The Arizona Legislature has passed a bill that would allow any lawmaker who chairs a committee to issue a subpoena. They would be able to send a sheriff’s deputy to arrest anyone who refuses to submit to questioning or produce documents.
There are already procedures to compel testimony or production of records to lawmakers, but they require majority votes from the Senate or House.
Rep. Tony Rivero (R-Peoria) drafted the bill.
"I believe that there's three branches of government. I also believe that the supreme lawmaking body is the Legislature. And in order for us to be effective lawmakers, we need an executive branch that's responsive to our requests."
Rivero said it's necessary to ensure that lawmakers can get answers they need, and promptly -- primarily from members of the executive branch that currently is run by a Democratic governor.
It is not clear if Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs will sign it into law.
HB 2824 would also spell out that all testimony offered to any legislative panel would be presumed sworn, setting the stage for bringing perjury charges against anyone who is accused of lying.
More to the point, Rivero said, time is of the essence.
"We're in two-year terms,'' he said. "I don't want to waste any time. And, in conversations with other members, the bureaucracy hasn't been as responsive as we'd like them to be.''
Rivero acknowledged there already is a procedure for compelling testimony or production of records.
That, however, requires a majority vote of either the House or Senate to hold that person in contempt. And that, in turn, allows the sergeant at arms of go out and arrest that person.
But he said that isn't enough for Rivero.
What it also would do is avoid what happened in 2021 when Senate President Karen Fann launched a probe of the 2020 election results after Joe Biden outpolled Donald Trump in Arizona. His victory was aided by the fact that Maricopa County, where Republicans outnumbered Democrats at that time by more than 100,000, gave Biden 45,000 more votes than Trump.
Fann, a Prescott Republican, said she wasn't trying to overturn the election but simply was responding to various concerns and claims about the accuracy of the results.
GOP senators issued a subpoena for the state's largest county to produce all 2.1 million ballots cast, along with the actual tabulation machines and other equipment. When the supervisors didn't comply, that led to a Republican-sponsored resolution to hold them in contempt.
That never happened when Republican Sen. Paul Boyer refused to provide the necessary 16th vote for the contempt citation, saying he preferred to work out the problems with the county on a more cooperative basis.
If Rivero's measure had been law, Fann wouldn't have needed the consent of the majority of the Senate to enforce the subpoena. But he said his legislation had nothing to do with what happened in 2021.
But there's more to the bill.
The House-passed measure picked up an additional provision when it was reviewed by the Senate. Sen. Jake Hoffman added language to say that any testimony that is part of any legislative proceeding -- including regular committee meetings -- "shall be sworn testimony under the penalty of perjury.'' The Queen Creek Republican said the change is needed.
"Quite frankly, I don't believe that you should be able to come down to the Legislature and lie to us without there being a consequence,'' he told colleagues, though he offered no specific examples.
Sen. Mitzi Epstein said she agrees with the concept but wondered if it goes far enough.
"How do you feel about people who are behind the dais speaking lies into the microphone?'' the Tempe Democrat asked Hoffman, referring to lawmakers themselves who, as members of the committee, make statements and pronouncements during hearings.
Hoffman agreed no one should be lying. But he said there's a need to specially call out those lobbying specific legislation.
The measure now goes back to the House to approve the Senate-added changes.
