New League of Arizona Cities and Towns leader is pushing for local control in housing laws

Among the myriad issues Arizona lawmakers are likely to discuss in their just-started session is short-term rentals. For the last several years, there’s been an effort to give cities back some of their ability to regulate that market; the state generally took it away in 2016.

That issue is top of mind for René Guillen, the new executive director of the League of Arizona Cities and Towns, which advocates for the state’s municipalities. Guillen has worked at the Legislature and in the governor’s office, which he believes gives him some insights into how lawmakers operate.

Guillen joined The Show earlier to talk about some of his — and his member’s — priorities in 2026.

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Full conversation

REŃE GUILLEN: I think maybe start specifically. I think some of the big issues we expect to see at the Legislature, you know, short-term rentals is a topic that we expect to see. Part of that is because we are pushing to introduce a couple of measures related to short-term rentals. Really probably two proposals that you will hopefully see from legislators on our behalf.

One of those is really getting to sort of, I guess the nuisance side of short-term rentals. A lot of people think of those as like the party house for example, you know, go with the stereotypical red Solo cups in the lawn or the loud music from a party that maybe goes too late.

We have a process in state law currently that can lead to the revocation of a license. Unfortunately, that state law stipulates that you have to have three adjudicated violations within a year time period. Well, the reality is that getting through the court process that quickly is not feasible. So one of the things we're seeking to do is to increase that to three violations in a 24-month period to give more tools to cities and towns to go after those bad actors.

The other piece of legislation we'd be pursuing is looking to again restore some of that local control to where cities and towns could install caps on the number of short-term rentals in their community to really get at the say, proliferation, the sheer number of short-term rentals in their community. So those are two pieces we're looking to push this year.

MARK BRODIE: Well, so that issue, getting more local control over short-term rentals has been sort of a perennial issue at the Legislature, at least over the last some number of years. Do you have any measure of optimism that this year will be different than all the other times you and others have tried to do this that haven't really gone anywhere?

GUILLEN: You know, I guess I'm forever the optimist. So you know, I guess I wouldn't be doing this for over, I guess, two decades now if I didn't have some level of optimism. But, you know, I think in terms of what's different this year, right. I always look to that saying of doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result is the definition of insanity, right.

So what I think we've seen now is that this really isn't a partisan issue. What we are seeing is more and more individuals are reaching a point where they are engaging with their local elected officials, and they are engaging with their state elected officials. And so what we are seeing is really people of all political persuasions.

And sorry, I say people, but I mean legislators of all political persuasions that are now getting engaged in this issue. And so that's why I am more optimistic this year that we have a higher likelihood of seeing something move. And, you know, anything we can do to kind of move that football to continue to drive the conversation at the Capitol, I will take that as a victory.

And, you know, sometimes it takes years to get legislation through. So we will continue to push this issue.

BRODIE: Let me ask you more broadly about housing, because that has been another really big issue at the Capitol that kind of like STRs, where it's not necessarily like a partisan issue, but there's been a lot of consternation between some members of the Legislature and cities and trying to come up with ways to get more housing, more affordable housing.

When you look at what 2026 might bring, do you get the sense that there might be some compromise between cities and towns and let's, for lack of a better word, say housing advocates like the folks with whom you've sort of been arguing with over the last couple of years to up with something that really can maybe produce more housing here?

GUILLEN: Yeah, no, that's a great question. As you mentioned, speaking of perennial issues, right. Housing remains an issue. At the league and in my role, we're ready to sit down with anybody. And I would remind you and the listeners that there's probably at least a half-dozen pieces of legislation that have passed over the last few years dealing with this housing crisis, trying to either cut out red tape or looking at the casita law or at middle housing or looking at data reporting on housing. And a number of those pieces of legislation my organization, the League of Arizona Cities and Towns, have actually been in support of.

So we've been at the table offering solutions, working with those stakeholders on solutions. When it comes to any proposal we may see this year, we're ready, willing and able to continue to talk about proposals. But I will say one of the things that, you know, I continued to hear from my leadership is we are interested in talking about real solutions.

Real solutions that will lead to more housing getting built or that leads to real savings for the homebuyer. We are not interested in legislation that's just going to be a corporate giveaway or a developer giveaway.

BRODIE: I wonder if there's maybe sort of an inverse issue with this housing issue to what we were just talking about with short-term rentals, where with short-term rentals, cities and towns are trying to get back some of the control that they once had. Whereas it seems as though at least part of the issue with some of the housing bills is cities not wanting to give away some of that local control and have the state sort of set these standards and set these regulations.

Is that a fair assessment?

GUILLEN: Yeah, I think that's a fair assessment. Yeah. My organization, we are sort of founded on two core principles: protecting our shared revenue and our local revenue, and protecting local control, right. I mean, we are sort of founded on that Jeffersonian principle that the government closest to the people governs best.

BRODIE: How would you describe right now the relationship between the state and its cities and towns?

GUILLEN: That's a great question. You know, there's no denying that there's friction, right. This is gonna be kind of a long walk, so hopefully you'll bear with me.

BRODIE: Yeah.

GUILLEN: You know, I think one of the challenges that I see in my new role as executive director is education and educating lawmakers. I see as one of those, I think lawmakers are sort of focused on what I call the X and the Y, right. When they introduce a bill, they are focused on, let's use cities and towns.

Cities and towns shall do X. Cities and towns shall not do Y. They're focused on the X and the Y. Me as executive director and our organization, we're focused on the shall and shall not, right. It's really immaterial to me what the X or Y is. Right. To me, my focus is the Legislature is trying to move that decision point, right.

They're moving it away from the mayor and council, and they're moving it up to the state level. I'm sure the state lawmakers wouldn't like it if the federal government tried to move a decision point from the state level to the federal level, right. And so what's difficult is when lawmakers often introduce bills, they are focused on the X and Y, and often it's based off of a political issue they ran on or part of their political platform.

For us, we are nonpartisan. We're not even looking at that. We are just saying that decision point needs to be with the local mayor and council because they are closer to the people. They are the ones running into their residents at the supermarket, at church, at the local function. They're the ones who know what's best for their community.