Request to Speak to Save Democracy & Stop the Power Grab

Last week, legislators continued to advance all of the anti-democracy bills that were on agendas and did not advance any positive ones. Next week is looking similar except the agendas are much longer as it is the last week to hear bills in committee in the house of origin. That means that with the exception of bills that are assigned to Appropriations, any bill that is not heard in committee next week is dead.

At the Arizona state legislature this week there are several bills (again!) that make it more difficult to vote, take power away from municipalities and allow the legislature to grab power from the other branches of the government. Please, sign onto the Request to Speak system and weigh in while these bills are still in committee.

If you have a RTS account sign in here: https://apps.azleg.gov/account/signon

Directions for navigating the Request to Speak system here:

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

Helpful hint: Copy the bill number (ex. HB2505) and paste it into the SEARCH PHRASE box.

NOTE: Three bills from last week’s Request to Speak action have moved on to another committee. If you have already weighed in on them your response is still in the system, so there is no need to do that again. If you haven’t, it is even more important that you weigh in now since those bills have moved even closer to a vote on the floor.

Also, there were several bills that are direct attacks on our environmental initiatives being heard this week as well as some good park and trail bills. You can find them here:

https://desktopactivisttucson.blogspot.com/2023/02/request-to-speak-to-protect-tucsons.html

Monday, February 13th Senate Committee on Elections at 2:00 PM SB1140 elections; voting centers prohibited (Hoffman: Borrelli, Farnsworth, et al.) prohibits counties from using voting centers -- they can only use polling places in the districts. OPPOSE SB1213 legislative council; procedures manual (Kern: Kolodin) will have a strike-everything amendment on joint legislative audit committee; procedures manual  that requires the Secretary of State's official instructions and procedures manual to be submitted to the Joint Legislative Audit Committee for review and approval prior to issuance. OPPOSE SB1518 ballots; election day; identification (Bennett) requires an early ballot be received by the county recorder or deposited at a polling place by 5:00 p.m. on the Friday preceding an election to be counted and valid and requires a voter to present valid identification before depositing the voter's early ballot into the ballot box. Allows an early voter to only deliver their own ballot. OPPOSE SB1566 voter registration; reregistration; ten years (Carroll: Gowan, Kaiser, et al.) Every 10 years everyone's voter registration will be removed from the rolls and they will be required to reregister. A nightmare for voters and the county recorders. OPPOSE SB1595 early ballots; identification; tabulation (Mesnard: Bennett, Carroll, et al.) requires a voter to present valid identification after an election for a ballot that was delivered by a voter's agents and prescribes additional requirements for an early ballot to be counted and valid. Removes the ability of an early voter without valid identification to deposit the voter's early ballot into the drop box. OPPOSE Wednesday, February 15th  House Committee on Government at 9:00 AM HB2213 TPT; exemption; utilities; residential customers (Griffin) exempts from the Transaction Privilege Tax (TPT) the retail sale of natural gas, artificial gas, and electricity to residential customers. This would be a big hit to the general fund -- more than $200 million -- and also to local government. OPPOSE HB2254 rulemaking; regulatory costs; legislative ratification nullifies rules that cost more or have a negative economic impact, plus requires legislative ratification of rules, an obvious separation of powers. OPPOSE HB2471 government investments; plans; fiduciaries; products (Montenegro) requires a fiduciary to take into account only pecuniary factors when evaluating an investment, so they cannot consider environmental or social factors. Prescribes requirements and prohibitions relating to the State Treasurer's investments. OPPOSE HB2808 public records; time frame (Carbone: Biasiucci, Blattman, et al.) requires public entities to respond to a public records request within five business days. SUPPORT House Committee on Judiciary at 9:00 AM HB2059 riot; unlawful assembly; classification; liability (Diaz: Marshall, Nguyen, et al.) makes it higher offense if someone breaks the law as part of an unlawful assembly. An unlawful assembly could be an otherwise peaceful protest - where they didn't get a permit. They are trying to criminalize first amendment rights. It will more likely to be used against people of color. OPPOSE Senate Committee on Government at 9:30 AM SB1255 regulatory costs; rulemaking; ratification (Kern: Smith) says rules have to be ratified by the Arizona Legislature. This is a separation of powers issue. Nullifies rules that have an economic impact. That means that the legislature would make all the rules. They could nullify a rule made by the Corporation Commission or the Department of Environmental Quality or any other agency that makes rules. OPPOSE SCR1036 primary elections; eligible candidates (Wadsack: Kern) refers to the ballot a measure to head off ranked choice voting. OPPOSE House Committee on Municipal Oversight & Elections at 2:00 PM HB2232 elections; identification; revisions; mail-in; tabulation (Harris: Heap, Jones, et al.) eliminates early voting, requires identification for any voting, requires a hand count of the votes, and requires people vote only in their own precinct. OPPOSE HB2552 voting; elections; tally; prohibition (Smith: Biasiucci, Bliss, et al.) seeks to head off ranked choice voting. OPPOSE HB2591 elections; early ballot drop boxes (Griffin) limits the use of drop boxes for early voting. OPPOSE HB2785 early voting; absentee; military (Harris: Heap, Jones) eliminates early voting and replaces it with absentee voting, only available to those who will be gone on Election Day. OPPOSE HCR2033 primary elections; eligible candidates (Smith) refers to the ballot a proposed constitutional amendment to prohibit any election law in Arizona that is contrary to the direct primary election law as outlined in the Arizona Constitution. This is intended to head off rank-choice voting. OPPOSE HCR2040 in-person precinct voting; absentee voters (Jones: Harris, Heap, et al.) refers to the ballot a measure to eliminate early voting. OPPOSE HCR2041 initiative; referendum; signatures; legislative districts (Marshall: Diaz, Gilllette, et al.) refers to the ballot a proposed constitutional amendment to require a proportionate number of signatures from every legislative district to place something on the ballot. It is already extremely difficult to get a Citizen Initiative on the ballot. This will make it nearly impossible. OPPOSE