Request to Speak on bill endangering washes and Citizens Initiatives

The State Legislature is back in session. Among the bills being proposed is one that makes it more difficult to advocate with citizens’ initiatives and another that puts our desert washes in jeopardy.

Please, make sure you are registered on the Request to Speak system so you can weigh in on bills while they are still in committee. Here is a link for signing up. 

NOTE: It may take a couple of days since someone has to go to the capitol to sign you up. 

Once you’re signed up, you can sign onto the Request to Speak system on the State Legislature website and select for or against a bill and write a short one or two sentence comment explaining your response. This becomes a part of public record. I have seen committee members ask to see RTS responses before voting on a bill. Sometimes it gives them courage to do the right thing when they know their constituents support that. Advocates like us stopped some bad water bills from going through in the past.

You can weigh in anytime before the bill is heard in committee. For example, you can do RTS on SCR1002 any time before it is heard at 2 p.m. on Monday. I suggest you get them all done at once while you’re on the site.

Here’s the written directions:

http://desktopactivisttucson.blogspot.com/2018/03/request-to-speak-time.html

To learn more about how to use the Request to Speak System, you can sign up for one of the trainings sponsored by Civic Engagement Beyond Voting. Here is their sign up link.

It can be a little confusing at first, but once you get the hang of it, it’s pretty quick and easy. Copy the bill number so you're ready to paste it into the Search Phrase box. (Example: SCR1002) 

Ready? If you've registered for Request to Speak sign in here:
https://apps.azleg.gov/account/signon


Monday, January 23rd, Senate Committee on Elections at 2:00 PM 

SCR1002 constitutional amendments; sixty percent approval (Kern) continues the legislature’s attack on citizen ballot initiatives after they successfully got a ballot measure passed in the last election that would require any initiative that imposes a new tax to pass by a super-majority vote (60%). This, of course, is nearly impossible in the current political environment in Arizona. This bill would extend the supermajority requirement to ALL ballot initiatives – effectively killing the citizen initiative process. OPPOSE.

Tuesday, January 24th, House Committee on Natural Resources, Energy, and Water at 2:00 PM

HB2056 dry washes; permit program exemption (Diaz: Carbone, Dunn, et al.) says that "dry washes" on private property are exempt from the Clean Water Act and state permitting. This is a bad idea as desert washes provide important benefits to our rivers and streams, recharge groundwater, provide flood protection, and limit sediments downstream. Besides, state law cannot exempt waters from federal law. OPPOSE

 
HB2442 temporary non-expansion area (Griffin) allows for establishment of temporary non-expansion areas that would limit new irrigated agriculture, but that would expire after five years. We don't need temporary measures that create the illusion that we are really doing something to address the serious groundwater issues we have. OPPOSE

Wednesday, January 25th

House Committee on Government at 9:00 AM

HCR2004 legislators; minimum age of eighteen (Gress: Aguilar, Austin, et al.) refers to the ballot a measure to change the minimum age to be a legislator from 25 to 18. This seems like a fine idea to get more young people engaged at the legislature. SUPPORT

House Committee on Municipal Oversight & Elections at 2:00 PM

HB2305 ballots; signature verification; observers (McGarr: Biasiucci, Carter, et al) requires county recorders to allow representatives of the two largest parties to have observers for every stage of the signature verification process. So unnecessary. OPPOSE

HB2308 secretary of state; election; recusal (Jones: Harris, McGarr, et al) limits the secretary of state from administering the election portion for which they are a candidate. OPPOSE