Bill to end Arizona legislative immunity for traffic violations dies at the Capitol

A bid to strip state lawmakers of their ability to avoid traffic citations during the legislative session has died in the Arizona Senate.

HCR 2053 on legislative immunity did not get a hearing in what is the last week of scheduled committee meetings for the year.

"That would be very hypocritical of me to be the chairman of Judiciary, to help make laws across the entire state to make sure we all live under the same law, but then I said to myself, ‘I ought to have a set of rules just for me,'" said Rep. Quang Nguyen (R-Prescott Valley) on the House floor when it passed that chamber.

Nguyen introduced the measure after several high-profile speeding incidents involving state lawmakers.

Nguyen managed to get his proposal to send the issue to voters out of the House earlier this month on a bipartisan 37-20 margin. That sent the Prescott Valley Republican's HCR 2053 to the Senate.

There, Senate President Warren Petersen assigned the bill to the Public Safety Committee, which is chaired by Sen. Kevin Payne.

But the Peoria Republican did not place it on his committee agenda for a hearing last week. Ditto for the meeting scheduled for this Wednesday.

And what makes that critical is that his is the last week for Senate committees to hear measures that were approved by the House. The failure to let his committee even hear the measure means it is dead because it cannot get to the full Senate for consideration.

Payne told Capitol Media Services on Tuesday there's a good reason for his decision: He said there aren't the votes for the measure in his seven-member committee.

He acknowledged, though, he's among the opponents.

"It's in our constitution,'' said Payne. "They put it in there for a reason.''

That provision, often incorrectly referred to as "immunity,'' says that state lawmakers are "privileged from arrest'' during the time the Legislature is in session and for 15 days ahead of that.

There are exceptions in cases of treason, felonies and breach of the peace. Those would remain under Nguyen's proposal.

But he would add another exception: all traffic violations.

The measure comes on the heels of three high-profile cases where state lawmakers were stopped by police but escaped being cited because of the provision. And there is a decades-long history of other legislators who have claimed privilege from being ticketed.

Nguyen, for his part, told Capitol Media Services that he is not giving up. He said another bid could occur next session.

But Nguyen also said he hopes that nothing happens before it goes to voters.

"You know, it is only a matter of time before a legislator will run over a child on a bicycle,'' he said, noting the number of current and former lawmakers who not only have been exceeding the posted speed limit but actually have been driving at least 20 miles an hour over that, something that actually is a crime.

Petersen said he didn't put the House-passed measure into Payne's committee with the goal of killing it.

"I support the bill,'' said the Gilbert Republican who also is running in 2026 for attorney general.

The issue, he said, is that all bills need to be assigned to at least one committee. And Petersen said he thought it actually would have a better chance getting a hearing in Payne's committee than others to which it could have been assigned.