Instead of reviewing the week’s top stories, today the Friday NewsCap takes a look back at the 2024 legislative session.
Lawmakers adjourned almost a month ago after 160 days. Gov. Katie Hobbs did not set a new record for vetoes as she did last session, but there were still plenty of controversial measures that lawmakers debated.
The Show sat down with Paul Bentz of HighGround and Gaelle Esposito of Creosote Partners to talk about this year’s session. We began by asking Esposito what stood out when thinking about this year’s legislative session.
Conversation highlights
GAELLE ESPOSITO: Yeah, I still haven’t caught up on sleep yet. This was one of the more chaotic sessions I’ve ever been a part of. Beyond the issues that were covered, you had record numbers of resignations, indictments, investigations. It was just an exceptional session in so many bad ways and in a handful of good ways, where we saw some real big policy wins.
MARK BRODIE: Paul, what do you think?
PAUL BENTZ: I think chaos was the right description of it, not only with the resignations and the investigations, but, when you go from having a surplus to having a deficit, a $1.8 billion deficit to deal with, it makes it much more challenging not handing out money. Not everybody’s getting the Oprah treatment: “You get a stipend! You get a stipend!” So to actually have to make cuts certainly makes it more challenging as well.
BRODIE: So I should mention for those who celebrate, we passed the fiscal year. So happy new fiscal year to all who celebrate this past year. Gaelle, do you think that the chaos was mostly the turnover with the number of new people coming in mid-stream in the second year of a two-year term? Were there other factors that led to that?
ESPOSITO: I think that may be part of it. I think the biggest factor is still the growing pains of divided government, with legislators on both sides of the aisle who are not used to that power dynamic. And with the growing far-right extremism in the Republican Party and the dominance of those far-right members within those caucuses, it made it a lot harder to find the balance on policy issues.
BRODIE: And I think, as Paul pointed out with the budget, last year — I don’t want to say it was easy, but it certainly seems like it would be a lot easier to get people to vote for a budget when you’re giving them a big pot of money to do so. This year was a lot more difficult, and we saw it really dragged out a lot longer because, as you say, there was this divided government, but also because they kind of had to craft a deficit budget.
ESPOSITO: Absolutely. And the funny thing was if they had waited a week longer, they would have had a little bit more money to play with there, maybe have avoided that whole fight with Attorney General (Kris) Mayes. But also beyond just that larger deficit fight, the issue of, once again, the growing pains of how to negotiate a budget with a Democratic governor for Republican leadership. And for Democratic members, how to insert themselves and assert themselves within that process effectively.
And we saw that happen after the fact, where you saw Democratic members get additional wins within the budget. I think the biggest line item, in my opinion, was that $15 million into the housing trust fund there. But we saw lots of wins like that. But once again, that sort of came at the tail end of the process.
So I think we’re going to see that dynamic continue to solidify. And depending on how the Legislature looks after this election cycle, maybe get a little easier.
BRODIE: Paul, when you talk about the budget, you had leaders of the Democratic caucuses in the House who are not happy with it. Some Democratic leaders didn’t vote for it. You had some of the more conservative Republicans not voting for it. And as Gaelle mentioned, there were some last-minute additions to, you know, get people on board. Especially compared to last year’s budget, what did you make of the process that it took to get to 16 and 31 this year?
BENTZ: Well, it certainly was messier. And I think part of the challenge is the governor needs to take some leadership and work with her caucus more. I think that’s important, especially if they think they’re going to flip one or both of these legislative bodies next year, giving them that experience, giving them that leadership.Equipping them to be a part of the process seems like that would have been a good idea.
The other challenge we have is it is a one-vote advantage for Republicans in both House and Senate. But 80% of our legislators, both Republicans and Democrats, are elected in their primary. So there’s not a motivation for them to work together, to compromise, to find solutions.
I think the big thing that we saw here is on big, big issues — there are some small victories along the way. But on big issues like water, for example, the negotiations just don’t take place. Some people, they just go into their corners and they stay away from it because they have a constituency that they’re serving, and that constituency doesn’t want to address it.
BRODIE: Well, it’s interesting on water because it seems like there had been some hope in January, maybe a little before the session started even, that there would be some big things happening on water this year. And there were some legislative victories in the area of water, but nothing really big, it seems.
BENTZ: Well, the big issue is the groundwater legislation for the rural parts of Arizona that don’t have any regulation. It’s why dairies from Minnesota and companies from Saudi Arabia are coming in and sucking the groundwater dry in these areas, because we’re the only state in the West that doesn’t have this legislation.
And it’s being held up, and then it’s being bartered with on other water bills to try to hold it up, but just it’s not getting done. And it’s something that’s essential that the majority of the electorate understand. Water is a growing issue that voters recognize and are concerned about. More than 70% of the electorate do not believe we have enough water to last the next hundred years. And if we continue to allow groundwater pumping unlimited, it’s going to happen even faster.
BRODIE: Gaelle, do you think that water legislation — big water legislation on groundwater specifically — was that a victim of the chaos you were talking about earlier, or is there something else at play?
ESPOSITO: I think in part. But it’s funny to me because before the session started, everybody was saying that we’re going to see big action on water, but nothing’s really going to happen on housing. And instead we saw big action on housing and nothing really happened on water. And I think that is an example of how you can get things done at the Legislature when an issue isn’t entirely negatively partisan-ly sorted yet. People aren’t fully in their camps. You still have folks who can win over and convince and build weird coalitions around and so on.
Housing, you saw half the Democratic caucus, half the Republican caucus coming together to get bills to the governor’s desk. And hopefully with water we start to see a movement. I think it’s just going to take a couple more years.
BRODIE: Well, so you mentioned housing. Let me ask you about that, because that was another big issue that a lot of people earlier in the session had been talking about. Last year, of course, there were a few efforts to get some big housing stuff done to increase the stock of available housing, affordable housing in the state.
And there were some pretty significant victories, according to the advocates in this area. We saw casitas, the accessory dwelling units. We saw bills dealing with where you can build more density, more duplexes, triplexes, that sort of thing. How significant will that be, do you think, in the long run?
ESPOSITO: I think those are really big wins. And full disclosure, I worked on those bills. So of course I think they’re very big wins. But I think those issues are ones that we saw in other states take several years, a decade to actually get across the finish line, oftentimes in very limited ways.
I think particularly with our Casita legislation, that’s going to be the most impactful version of that bill that we’ve seen throughout the country. I think you’re going to have a lot of families be able to build those units and provide housing for their young kids who are heading off to school or for their aging parents.
And then with that missing middle — the duplexes and triplexes — I think that’s going to be a little bit more time, but luckily we’re going to see the ability to build more housing within single-family zoned areas, which is 80% of our available housing land.
BRODIE: Paul, this issue, though, is not without its controversy. The governor vetoed a bill called the Arizona Starter Homes Act, and there was a lot of negotiation going on to get these bills across the finish line. Do you see this as an issue that will continue to be doable but maybe not super easy to get done?
BENTZ: Yeah. It’s a complicated issue. We represent the League of Cities and Towns and do a lot of work in that space. Cities and towns are each individual and unique, and these top-down mandates don’t work for every single community. In fact … it’s another spot where there’s a good opportunity for negotiation if people will come to the table to negotiate and discuss.
I think there’s additional solutions that can be made. But it’s not just a one-size-fits-all. I always think it’s funny that the Legislature complains about the federal government and how much they don’t like getting mandates from the feds, but then they want to mandate what the cities and towns do on things like housing and a wide variety of other issues as well. And so I think it will be best done if they can work together, not adversarially, but in conjunction to find solutions.
BRODIE: How significant, Paul, do you think the bills that that passed this year will be in terms of trying to alleviate the housing shortage in the state?
BENTZ: I think they’re a step in the right direction. We still have housing challenges in addition to not only availability, but I think it’s something along the lines of 30,000 multifamily units that are not built because of supply chain, construction issues, workforce issues. So it’s not even just that we can’t get the things more, it’s that the things that are in the pipeline are being held up as well.
BRODIE: Gaelle, there was an issue that came up later in the session that I think maybe some people didn’t expect to come up this session, which is the state’s 1864 near-total ban on abortion. What did you make of all of the debate and discussion and controversy around the efforts to repeal that law?
ESPOSITO: At the end of the day, with the result we saw of repealing that ban, we saw the first step in shifting the tide of decades, centuries of of anti-abortion policy within Arizona and understanding of the popularity and the importance that abortion rights has among voters here.
And I think it was kind of surprising, even at the end of the day, to not just see it get done, but to see the fierce opposition from members of the Republican caucus to hold the line on a position that less than 10% — I don’t know, Paul, you’re the pollster. I think the highest I ever saw was 8% of Arizona voters supporting that extreme, hardline no-abortion position.
But at the end of the day, seeing that ban get repealed was the first piece. And I think in November you’re going to see voters approve the abortion access proposition.
BRODIE: Paul, we saw a lot of shouting — I guess we can legitimately say shouting on the House floor, actual shouting. There were a lot of debates and criticisms and speeches about what people believed and what the appropriate steps were to take. How much do you anticipate the debate over the 1864 law will play — maybe even later this month during the primaries — but especially in November and with, as Gaelle mentioned, the measure presumably on the ballot.
BENTZ: So two things, 70% of voters were less likely to support a candidate who wanted to criminalize abortion, and only 22% in a recent poll from a year or so ago wanted abortion to be banned and criminalized. It is a narrow segment. I said at the time that Republicans, it was a disaster for them. The dog caught the car, and then they didn’t know what to do. And I think we saw some of the more centrist Republicans, those from the swing districts recognized right away they needed to do something. And so you saw the repeal, and we’re back to — eventually, whenever it goes into effect — 15 weeks.
But I think it was a turbo boost for the statewide initiative. I think they’re going to file a record number of signatures this week. And we’ll see the final number there. But it will be impactful. I don’t know as much in the primary, but I certainly think the position on these abortion issues, some of these votes are going to come back to haunt some of these candidates in the general election.
BRODIE: Really, in terms of those who voted against repealing the law?
BENTZ: I think so, but more of the candidates that really pushed for it and were maybe in the past trying to boost their abortion credentials for Republicans now are going to some of their positions. And even if they voted to repeal, it’s going to haunt them because it’s going to be an issue that comes up, especially in these really critically tight races.
