Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs has signed the measure that’s come to be known as the "Axon" bill. It requires cities within a certain population range to allow multifamily housing and hotels on land zoned for light industrial use if it’s located within the campus of an international headquarters. And while supporters argued the bill could apply to other companies, the way it’s written means it will definitely apply to Axon.
The measure came about after Scottsdale residents collected enough signatures to refer a City Council decision to the ballot next year. The council had approved a plan to let Axon, which makes Tasers and body-worn cameras, to build a new HQ, including a hotel, restaurants and apartments, in north Scottsdale.
But, the referendum put the development on hold, pending the results of next year’s vote. Axon’s CEO said the company couldn’t wait that long to find out if it’d be able to move forward, and threatened to move the homegrown company.
Laurie Roberts, a columnist with The Arizona Republic, and Elvia Díaz, the paper’s editorial page editor, joined The Show to discuss.
Full conversation
MARK BRODIE: Laurie, let me start with you, since you wrote a piece on this. It sounds like you’re arguing this bill does some fairly serious damage to the state constitution. Am I reading that correctly?
LAURIE ROBERTS: Well, exactly. Our founding fathers were smart enough or visionary enough to give the people to reserve for the people the power to overrule our leaders, should we choose to. One of those powers is the power of referendum, which is the power, of course, we're talking about here.
Which basically says that if you're elected leaders do something that you don't like, legislate a bill or pass a rezoning that you don't like. You the people have the right to pass petitions. And if you can get enough signatures and voters put that issue on hold, and then put it on the ballot for the voters to ultimately decide it. And that's what happened here.
BRODIE: Elvia, I'm curious to get your take on this. I mean, Laurie is obviously pretty strongly against this bill. What do you think?
ELVIA DÍAZ: I was shocked the then governor could have signed it, but only for about five seconds. Then I remembered that it's election season for, for the governor. I mean, we're talking about a Democratic governor, and Democrats in general always complain that the Legislature is hampering, is imposing their power on municipalities and local residents. And that's exactly what she did.
She essentially told the Scottsdale residents: you don't matter. Your voice don't matter. We will take care of this because we want it, and they have their reasons. So, I think she signed it because she's facing a reelection next year. And she wants to please that, that segment, I mean, that, that, that was my first thinking. It could also be that residents who were opposed to this development that, that they're going to be angry with her. But, I was surprised.
BRODIE: Laurie, the governor cited economic development as a reason for supporting this, as did a number of the lawmakers who voted for it. I wonder if in some ways, this kind of put the Legislature in a, in an interesting position in terms of voting either for what they see as economic development or as you pointed out, sort of usurping local control here.
ROBERTS: Well, I think you can be for local control and still be for economic development. And I want to go back even into last year when this bill was, before Scottsdale, and it was clear that there were problems with it, that there were a number of people who, who were opposed to it. And I remember talking to the governor's office at that time saying, look, we could lose this company and this is a good company. Is the governor going to get involved?
And I kept being told by people within her office, well, what do you want to do? This is a local issue. What do you think she should do, Laurie? Well, I said, but, you know, leadership is coming in before things melt down and dealing with it. And I was told pretty clearly this is a local issue for the city of Scottsdale.
Now all of a sudden, fast forward to last week and suddenly this local issue is no longer a local issue. It's, oh, this company will leave if we don't get involved. So I would say that there was a fundamental failure of leadership on this bill to try to get the parties together when there was something to be negotiated.
And I was told, as I said, it was a local issue. But it wasn't a local issue. It is, it is fair to say that there is a state interest in keeping this company here. They'll bring in good jobs, it's good tax revenue. It's exactly what we want. But to do it at the expense of the constitutional right of the citizens of Scottsdale is just fundamentally wrong. And we were, we the people were sold out cheaply.
BRODIE: Well, so, Elvia, to that point, do you think it was worth it or would have been worth it for the lawmakers who supported it into the governor to not go forward with this bill and to let sort of the city and the state and Axon take its chances with the the referendum coming up next year to preserve sort of that, that local control and let residents continue to have their say over this project while knowing that it's possible that if that had gone forward, Axon might have left.
DÍAZ: Well, that's a thing that, democracy is messy, right? We either believe in it or we don't. You either believe in local control or you don't. And in this case, you know, Democrats will have no standing and fighting local control because this, this is what it is. You know, the company may be great, but again, it's up to the residents of Scottsdale in this case, whether they want it or not.
And, and that's a bigger issue, right. Taking the right of residents to decide what's best for themselves. I mean, again, that's what democracy is all about. And that's what led in local control. Yes. I mean, it is possible the Scottsdale residents would have rejected this company, and that's the risk that you take. Otherwise, why bother with democracy, right?
May as well, you know, let state legislators and state government decide every single issue that they think is best for, for this state, because there's always a logical explanation to everything, right? And so and in this case, yes, they should have let Scottsdale residents decide they're not. And that put this in danger because this is just the beginning, right. Once you open the door, then that's it.
BRODIE: Well, yeah. Elvia, I mean, do you think that based on this, there might be more companies or other entities coming to the Legislature saying, hey, you know, we don't really love what's going on in our city or something that's happening toward our company. We'd like some help with this.
DÍAZ: That's exactly the danger. And now there's precedent for that. You know, you can always argue that it's a great thing for “x” municipality or town. And that's the logic that is going to be used now. And again, you know, Republicans have a history of supporting local control. The Democrats have been the ones that have been holding the line for years, or at least they said.
And that's why, you know, it's, it's interesting that Gov. Katie Hobbs decided to sign this one.
ROBERTS: Well, I think she signed it because, as you said, there's an election coming up. There was tremendous pressure. Axon hired a lot, a veritable legion of lobbyists to be down there. If you heard Rep. [Joseph] Chaplik talk on the floor, he said that several of his colleagues had been told that they would be given campaign contributions if they voted for this. So there was pressure all the way around.
And in Gov. Hobbs’ case, signing this bill gave her a lot of street credibility with the chamber and the business interests in the state. So, again, back to the election. I'm sure that that had a lot to do with why it was signed. I think one of the things to watch now, though, is what is Scottsdale's response? There is a lot of talk about filing a lawsuit.
BRODIE: Yeah, Laurie, with the stipulation that none of us on this call are actually attorneys, you know, it was interesting because to that, the point of a potential lawsuit, you know, the CEO of Axon said that he didn't want to wait for the election coming up next year to be able to know if this project was going to be able to go through.
I wonder, though, even given this bill’s, with this bill's passage, might that still be the situation in which the company finds itself, because lawsuits could be filed to try to stop it or delay it?
ROBERTS: I think that you would definitely see a lawsuit, whether it's filed by the city of Scottsdale or whether it's filed by that citizen group. I think the question is, can you pass a state law that usurps the Arizona Constitution? Essentially what they've done is said the constitution doesn't apply in this case. And yet, if you read the constitution, it clearly should apply.
They're trying to carve out an exemption in the constitution, and there's only one person or one group of people that can do that, and it's called the voters of the state of Arizona. So I think that would be the point that they would try to make in a lawsuit, whether they'd be successful. Of course, I don't know. But to your point, of course, that will delay things.
