by admin | Jul 22, 2025 | Misc, News and Updates
15 months. That is how much time we have left until Arizona can elect a new governor, and it couldn’t come soon enough.
Since taking office in 2023, Katie Hobbs has been a complete disaster. The heights of her corruption have certainly been well documented. From her illegal use of public resources to solicit money for her inauguration, to an alleged pay-to-play scheme between Hobbs and an Arizona group home that donated to her inauguration, to shelling out $700,000 to a company owned by the brother of the now-former Office of Tourism Director to create a new state logo, Hobbs has proven that the people of Arizona are her lowest priority. And there are no signs that will change any time soon.
In the latest reveal of her efforts to turn her office into a jobs program for her political friends, it was discovered that Hobbs handed out nearly $600,000 in taxpayer money to a former Democrat politician and her assistant for two newly created jobs. These just add to the long line of other phony baloney jobs Hobbs has created so that her buddies can get paid six-figure salaries to sit around and do nothing on your dime. In fact, just last year, she added six new jobs in the newly created Office of Resiliency (whatever that is), four new employees in the Office of Tribal Relations, and three new in-house attorneys, to name a few. All total, Hobbs has increased executive employment costs by over 50%!
With all these new government jobs, you would think Arizona must be leading the way in the nation for job creation, but no. It’s just the opposite. Since Hobbs became Governor of Arizona, our state has fallen from 4th in the nation for job growth to 47th. But what do you expect from a governor who has made it her top priority to attack educational freedom all while blowing a hole in the state’s budget?
The reality is that Katie Hobbs has had plenty of time and opportunities to ensure Arizona is headed in the right direction both economically and more. Instead, she’s been happy to serve as the ultimate obstructionist governor, spending all her time putting Arizona behind other states by blockading meaningful reforms.
In 2023, Hobbs broke Arizona’s veto record with 143 vetoes, blasting the previous record of 58 set in 2005 by another Democrat Governor, Janet Napolitano. But apparently, that was only scratching the surface. This year, Hobbs followed up with 178 vetoes. That’s 35 more than her own record two years ago and more than triple the amount of Napolitano in her record-setting year!
Surely, there must have been a good reason for these vetoes, right? Wrong.
Many of Hobbs’ vetoes this past legislative session were particularly egregious. Just take a look for yourself at this small sampling. In 2025, Hobbs:
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- Vetoed SB 1109, to stop the Chinese Community Party (CCP) from owning land in Arizona.
- Vetoed SB 1003, which would have protected women from using the same restroom as men in public schools.
- Vetoed over a half dozen election integrity bills, including popular legislation (HB 2703) that would have ensured that Arizona gets election results on election night.
- Vetoed HB 2099, which would have required state cooperation with ICE related to immigration enforcement.
- Vetoed HB 2121 and HB 2122, which would have allowed Arizona to establish work requirements for SNAP (food stamps) and also prevented SNAP from being used to buy soda.
- Vetoed a bill (HB 2867), which would have prohibited antisemitism from being taught in Arizona’s schools.
Hobbs vetoed parental rights bills, 2nd Amendment bills, water legislation, tax relief, and more. The list could go on and on and on. (You can see for yourself.)
It’s been a bad look for a governor who claimed to be seeking “common ground” with the legislature going into this year. That’s probably why she’s resorted to another attempt to buy votes with her latest stunt to “pay off medical debt.” But just like last time, it’s another one of her latest schemes that’s sure to end in controversy.
The people of Arizona are tired of it. They’re tired of the lies. They’re tired of the corruption. And they’re tired of being Katie Hobbs’ last priority.
It’s time for a new governor. November 2026 can’t come soon enough.
Help Protect Freedom in Arizona by Joining Our Grassroots Network
Arizona needs to have a unified voice promoting economic freedom and prosperity, and the Free Enterprise Club is committed to making that happen. But we can’t do it alone. We need YOU!
Join our FREE Grassroots Action List to stay up to date on the latest battles against big government and how YOU can help influence crucial bills at the Arizona State Legislature.
by admin | Jul 17, 2025 | Misc, News and Updates
Following President Trump’s directive to scrub divisive Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs, practices, and language from public institutions, the U.S. Department of Education sent a letter to the Arizona Department of Education (DOE) to ensure that schools comply with these requirements.
The Arizona DOE notified every school district and charter public school that they must submit a completed certification confirming compliance with the federal civil rights law. A public website was developed to track which districts and schools have completed the certification and which have not. Though the majority of schools are listed as “in compliance,” the question remains: have they all truly purged their websites and learning environments of DEI practices? A quick review and some basic research suggest that not all these schools are fully committed to the removal of this woke material.
Alhambra Elementary School District in Phoenix has a subcommittee titled “Culture, Conditions, & Climate” with a stated need to “increase its Diversity, Equity, Inclusion capacity to ensure it is an inclusive environment.” The district plans to achieve this by subjecting staff to DEI trainings designed to establish that these adults teaching your children become anti-racist activists.
Recently, Scottsdale Unified School District has been the center of controversy surrounding their adoption of new textbooks that teach about George Floyd, Black Lives Matter, and anti-law enforcement rhetoric. Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne has spoken out against this anti-American, DEI-infested curriculum, emphasizing that schools must steer clear of promoting an “unbalanced political agenda.”
In Glendale, the Washington Elementary School District has published a “Statement of Commitment to Educational Equity,” in which it outlines how DEI principles are integrated into its educational framework.
In an application for federal charter school start-up grants for 2024-2028, Desert Sage High School in Tucson declares its commitment to “diversity, equity, inclusion, anti-bias education, and social justice.” Among its goals is increasing the percentage of Hispanic and Native American students—an effort aimed more at virtue signaling just to demonstrate how unbiased they really are.
Several other schools maintain overreaching non-discrimination statements that include “gender identity” and “sexual orientation,” and some keep DEI in their mission statements.
And these are just the districts and schools that claim to comply with the federal civil rights law.
On the “Out of Compliance” list, the Flagstaff Unified School District website promotes an “Anti-Racism and Anti-Bias Advisory Committee” and Task Force. This Task Force’s job is to identify bias, racism, and inequity within the school district and recommend “solutions.” After they determined that the district’s staff was not diverse enough, they established a 10 percent diversity quota. Although the Task Force was originally created in 2020 as a six-month initiative, the hope was that the policies they put in place would have a lasting effect, meaning they eliminate racism—or the biggest problem: “whiteness.” In their 2020 report, a list of definitions includes the statement, “Whiteness gets in the way of our goals for educational equity and bias-free, anti-racist schools.” In other words, if you’re white, you are a problem. And the district plans to mandate other “anti-racism curriculum at all grade levels.” So apparently, even your six-year-old needs to understand how their “whiteness” is a barrier.
Kyrene School District in Tempe shares concerns similar to Flagstaff’s, namely the idea that even young kids are inherently racist, so they are kind enough to provide some helpful links on how to talk to kids about racism. The district hosts a whole page dedicated to “Equity in Education” and outlines its commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion. The stated goal is to develop trainings for the purpose of “leveraging diversity” and promoting “cultural competency.” According to this page, inequity leads to opportunity and achievement gaps. Kyrene School District, which only consists of elementary and middle schools, is a textbook example of the toxic racist ideology Trump’s Executive Order is looking to quash.
The Tucson Unified School District (TUSD) remains out of compliance with current federal law by maintaining an “Equity, Diversity, and Inclusiveness (EDI)” page on their website. This shouldn’t surprise anyone given their longstanding history of thwarting anti-discrimination laws. Along with a DEI “Preamble,” their EDI page outlines a mission to pursue “desegregation” by eradicating the “manifestations of racism, discrimination, and prejudice.” This statement relates to TUSD’s mandated desegregation efforts from the 1970s ,which were only just deemed fulfilled in January of this year by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, releasing them from federal oversight. It would seem the district has exchanged one form of illegal discrimination for another.
At least these school districts were truthful in their refusal to certify compliance. Many that claim to be compliant are just lying. And this is only what can be found on their websites. If these districts are comfortable publicly advertising their illegal DEI pledges and racial quota programs, what more are they doing behind the scenes? These districts and schools need to be investigated and held to account.
Parents have been fighting these battles on their own for a long time, like the parents in Scottsdale and Deer Valley. The American people voted to stop progressive indoctrination in our public schools. That resistance will continue to happen until schools return to the pro-American, pro-Constitution institutions of edification they are designed to be.
The Arizona Free Enterprise Club will continue to actively monitor and report schools and districts to the Department of Justice for noncompliance with federal civil rights laws until all DEI programs are eliminated.
Help Protect Freedom in Arizona by Joining Our Grassroots Network
Arizona needs to have a unified voice promoting economic freedom and prosperity, and the Free Enterprise Club is committed to making that happen. But we can’t do it alone. We need YOU!
Join our FREE Grassroots Action List to stay up to date on the latest battles against big government and how YOU can help influence crucial bills at the Arizona State Legislature.
by admin | Jul 15, 2025 | News and Updates, Regulatory
Attorney General Kris Mayes has long fancied herself as a champion for ratepayers. After another round of rate hikes rolled in at the Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC), this time a proposed 14% increase by both APS and TEP, AG Mayes fired off a press release announcing that she will “vigorously oppose” these requests as “Arizona residents struggle to keep up with ever-increasing electricity bills.”
Setting aside the fact that the AG has little purview over ACC affairs, Mayes seems to think that her own time serving on the Commission back in the 2000s makes her uniquely qualified to stop what seems like an endless barrage of double-digit rate hikes by our public utilities. Unfortunately for ratepayers, having Kris Mayes involved will only pour fuel on the Net Zero fire currently raging at the Corporation Commission.
You see, Kris Mayes is the one that laid the foundation for the Green Scam rate hikes Arizonans are suffering through today. In fact, the biggest irony about having Kris Mayes jump into the rate hike fray is that it highlights the dangerous parallels between the Commission she served on in 2006 and the one that we have today.
Kris Mayes was actually appointed to the Corporation Commission as a Republican (even if in name only) by then-Democrat Governor Janet Napolitano. Despite an all-Republican commission (as we have today), Mayes was the leading voice for the original Green New Deal mandate. That first mandate, the Renewable Energy Standard and Tariff (REST), required 15 percent of all energy generation to be from renewable sources by 2025.
To meet the costs associated with the REST rules, the utilities received cost recovery from ratepayers to pay for these projects that accrued in the hundreds of millions. In 2012, there was another APS rate hike to cover, in part, the buildout of solar facilities, battery storage pilots, and transmission upgrades due to increased costs of integrating intermittent renewables on the grid. By 2019, the price tag for Mayes’ REST rules exceeded $1 billion, all paid for with rate hikes and fixed charges.
After Mayes’ departure from the Commission, she went to work as a lobbyist and consultant for the Green New Deal cabal. She even chaired the “Clean Energy for a Healthy Arizona” campaign in 2017, an initiative measure bankrolled by California billionaire Tom Steyer to insert a clean energy mandate in the constitution.
So, after two decades of fighting for grid-crushing renewable mandates, you would think Kris Mayes would be ecstatic at the news that both APS and TEP have embraced her green agenda and have committed to go Net Zero by 2050. It’s exactly what she wanted—a carbon-free grid dependent on wind and solar to keep our A/C units running in the middle of summer.
Mayes should also be thanking the current Republican-controlled Commission for doubling down on her radical energy commitments. Just last year, the ACC approved integrated resource plans developed by APS and TEP that turbocharged her REST rules, putting Arizona on the path to having 90% of future energy generation come from renewables while closing all remaining coal generation by 2031.
But now, the bill for the green scam is coming due, and Kris Mayes wants to feign outrage at the rate hikes needed to fund it. Her plan is to blame the utilities and the Corporation Commission for the projected $42 billion this radical energy transition will cost ratepayers, even though they are implementing the plan she originally put together.
The green energy experiment in Arizona was never going to be cheap. What’s truly ironic is watching its architects pretend to be surprised by the cost.
Help Protect Freedom in Arizona by Joining Our Grassroots Network
Arizona needs to have a unified voice promoting economic freedom and prosperity, and the Free Enterprise Club is committed to making that happen. But we can’t do it alone. We need YOU!
Join our FREE Grassroots Action List to stay up to date on the latest battles against big government and how YOU can help influence crucial bills at the Arizona State Legislature.
by admin | Jul 1, 2025 | Misc, News and Updates
Among many issues, the past two elections have been a referendum on the public school system throughout our country. And that’s especially true here in Arizona. The people have shown that they are tired of the leftist indoctrination, wasted taxpayer dollars on declining test scores, attacks on parental rights, and more.
Immediately after his inauguration, President Trump proved that cleaning up our schools wasn’t just a campaign talking point. He issued an executive order (EO) ending radical indoctrination in K-12 schooling, and the U.S. Department of Education took action to eliminate harmful Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives. It’s been a breath of fresh air, frankly, but the woke crazies in our state are not going down without a fight.
Back in February, a teacher at Marana High School was suspended after he challenged President Trump’s denial of the existence of more than two genders during a classroom lecture. Then, in May, an advocacy group released audio from inside a Catalina Foothills School District (CFSD) ninth grade health classroom where an alleged teacher gave a “lesson” on LGBTQ issues and criticized religious texts. What any of this has to do with “health” is beyond us, but it certainly shows the lengths these crazies are willing to go in order to push their radical message.
Not wanting to be outdone, Scottsdale Unified School District (SUSD) also decided to get into the mix. But instead of relying on leftist teachers to spearhead the work, the district itself adopted a curriculum that contains lessons on Black Lives Matter, January 6th, climate change, LGBTQ rights, illegal immigration, police brutality, and more. The move even prompted local law enforcement to push back, with one police officer association president sending a letter to SUSD asking them to reject the anti-police propaganda.
On top of all this, we’ve seen school districts like Deer Valley Unified School District buck at the Trump administration’s directive to end DEI. And there’s Kyrene School District, which voted to openly defy Trump’s guidance by adopting a policy that further embeds DEI into its day-to-day operations.
Clearly the left is undeterred in its efforts to use our K-12 system as a liberal indoctrination camp. And while President Trump’s efforts to fight back have been swift and bold, we can’t stop there.
Right now, it is critical for conservatives throughout our state to stay vigilant at both the state and local level. That means partnering with the Trump administration in identifying schools that are not in compliance with the president’s EOs. It means fighting back against leftist school boards looking to adopt radical curriculum and other woke policies. But most importantly, it means defending school choice at every turn against attacks from Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs and the radical left.
Since then-Governor Doug Ducey signed universal school choice into law back in 2022, Arizona’s teachers’ unions, the radical left, and other anti-school choice groups have been doing everything they can to attack the popular program. When they began gathering signatures for a ballot initiative aimed at overturning Empowerment Scholarship Accounts (ESA), conservatives met them every step of the way. When Hobbs came into legislative session in both 2023 and 2024 with her top priority being to regulate ESAs out of existence, conservatives fought back with only minor changes being made through the budget. And when the far left spent millions to push state legislature candidates with a long track record of being anti-school choice, conservatives mobilized and crushed them in the 2024 election.
We can’t sit back now and expect President Trump to solve all our problems. Over 85,000 students are currently enrolled in the ESA program. It continues to grow in popularity while serving as a model policy for states across the country. That’s why the left wants to tear it down.
Stay vigilant, conservatives. And remember, as the left continues to push its craziness on our students, they’re no match for us when we stand up, speak up, and fight back.
Help Protect Freedom in Arizona by Joining Our Grassroots Network
Arizona needs to have a unified voice promoting economic freedom and prosperity, and the Free Enterprise Club is committed to making that happen. But we can’t do it alone. We need YOU!
Join our FREE Grassroots Action List to stay up to date on the latest battles against big government and how YOU can help influence crucial bills at the Arizona State Legislature.
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