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What to expect from the State of the State and the 2025 Legislature

Katie Hobbs
Bridget Dowd/KJZZ
Gov. Katie Hobbs addresses the crowd during her inauguration at the Arizona Capitol on Jan. 5, 2023.

Monday is the opening day of the Arizona Legislature — and Gov. Katie Hobbs will deliver her third State of the State address Monday afternoon.

Lawmakers and the governor have no shortage of issues to tackle this year, from water to housing to the border — not to mention approving a new state budget for the upcoming fiscal year.

Howie Fischer of Capitol Media Services joined The Show to preview the session and the governors speech, since there’s been a lot of talk about some of those big issues expected to come up this session.

Howard Fischer
Howard Fischer/Capitol Media Services
Howard Fischer

Full conversation

MARK BRODIE: There's been a lot of talk about some of those big issues expected to come up this session. Is that what you're expecting the governor to talk about later today?

HOWIE FISCHER: That should be most of it. I think what we're looking for is, let's say two thirds of the speech to be look at the great things I've done the last two years. I mean, she is running for re-election in 2026 and then some thoughts on issues, arguing in broad terms that we need more water regulation, that we can leave some of it to the Department of Water Resources. We don't necessarily need to fight this over in the Capitol. We need more money for affordable housing. We should focus on things like fentanyl interdiction and not start worrying about arresting people at the border, you know, as Prop. 314 suggests.

So I think it's going to be a question of focusing the Legislature's attention on what she wants to deal with, and perhaps trying to talk them off the ledge of sending her a bunch of things that are veto bait. You know, for example, the whole issue of should be able to drop off an early ballot on Election Day, which has been an issue that folks say, well, it just slows up the process. And her point is, I'm not going to sign anything that tells people we're going to limit your ability to vote.

BRODIE: Right. Well so Howie, you mentioned housing, let's talk about that for a minute, because there was some bipartisan action last year, some bills the governor actually did sign. Does it seem as though there might be room for more bipartisan compromise between legislators and the governor this year?

FISCHER: Well, as you point out, they did agree to a couple of things. For example, they told cities that in certain areas of town which are zoned for single family, you have to allow for duplexes, triplexes, fourplexes, town homes, things like that, so called affordable housing. We have the issue of being able to convert certain unused commercial space, like malls and such, for residential.

Also the issue of casitas, when we start running into issues is, at what point do we allow homeowners and developers to decide we get to build what we want on, what constitutes affordable housing. There's a limit, for example, to whether you should tell cities you have to allow really tiny lot sizes, or really tiny homes? Should cities be able to say, no, we don't want to put up an entire subdivision of tiny, owner occupied homes? And so there's bound to be fights over that, you know, a question of what's affordable, you know, gets into the eye of, you know, the beholder.

Now, related to that, of course, is the issue of, is there water for all these developments? We certainly saw what happened when the Department of Water Resources said, you cannot do more development in Buckeye and Queen Creek because they don't have the legally required 100-year water supply. Now this is new. This is something that goes back to the 1980 groundwater code, and they did some modeling and said, you know, you cannot build here.

Now there's some movement to allow developers to start building, but they eventually have to convert to renewable water supplies. Now the developers are saying, well, we don't buy this whole 100-year water supply thing in the first place. We don't think it's scientifically accurate. And why you're raising costs so much of the issues of housing have to do with water supply. And you really can't separate the two.

BRODIE: Right. Well, and as we saw last year, Howie, that also became a big fight at the Capitol. Safe to say that will continue to be a big fight in 2025?

FISCHER: Well, you know the old saying that you know in Arizona, whiskeys for drinking and waters for fighting?

BRODIE: Right.

FISCHER: And so you not only have these issues of what's happening in Buckeye and Queen Creek, you have issues of corporate farms. You know what's happening out in Western Arizona, even on private land. We're not even talking about the land being leased by the state, where you have major corporate farms which are farming alfalfa to ship to Saudi Arabia to feed the dairy cows there, because they're not allowed Saudi Arabia to raise alfalfa.

Now, given that these are outside the so called active management areas, if you have the land, you can pretty much pump what you want. Now that's great for the company that has the longest straw, if you will, but for all the other residents out there, it comes down to well, wait a second, our wells are running dry. What should we be able to do about that?

So far, even efforts to get people to monitor those wells and monitor how much is being pumped and create active management areas as the state did with Wilcox and mandated it have been, have been very tricky, and the legislature has dragged its feet, which is why the governor and her Department Water resources created the active management area in Wilcox.

And then, of course, you have the attorney general who's trying to use the nuisance laws to say, if your well is drying up the wells around everyone around you, that creates a nuisance, and that makes it illegal. So we're moving on several fronts there, but I think everyone realizes you can't just keep pumping and assume that in a place that gets seven to eight inches of rain a year, you can just keep adding demand for water and not dealing with it.

Now, one of the things that hasn't been addressed, and they everyone was talking about, well, we're just going to build a pipeline down to the Sea of Cortez and desalinate water. Well, the thing is that they never provided the full money for that, so that's sort of being held in the bands. Now we're down to issues like the so-called toilet to tap.

BRODIE: Howie, you mentioned elections and of course, Governor Hobbs will be up for election in two years, but there was a pretty significant election last year which led to Republicans increasing their majorities, small but increased majorities at the Capitol.

How might that play into what the governor is able to achieve, and maybe how many bills get to her that she's going to turn back with a veto?

FISCHER: Well, this certainly empowers the Republican leadership. Because it used to be that Republicans could not lose a vote. There were only 16 Republicans in the 30 members who said it, and 31 Republicans in the 60 member house. So if one Republican decided, no, this is too crazy, I'm not going to go along, they didn't get the bill out.

Now you have 33 Republicans in the House and 17 Republicans in the Senate, so they can afford to lose one. So I assume that more stuff will get to the governor. But then again, she has that big red veto stamp, and she's not been hesitant to use it. She did 140 some vetoes in her first year. She did over 70 in her second year.

You know, we can play, you know, the price is right on this and see how many vetoes she's going to do this year. I'd suggest that there's going to be a lot of them with this newly empowered Republican majority. But I think she also recognizes that, you know, the political ties have changed on things like that.

You know, she vetoed, for example, what eventually became Prop. 314 which has to do with allowing police to arrest those who are not here legally, and voters just went around her and by a two to one margin approved that.

And so I think she's recognizing that, plus the election of Trump suggests that there may be things where she needs to swallow hard and say, ‘This is what the voters want. And given that I only won by what was it? 17,000 votes last time, I need to make sure that I keep the majority of voters on my side.’

KJZZ's The Show transcripts are created on deadline. This text is edited for length and clarity, and may not be in its final form. The authoritative record of KJZZ's programming is the audio record.

Mark Brodie is a co-host of The Show, KJZZ’s locally produced news magazine. Since starting at KJZZ in 2002, Brodie has been a host, reporter and producer, including several years covering the Arizona Legislature, based at the Capitol.
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