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Ducey Bans Paying For Lobbyists With Public Money

Governor Ducey has signed an executive order banning the use of public funds to pay for outside lobbyists. About a million public dollars has been paid to contract lobbyists in the last year. Now that practice has been banned, effective immediately.

Governor spokesman Daniel Scarpinato said this will affect boards and commissions set up to help regulate industries in the state.

That means about 200 agencies like “the board of cosmetology, the board of nursing, the board of dental examiners,” he said.

Scarpinato said outside lobbyists for some of these groups have pushed for burdensome regulations, and that these agencies lack sufficient reporting practices.

“The governor fundamentally doesn’t believe that lobbyists at our capitol should be getting rich on the backs of taxpayers,” he said.

This move by Ducey comes nearly a decade after the Goldwater Institute— a conservative think-tank— recommended it. 

Stina Sieg was a senior field correspondent at KJZZ from 2013 to 2018.