Speak out about legislators making a mockery of democracy #1

GOP Legislators make a mockery of our democracy

Let's start with the good news... highways; bicycle paths; walkways; prohibition (Hoffman) failed in the Senate 14-15-1. Had it passed, it would have prohibited the Arizona Department of Transportation (ADOT) from planning, designing, or constructing bicycle paths or pedestrian walkways and accepting federal monies conditioned on the design and construction of a bicycle path or pedestrian walkway. Senate Democrats and Senator Carroll voted no to stop this bad bill. Sadly three other bills to hinder efforts to plan for reducing vehicle travel passed. GOP’s power grab Republican lawmakers are refusing to hear Democrat-introduced bills unless 16+ Republicans sign on, essentially requiring a supermajority to pass legislation. This means that just a few Republicans can control whether legislation moves forward or not, even if it has bipartisan support from a majority of lawmakers. The rule is just another anti-democratic tactic the GOP is using in their power grab, because they know they aren’t truly representing the people of Arizona. This week, the Arizona House and Senate considered a whole bunch of bills on the floor, most of which advanced from one house to the other. Among them were numerous bills that are significant attacks on both voting rights and direct democracy via the citizen initiative and referendum process. So there is a call-in action in addition to the Request to Speak action this week. NOTE: Since there is a call-in action (see below) in addition to Request to Speak, I will be sending a second email with the remaining bills being heard on Wednesday and Thursday later. Please, sign onto Request to Speak to weigh in on the following bills before they go for a vote in committee:  https://apps.azleg.gov/account/signon Directions for navigating the RTS system here: http://desktopactivisttucson.blogspot.com/2018/03/request-to-speak-time.html

Monday, March 6th House Committee on Land, Agriculture, and Rural Affairs at 2:00 PM SB1002 appropriation; livestock loss board (NOW: livestock compensation; appropriation) (Kern) appropriates $250,000 for this Livestock Loss Board to compensate the livestock industry for livestock killed or injured by wolves. We do not support this board as it does not encourage more responsible stewardship relative to cattle, sheep, etc. and those who benefit from the fund serve on the board. OPPOSE Senate Committee on Elections at 2:00 PM HB2308 secretary of state; election; recusal (Jones, Harris, McGarr, et al.) prohibits the Secretary of State from taking action in the portion of an election in which they are a candidate. OPPOSE HB2415 active early voting lists; removal (Biasiucci: Bliss, Carbone) removes voters from the active early voting list if they fail to vote early in one election cycle, instead of two. This will result in a significant purge of this list and in fewer people voting. OPPOSE Senate Committee on Finance at 2:00 PM HB2472 social credit; use; prohibition (Montenegro) prohibits the state from requiring a bank or financial institution to use a social credit score when the bank or financial institution evaluates whether to lend money to a customer. OPPOSE Tuesday, March 7th House Committee on Natural Resources, Energy, and Water at 2:00 PM Members of the public may access a livestream of the meeting here. SB1257 water resources; assistant director  (Petersen) requires the Department of Water Resources director to appoint an assistant director that only works with the Water Infrastructure Finance Authority on augmentation and instate storage. This would put even more resources into augmentation versus conservation. Why not have this person focus on that? Or on adjudications? Or on establishing additional active management areas (AMA) or irrigation non-expansion areas (INA)? Or any of the myriad water issues that would help us better be prepared and help address our water shortages. This bill has no additional funding for this position. OPPOSE Wednesday, March 8th Senate Committee on Government at 9:30 AM HB2373 permits; automated permitting platform (Biasiucci: Contreras, L. Hernandez, et al.) allows for online solar permit compliance and removes requirement for a diagram. SUPPORT This week, please ask your Arizona representatives to oppose two measures to make it more difficult to get initiatives on the ballot and to get them passed. Use the button below to take action. NOTE: Some legislators may be more inclined to open personal emails or keep tabs of their phone messages - rather than petitions.  Here are the links for reaching out to them.  How to find out who your new legislators are: 1) Look up your district by putting in your address here: https://irc-az.maps.arcgis.com/apps/instant/lookup/index.html?appid=424810a4667049388ef6df4f0c73098b 2) Use that district to find your two state Representatives and contact info here: https://www.azleg.gov/MemberRoster/?body=H The framers of the Arizona Constitution saw the initiative process, including proposed constitutional amendments, as an important check on the legislature and a way to advance important issues when the legislature refuses to act, such as early on recognizing women’s right to vote. Over the years, measures such as providing funds for parks and wildlife and increasing the minimum wage, have advanced via the initiative process. The following measures are intended to whittle away at this important constitutional right to direct democracy and make it more difficult for the people of Arizona to pass policies that are important to our future. Please ask your Arizona representatives to oppose the following bills! SCR1002 constitutional amendments; sixty percent approval (Kern) refers the ballot a proposed constitutional amendment to require sixty percent approval for any proposed constitutional amendment. Ironically, SCR1002 requires a simple majority to pass on the ballot to then require 60 percent approval going forward. If a simple majority or less is okay for electing a governor, a secretary of state, an attorney general, and you all, it should certainly be enough for adopting ballot measures, including proposed constitutional amendments. SCR1015 initiative; referendum; signatures; legislative districts (Mesnard: Bennett, Kaiser, et al.) refers to the ballot a measure that requires a proportionate number of signatures from each legislative district to even put an initiative on the ballot, allowing one legislative district to block a statewide measure and making it even more expensive to put something on the ballot. --- If you have not signed up yet for the Request to Speak system to voice your position in support or opposition to bills, we encourage you to do so now as you will need to get the account activated at the Capitol. Here is a link for signing up. 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.

Request to Speak on Bills that Hurt the Environment and Water

Among the bad bills in committee at our state legislature this week are some misguided bills that either distract from or exacerbate the problem with over-pumping water. Other bad bills prohibit banks from considering environmental or social issues when making investments.

Please, use the Request to Speak ap to OPPOSE the bad bills (below) and SUPPORT the good bills like HB2373 (that facilitates a faster transition to clean energy.)

Sign in to RTS system here: https://apps.azleg.gov/account/signon

If you have not registered for the Request to Speak system to voice your position, we encourage you to do so now as it will take a day or two for your account to be activated at the Capitol. Here is a link for signing up. 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.

 

Written directions for RTS here:

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

There are also several bills designed to make it more difficult to vote. If you are interested in opposing those bills, a list can be found here:

https://desktopactivisttucson.blogspot.com/2023/01/legislative-update-and-request-to-speak.html

Weigh into the following bills before they go to a vote in committee. The dates and times are listed below. 

 Monday, January 30th

House Committee on Land, Agriculture, and Rural Affairs at 2:00 PM

• HB2376 agricultural land; foreign ownership; prohibition (Biasiucci: Bliss, Cook, et al.) prohibits selling, leasing or subleasing agricultural state land to any foreign entity. This seems to miss the point of the problem regarding over pumping water on state trust lands. It’s not just the Saudi’s that are over pumping. Big ag and development are using up water too. SUPPORT with a comment regarding domestic over-pumping

Senate Transportation and Technology at 2:00 PM

• SB1100 all-terrain vehicles; definition (Carroll, Gowan, Shamp, et al) increases, from 2,500 to 3,500 pounds or less, the maximum weight of an all-terrain vehicle. The bigger vehicles do even more harm to trails and the land. OPPOSE
• SB1122 transportation tax; election; Maricopa county (Farnsworth: Cook) directs Maricopa County to hold an election for the sales tax for transportation and prescribes how much it will be and what it will be used for, including that 80% will go to freeways. Shouldn’t public transit options be included to get people off of freeways?  OPPOSE

Tuesday, January 31st

House Committee on Natural Resources, Energy, and Water at 2:00 PM

• HB2444 natural resource conservation districts; revisions (Griffin) establishes a Natural Resource Conservation District Commission and sets up a whole system for them to get more money. Most of these entities represent industrial agriculture. OPPOSE.

House Committee on Commerce at 2:00 PM

• HB2472 social credit; use; prohibition (Montenegro) says a state cannot require the use of a social credit score for bank lending. Again, this would limit requiring banks to look at the environmental harm or public health impacts of the dollars they loan. OPPOSE

Wednesday, February 1st

Senate Committee on Government at 8:30 AM

•  SB1103 administrative review; approvals; developments (Petersen: Borrelli, Kavanagh, et al.) provides for no hearing on certain aspects of development, including plats, development plans, etc. and also for expedited review. Encourages rushed development when we really should be cutting back on development because there isn’t enough water. OPPOSE
• SB1115 land sales; foreign entities; prohibition (Kern: Rogers) prohibits sale or lease of state land to foreign entities. They focus on foreign rather than the over pumping of water from domestic users as well. SUPPORT with comment
• SB1138 banks; discrimination prohibition; social criteria  (Hoffman: Borrelli, Kern, et al.) says banks can't discriminate based on social credit, environmental, social, governance, or other impact criteria. That would mean a bank could not say no to a developer based on the harm of that development. OPPOSE
• SB1139 government investments; products; fiduciaries; plans (Hoffman: Borrelli, Kern) requires the state treasurer to post investments and prohibits any investments to consider social implications. OPPOSE
• SCR1015 initiative; referendum; signatures; legislative districts (Mesnard: Bennett, Kaiser, et al.) refers to the ballot that would require a proportionate percentage of petition signatures from each legislative district to put a measure on the ballot. This would be extremely difficult and expensive and put ballot measures more in the hands of the wealthy. OPPOSE

House Committee on Regulatory Affairs at 2:00 PM

• HB2373 permits; automated permitting platform (Biasiucci: Contreras, L. Hernandez, et al.) allows for online solar permit compliance and removes requirement for a diagram when using it. Facilitates a faster transition to clean energy.  SUPPORT

House Committee on Transportation & Infrastructure at 2:00 PM

• HB2411 water supply; elimination; reduction; damages (Cook: Martinez, Toma, et al.) tries to make Scottsdale liable for termination of water service to Rio Verde. What they really should be doing is tightening regulation, not proposing this kind of bill to reward wildcat development. OPPOSE

Thursday, February 2nd

Senate Committee on Natural Resources, Energy, and Water at 9:30 AM

• SB1224 state parks; lottery; heritage fund (Shope) restores the $10 million from lottery dollars for the State Parks Heritage Fund for trails, protecting cultural sites, education, etc. SUPPORT
• SB1257 water resources; assistant director (Petersen) requires the Department of Water Resources director to appoint an assistant director that only works with the Water Infrastructure Finance Authority on augmentation (external water sources, like desalination in the Gulf of California). This would put even more resources into augmentation versus conservation. Why not have this person focus on that? OPPOSE

Request to Speak: On bills that impact the environment and citizen advocacy - ACT NOW for on those for Monday

This past week saw a plethora of bad public policies advance in various committees -- attacks on voting rights, ballot measures, human rights, the Arizona Corporation Commission and clean energy, water, and more. This week promises more of the same. 

REQUEST TO SPEAK ACTIONS

Directions: Sign into your Request to Speak account, click the blue Request to Speak button, click on New Request, then simply cut and paste the bill number (found below) into Search Phrase. (For example: HB2372) Push blue Add Request button, weigh in FOR or AGAINST, click "no" on do you wish to speak (in person), leave a short comment, and SUMMIT. Do it again for the next bill.  

Note: You might wanna go ahead and do Monday's RTS actions NOW - since you must weigh in before or while the are still in committee. 

If you had an account with RTS previously, it is still active. If you do not have an account, go ahead and set one up, but we will have to help you activate it as it requires going to the Capitol. Contact me directly about that or reach out to Civic Engagement Beyond Voting.

Coming Up This Week at the Arizona Legislature

Monday, February 15th House Committee on Military Affairs & Public Safety at 10:00 AM HB2309 violent; disorderly assembly; public order (Roberts: Barton, Biasiucci et al.) increases the penalties for acts committed during a violent or disorderly assembly, including blocking a roadway. It says they lose public benefits too. This is clearly intended to target Black Lives Matter protests. OPPOSE. . House Committee on Land, Agriculture, & Rural Affairs at 2:00 PM  HB2372 agricultural operations; nuisance; liability (Dunn) significantly increases the requirements for bringing a nuisance action against an agricultural operation -- must bring the action within one year of the facility beginning operation and the person must be the property owner -- and it preempts local ordinances relative to regulation of these facilities as a nuisance. This is likely in response to complaints and actions against large concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) that have significant smell, noise, and excessive lighting. OPPOSE. HB2817 appropriation; hazardous vegetation removal (Lieberman) appropriates $2 million to the Department of Forestry for "hazardous vegetation" removal. Hazardous vegetation is undefined, so we are concerned that this could be used to do harm to habitat that might arbitrarily be deemed "hazardous." HCR2036 clean air act; agriculture; exemption (John: Cook, Dunn, et al.) asks the Congress to exempt agriculture from Clean Air Act requirements related to particulate pollution. Agriculture already has to do much less than other entities relative to its pollution and there are real public health issues associated with particulate pollution. OPPOSE. Senate Committee on Government at 2:00 PM. SB1102 electric vehicle omnibus; appropriations (Steele) directs the Arizona Department of Administration to conduct a two-year Electric Vehicle Ready Homes Pilot Program and Electric Vehicle Charging Station Pilot Program. It would also appropriate, $500,000 for each of these from the state General Fund. SUPPORT. SB1152 zero emission vehicles; plans; fleet (Steele) requires the Arizona Department of Transportation to develop a Zero Emission Vehicle Plan and a State Zero Emission Motor Vehicle Fleet Plan. Appropriates $500,000 from the state General Fund to acquire telematics technology to develop the State Zero Emission Motor Vehicle Fleet Plan. SUPPORT. SB1713 early ballots; identification; mailing (Mesnard: Ugenti-Rita) requires including date of birth or voter ID or driver's license number and additional ID to be inserted in the return envelope. This is unnecessary and will likely result in additional voters being disqualified. OPPOSE. Senate Committee on Transportation and Technology at 2:00 PM SB1650 transportation tax; election; gas tax (Livingston: Carroll) establishes a new 20-year transportation excise tax in Maricopa County subject to voter approval. Increases, beginning January 1, 2022, and ending December 31, 2045, the statewide gas tax by 1 cent annually and indexes the tax to annual inflation. Requires an annual tax on electric vehicles (EV) and hybrid electric vehicles. The fees on EVs are too high in this bill and not fairly established. OPPOSE. Tuesday, February 16th House Committee on Natural Resources, Energy, & Water at 2:00 PM HB2691 groundwater permits; technical correction (Griffin) has a strike-everything amendment on ADEQ; water quality programs; WOTUS that creates an extremely weak surface water quality program that leaves out nearly all ephemeral waters such as desert washes and provides limited protections overall. OPPOSE. HCR2034 Arizona's outdoors; recreation; supporting (Cobb) is a resolution in support of outdoor recreation. SUPPORT. Senate Committee on Appropriations at 2:00 PM SB1384 state parks; lottery; heritage fund (Shope) appropriates $10 million from the state lottery funds to the Arizona State Parks Heritage Fund for local parks, trails, and protection of historic and cultural resources. SUPPORT. House Committee on Commerce at 2:00 PM HB2716 licensing; building permits; temporary permits (Griffin) requires cities to approve a building permit within seven days if it is administratively complete and places additional limits on the cities. It would force approval of projects that need more work. OPPOSE. Wednesday February 17th House Committee on Government & Elections at 9:00 AM  HB2373 voter registration groups; forms; identifiers (Dunn) says that anyone who requests or receives 10 or more voter registration forms to place their unique identifier on each form. This will likely cause issues for those who register people more casually such as at high schools and in their neighborhood. It is unnecessary and punitive as it will make the registration invalid if someone forgets to include the identifier. OPPOSE. HB2543 state permitting dashboard (Wilmeth: John, Kaiser, et al.) establishes a state permitting director who would have undue influence on permitting decisions. It would also now refer those decisions to the Governor's Regulatory Review Council, an entity that is basically set up to favor big businesses. Agencies have already had their hands tied relative to ensuring that permits are strong or in actually denying one. We should oppose this new mechanism for making the process even less accountable to the public. OPPOSE. HCR2016 initiatives; supermajority vote requirement (Dunn: Barton, Biasiucci, et al.) refers to the ballot a measure to require a 60 percent vote to approve any ballot measure. OPPOSE. Senate Committee on Finance at 9:00 AM SB1309 property classification; gasoline manufacturing equipment (Shope: Borrelli, Contreras) is a new tax break for facilities that manufacture zero-sulfur gasoline from natural gas. Could we just stop subsidizing fossil fuels already? OPPOSE.  Senate Committee on Commerce at 2:00 PM SB1156 forfeiture of office; technical correction (Mesnard) will have a strike-everything amendment on solid waste; advanced recycling facilities. I am quite sure this will be a measure to promote pyrolysis, which is not recycling, but is exposing plastics to very high temperatures. This is making the rounds in other states. OPPOSE. Thursday, February 18th Senate Committee on Judiciary at 9:00 AM SB1459 agency decisions; administrative reviews (Petersen) seeks to treat the Arizona Corporation Commission, a constitutionally established branch of government, the same as other agencies when it comes to appeals of decisions to the courts. OPPOSE.