in the face of threats from the Trump administration, isn’t a big deal on its own. But it’s a sign of a “conservative effort to punish them for being perceived bastions of political leftism,” Star columnist Tim Steller writes. One way for the UA to go, beyond court battles or simply acquiescing, is to “put up an affirmative public defense of what the university does, especially its research operations.”
Well, it was bound to happen sooner or later. With Elon Musk being well-known for averaging nearly 100 tweets per day, at some point he was going to attack someone from Tucson.
On Friday, Musk dragged Sen. Mark Kelly into the mix as Musk was feuding with Kelly’s twin brother Scott Kelly on Twitter.3
The fight started when Musk and President Donald Trump blamed the Biden administration for delaying the rescue of the two stranded astronauts on the International Space Station.
Scott Kelly came to the defense of Danish astronaut Andreas "Andy" Mogensen, the former ISS commander who called Musk out on his unsubstantiated claims. Musk naturally responded to Kelly’s tweet, but also took time to call his twin brother a “Dem donor shill.”
We aren’t sure what to get an astronaut or a senator for their birthday - yep it was also on Friday - but we’re guessing these kind of shout-outs on Twitter were not on their wish lists.
Happy birthday, Mark and Scott.
Campaign finance reports from the Vote No on Prop 414 are up to date as of Feb 17, and we expect that both sides will continue spending right up until election day on March 11.
When a Marana school board candidate’s signs were stolen last year, they were prepared for it. They hid a GPS tracker in one of the signs and eventually found the culprit: the mother of another school board member.
Yes, we know it’s called X now, but Joe has a hard time with the new nomenclature.
I remain disappointed that we did not, as a society, decide collectively and permanently to call it “the platform formerly known as Twitter.”
“You are fully retarded” what is Musk 10? I am so happy I don’t social media. With that level of discourse, who needs it?