(The Center Square) – Arizona Republicans are warning that Democrats, only a couple of seats away from majorities in both legislative chambers, would have a profound effect on the state's business and political climate.
Should Democrats pick up the couple of seats needed to hold majorities in the Senate and House of Representatives, it would give Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs a runway to implement her agenda without the check of a Republican-controlled Legislature for the final years of her first term.
The Democratic Caucus has established a plan they say would allow them to hit the ground running in 2025 should they take control of the Legislature. These priorities were analyzed in a series of stories published by The Center Square. And now, Republicans are speaking up.
“Each one of these areas are things that they’ve tried to run legislation on,” said Representative John Gillette. “They’ve made their intent very clear, and for most of us it’s very scary.”
Education
One of the major battles between the two parties when it comes to education on how Arizona’s Education Savings Account money is being used. ESA dollars allow parents to spend taxpayer money dedicated to their child on educational expenses including private school tuition.
A package of bills supported by Gov. Katie Hobbs ran earlier this year, but ended up being held in committee. The legislation would increase regulatory oversight and mandatory auditing by the auditor general to ensure “tax dollars are being used wisely and that there’s no waste, fraud and abuse rife in this program and right now, that is the case,” according to Assistant Minority Leader Rep. Oscar De Los Santos, D-Phoenix.
Gillette is arguing that parents should be able to make the best choice for their child’s education especially due to declining quality of Arizona’s public schools. According to a 2023 U.S. News & World report, Arizona ranked 45 in education out of all 50 states.
“Government and public schools are failing in many ways and we want to create competition because competition makes everyone better,” Gillette said. “You have no right to education. You have a right to seek that education and the parent has the right to come up with their own plan, but you have no right to a free government education on the back of someone else’s labor.”
In contrast, former Republican Sen. Vince Leach said that he would actually be open to further scrutiny of the ESA program.
“Any program that comes through, I don’t care if it’s ESAs, there’s always potential ways to improve any legislation that is passed,” Leach said, a front-runner to take his old Senate seat back. “If there’s something that needs to be corrected [or] updated, then we should do that.”
The other educational priority for Democrats is the renewal of Proposition 123, a proposition currently in effect that uses the State Land Trust Permanent Fund to fund public education. This particular package would extend Prop. 123 for 10 years and increase the distribution to 8.9%.
State Treasurer Kimberly Yee opposed the measure, saying it would take too much out of the trust and endanger the fund's fiscal stability, something that most Republicans agree with. Leach said that he wants to renew Prop. 123, but not with that large of increase in distribution.
Cutting Costs
Democratic legislators have made numerous claims that if they were to be elected into the majority, they would cut costs for all Arizonans. Republicans say this is impossible.
The three main target points for Democrats are paid family and medical leave, affordable childcare and lowering prescription drug costs.
“If some of those ideas are to come to fruition… you can’t do that by cutting, you have to raise taxes,” said Sen. TJ Shope, R-Coolidge.
Democrats have said that they would keep taxes low by appropriating funds from other places in the budget, which is facing a $1.4 billion deficit.
“They’re still appropriating tax dollars,” Gillette said. “It will result in a tax increase whether it be property tax, personal tax or business tax.”
A report from the Common Sense Institute confirms that these types of bills would indeed raise taxes. The report compares Arizona to Colorado which has had similar laws proposed that have passed.
One of the mirror bills passed in Colorado is Arizona SB 1632, proposed by Sen. Juan Mendez, D-Tempe, which would require the government to contribute to paid family and medical leave for all employees. Since 2019, this bill has cost Colorado’s economy over $3 billion.
The report also states that price-capping products such as prescription drugs could cause shortages of essential items.
“If the Democrats are going to follow the mantra of Vice President Harris and attempt to put price controls on items in the grocery store, for example, and I have to sell a gallon of milk for $2 and I can’t purchase it for anything less than $2.50, guess what? I’m not going to sell milk,” Shope said.
Shope's grandfather opened a local grocery store that has been in his family through multiple generations.
Katie Ratlief, executive director of the Common Sense Institute, said that while Democratic initiatives are often an earnest attempt at addressing issues, these types of government regulation can affect the state’s economic engine.
“It can be this over-regulation that kills innovation, kills jobs and makes job-creators want to take those jobs elsewhere,” Ratlief said. “They can be incredibly well-meaning and very well-intentioned, but if they are not balanced with allowing job-creators to thrive and to grow the economy, they can have a very detrimental effect very quickly.”
Ratlief served in former Gov. Doug Ducey’s administration.
Elections
This last legislative session, Democrats introduced a multi-bill plan to expand voter access, but none of the bills made it past a committee hearing. In part, because Republicans argue it would increase the odds of fraudulent elections and be detrimental to voters.
The package, if enacted, would have allowed ballot harvesting, re-established the permanent early voters list and allowed voter registration up until election day. Republicans argue that it is a U.S. citizen’s right and responsibility to vote and that it should be up to them to ensure they vote.
“It’s an individual responsibility and a constitutional right and if those citizens don’t feel that they have the time in their day to observe their constitutional rights, then maybe we don’t need their vote,” Gillette said. “If they can’t take the five minutes to fill out their ballot and stick it in the box, then do we really need their vote?”
Shope said that it is almost impossible in today’s society not to know when an election is taking place, who is running and how to register.
“If Donald Trump, whether pro or con, did not get you out to the polls in one of the last two general elections, then I must believe that maybe you don’t want to participate in that fashion anymore,” Shope said.
Other election reforms proposed by Democrats include ranked choice voting and Arizona participating in the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. Both of which, Republicans say, would be detrimental to voters.
“The reason we don’t do the popular vote is because four cities in the entire United States would control every election forever,” Gillette said. “It doesn’t give equal say and equal representation of the lesser of the populus.”
Gun Control
Another priority for Democrats is increasing gun control, which Republicans believe is a constitutional violation and not the answer to the problem Democrats are trying to solve – shootings involving children in the home and at schools.
“It’s behavior control because the gun doesn’t do anything,” Gillette said. “The gun is an inanimate object and we need to control the emotions and behaviors of young kids.”
One of the laws proposed by Democratic legislators is Christian’s Law, which would require proper and safe storage of guns in the home, but Shope said that’s going too far.
“Once the threshold of the home is crossed, so long as there’s nothing criminal happening within that home, people need to be able to be free to store their weapons in their own way,” Shope said. “I don’t know of any gun owners that don’t make sure to take proper precautions especially if there’s going to be children in the home.”
Leach said it should be up to the parents to educate children on how to safely use and handle guns.
“There are some responsibilities when you become a parent that you take upon yourself,” he said. “Is it always someone else’s job to do the job of the parent?”
Gillette said another solution is to bring gun safety training into the schools, legislation which he ran with Rep. Selina Bliss, R-Prescott, this past legislative session.
“I sponsored a bill with Selina Bliss to bring weapons training back into the schools,” Gillette said. “When I went to school, we had a rifle team. We brought our rifles to school, we brought our shotguns to school during deer and dove season. Once we stopped teaching our kids the positive and what can be negative effects of firing a gun, we started having all these problems.”
And, when it comes to school shootings, Republican legislators say it’s not the weapon that’s the problem, it's the shooter’s wellbeing and the security of the school.
“Many of these kids that are doing this type of activity, I guarantee the fact that they had access to gun is probably just the culmination of years of either a parent or a medical professional or a teacher or somebody not recognizing something in that child to get them the help they need to work through whatever issues are leading up to that event,” Shope said.
Both Leach and Gillette noted that Arizona schools have shifted from having school resource officers to having more counselors.
“We harden our facilities,” Gillette said. “We put armed police back in school, we allow teachers to be armed so you never know who’s going to be armed and who’s not. [Instead,] we have psychologists talking about their gender and their needs and their feelings. It all stems back to behavioral health and what we’re doing to the kids in school just increases the number of mass shootings. I think we [need to] go back to the old standard of educating kids [and] leaving their brain alone.”
Gillette, Leach and Shope don’t believe that Democrats will be able to win the majority in November. Shope said this is because Arizona’s population is increasing because people want to move here, and Arizona has become a destination due to Republican leadership.
“You left the place that couldn’t sustain your job,” Shope said. “You left the place in which you didn’t feel you could potentially purchase a home. You left the place where you couldn’t even put gas in your vehicle. You left the place where maybe you couldn’t even rent ... The reality is you left all that because the opportunity was better in Arizona. Why would we change it to the place that you just left?”
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