The Daily Agenda: Lawmaking is hard

Some lawmakers make laws ... Some don't ... "Defamation" at UA.

State legislators are running for re-election this year (most of them, anyway), and voters will decide who sticks around and who gets the boot.

What better way to determine if they’re worthy of your vote than to evaluate their records at the Capitol this year? Passing bills isn’t the only job of a lawmaker, but it’s a big part of what they do.

Are your local lawmakers any good at it?

Now’s a good time to take a preliminary look. This week was “crossover week” at the Capitol, when bills that started in the House should be voted out of that chamber and into the Senate, and vice versa. It’s at this point that most of the nearly 1,800 bills, memorials and resolutions introduced this legislative session fade away.

If they haven’t passed the committees they were assigned to by now, they’re officially dead.¹

With those deadlines in our rearview mirror, we used Skywolf, our Agenda-affiliated bill tracking and political intelligence tool, to scour the 220 bills filed by the dozen lawmakers in Legislative Districts 17, 18, 20, and 21, which cover the bulk of the Tucson area. 

Legislative deadlines have already claimed the lives of 151 of those bills. Only 69 remain “alive.”

Most of Tucson’s Democratic lawmakers are already pretty much out of the legislating game. 

They can still advocate for the causes they hold dear and vote for or against bills from other lawmakers, but Sens. Rosanna Gabaldon and Priya Sundareshan, along with Reps. Betty Villegas and Stephanie Stahl Hamilton, no longer have any bills working their way through the pipeline.

Reps. Christopher Mathis and Nancy Gutierrez each have one bill that’s still alive, but both bills would just create license plates that support ovarian cancer research and promote bicycling. Worthy causes, perhaps, but not exactly world-moving stuff.

You could chalk it up to Democrats working under the thumb of the Republican-controlled Legislature, but two local Democrats are doing just fine. In fact, Democratic Reps. Alma Hernandez and Consuelo Hernandez are two of the most effective lawmakers at the Capitol so far this year.

Alma filed 10 bills and eight have made it far enough to be considered still alive. She focused on issues that reflect her background, such as education about the Holocaust (she is Jewish), and public health (she teaches a course on public health policy at Arizona State University).

She has earned a reputation as a dealmaker at the Capitol, in part for her friendships and ability to make allies across the aisle, and in part for her willingness to compromise. 

For example, several of her bills were assigned to multiple committees. But she was able to convince the speaker of the House or committee chairmen to withdraw them from some committees, keeping them alive and moving without actually “passing” the committee on a vote.

In other cases, she has accepted Republican amendments to her bills to ensure they can pass. Her HB2757, for example, sought $10 million for a Holocaust museum over the next three years. Republicans amended it to just $3 million three years from now. But it passed its committee. 

Her sister, Consuelo, has used many of the same tactics to great success. She filed seven bills this year and five still have a shot at becoming law.

And Sen. Sally Ann Gonzales, who filed a whopping 44 bills, still has six bills that are working their way through the process.

Gonzales’ bills focused on education, but not the issues that provoke the wrath of Republicans. She wants to bump up state funding for community colleges, dual-enrollment courses, and Native students. And she wrote a bill to shorten contracts for senior administrators at community colleges. 

Republican Sen. Justine Wadsack is Tucson’s most prolific bill-filer, and she’s kept the majority of them moving far enough in the process to be considered alive. Of the 50 bills she filed, 35 are still technically alive and moving through the pipeline. 

That may sound like a lot, but it doesn’t mean all of them, or even most of them, will become law. Last year, only three of her 52 bills got signed by the governor. Six of them got vetoed. 

Wadsack’s hot-button legislation frequently makes headlines. One bill would block cities and counties from banning gun shows, which would undo the City of Tucson’s restrictions on gun shows. One would make school board elections partisan, while another would push cities toward dismantling homeless encampments.

She also filed bills that seem downright reasonable, such as funding home- and community-based care for people with developmental disabilities.

Her fellow Republicans in LD17, Reps. Rachel Jones and Cory McGarr, also are faring well. Jones filed 12 bills and eight are still alive. McGarr filed eight and five are still alive.

But only a handful of those Republican bills have bipartisan support, something the Democratic governor prizes highly when considering whether to sign legislation.

For obvious reasons, Democrats have a harder time passing bills in the GOP-controlled Legislature. Almost 70% of bills filed by the Tucson Republicans are still alive, while only about 15% of bills sponsored by Democrats are still moving. 

At the same time, Republicans can pass all the bills they want, but they have to get Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs’ signature before those bills become law. Keep in mind, Hobbs vetoed a record number of bills last year. 

If rousing speeches are your thing, then a legislator’s track record of pushing bills might not carry much weight. But if you’re looking for lawmakers who know how to make laws, it’s worth considering who’s good at it when you cast your ballot.

A civil action: The chair of the Arizona Board of Regents sent a cease-and-desist letter to the chair of the University of Arizona Faculty Senate after she raised questions about his prior employment and its potential conflict of interest, the Arizona Daily Star’s Ellie Wolfe writes. During Monday’s Faculty Senate meeting, Chair Leila Hudson questioned whether ABOR Chair Fred DuVal’s former employment with higher education funder Amicus Investments is a conflict of interest with his position on the board. Yesterday, DuVal’s lawyer sent a letter to Hudson saying her remarks had “caused injury to Mr. DuVal's reputation.”

"Her comments were demonstrably false, her research skills are embarrassing and her behavior was inexcusable,” DuVal told the Star earlier this week.

Touring Tucson: White House Senior Advisor Tom Perez took a tour of federally-funded projects during a Tuesday visit to Tucson, Arizona Public Media’s Chris Conover reports. Perez was hosted by Tucson Mayor Regina Romero on an electric Sun Tran bus that was paid for by federal funds. Stops included the 22nd Street bridge, a PFAS remediation site and a new neighborhood park on the south side. Federal funds for the projects came largely from spending bills including the American Rescue Plan Act and Inflation Reduction Act.

Skating to the finish line: After an eight-year pause, the Cushing Street Skate Park is back on track, with construction on the first phase set to begin in September, Arizona Sonoran News’ Jackson Kimball writes. The Ward 1 project was quickly approved by the city after it was first proposed in 2016, but stalled until 2021, when it was brought back to the attention of mayor and council by Council member Lane Santa Cruz. With the council’s support, it was able to move forward to the design and planning process.

Park projects: Assistant Interior Secretary Shannon Estenoz announced Wednesday the investment of $10.3 million in federal cash at Saguaro National Park and other Arizona-based national parks and monuments, the Star’s Tony Davis writes. Southern Arizona-based projects include the reintroduction of native frogs, the filling or gating of abandoned mines, the hiring of a new federal fire ecologist to help manage landscapes and prevent wildfires and the gathering and storing of native seeds from the land to be used to rehabilitate burned areas after fires.

Integrity check: Pima County election officials talk with the Daily Wildcat’s Nandini Manepalli about the role artificial intelligence will play in local elections and their plans to combat misinformation. Recorder Gabriella Cázares-Kelly said she’s had to tread carefully when deciding how and when to use AI, but one recent addition includes the Agilis Machine, which scans, sorts and identifies early voting or mail-in ballots that are missing a signature.

“We’re working hard to establish ourselves as the source of truth for our community by making information accessible, putting it in plain language so that everybody can understand and just trying to demystify the process,” Cázares-Kelly said.

Exploring options: Tucson City Council members offered a variety of suggestions for what to do with the potentially thousands of asylum seekers who could be bused to Tucson by U.S. Customs and Border Protection if federal funding runs out at the end of next month, the Arizona Luminaria’s Kiara Adams writes. Suggestions included sending asylum seekers to Phoenix, where there is more capacity for shelter and other services, and dropping people off at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base or local Border Patrol headquarters.

143: The record-setting number of bills Hobbs vetoed last year.

1. Nothing is ever truly dead at the Legislature until the session ends, since there are so many ways to revive a rejected idea.