Entering year three of divided government, our expectations for the 2025 legislative session were admittedly not high. With Katie Hobbs occupying the governor’s office and demonstrating that her only skill set is setting new veto records of good public policy, it can be difficult to muster a lot of optimism.
Yet even in politics there is room to be pleasantly surprised and in fact there are several, though likely underappreciated, wins to be celebrated from the first session of the 57th legislature.
Freedom to Move is on the Ballot
After three sessions of introducing a ballot referral to protect every Arizonan’s freedom to move, finally, 2026 voters will have the chance to vote on SCR1004. The timing couldn’t be better as several states are moving forward with the imposition of their own tax per vehicle mile. Most ironically, in Massachusetts lawmakers have introduced legislation which in a masterclass in Double Speak they are calling “The Freedom to Move Act” as well. Every objection The Club has put on the record to VMT targets and taxes is being heralded by the radical liberals in Massachusetts as the benefits to passing the legislation. They proudly claim VMT taxes as a method to achieving their Net Zero goals, forcing people to “choose” other modes of travel like biking and public transit, and though they say there are no “prohibitions” in the bill, they give themselves away when they admit that the state may “facilitate reductions in vehicle miles travelled” in other words driving rations. With the passage of SCR1004, Arizona could be the first state in the country to cut this freedom-crushing policy off at the pass.
Closing the Revolving Door at the Corporation Commission
In an event that was probably rarer than a blue moon or maybe a solar eclipse (whichever is rarer), Governor Hobbs actually signed a bill that The Club supported and advocated for all session long. You knew HB2518 was unique legislation when The Club, the Republican Liberty Caucus and the Sierra Club (yikes) supported the bill, but sometimes the right and left can agree on issues, especially when it comes to reining in regulatory capture by monopoly-controlled utilities. And that’s exactly what HB 2518 accomplished, putting forth a prohibition on any person elected to the Arizona Corporation Commission from getting a job with the very utilities they are supposed to regulate. We won’t nominate ourselves for the Nobel Peace Prize yet, though it was a stunning moment of political harmony, save the disgruntled feelings of a couple dissatisfied Commissioners…
Stopping Katie Hobbs and the Swamp
Sure, it is always great to score points by getting common sense legislation through, but equally important is stopping the rolling trash pile of bad legislation that inevitably accumulates every session. And with a Democrat Governor, many of the bad bills that had to be stopped were swampy ideas adopted as part of the Hobbs agenda.
- HB2660 Swampy Subsidies
Top of that pile was the Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) program that was set to sunset at the end of the year barring legislative renewal. This was especially astounding because once bad ideas take root, they are much harder to repeal, which is why a special interest lobbyist will always be happier to get a small appropriation and short sunset window to just get something on the books. Being an existing program paired with it being a top priority of the Govenor’s office and Senate Democratic leadership and still procuring a Republican sponsor for it, the fact that it went away is a rather significant victory. A program that is already ethically challenged given its susceptibility to fraud, waste, and abuse, its demise was helped along by the fact that Katie Hobbs’ Director of the Department of Housing wired $2M to fraudsters due to lack of systems that would prevent such an embarrassing blunder from taking place. Though no doubt there will be an aggressive push to revive this dead (good riddance) program, for now we will enjoy the taxpayers’ victory!
- HB2873 New Unconstitutional Taxes
Next on the list is an unconstitutional tax (or assessment as the proponents prefer to call it), sponsored by Representative Wilmeth as HB2873. HB2873 is the reengineered bad bill of 2021 (because bad ideas never die) which would have allowed a host of private hoteliers form a quasi-private, quasi-governmental association, compel membership of minority hotels and then tax them in order to direct and pad their marketing budgets. Unfortunately, none of the changes to the original concept made HB2623 any more constitutional this go around, so its early defeat in session saved us on legal bills in the future.
- SB1129 Funding Mayor Gallegos Political Aspirations
HB2623 which became SB1129 would have allowed candidates in local nonpartisan races, such as for school board and city council, to amass campaign funds to be used later in their climb for higher, partisan office. Letting non-descript candidates accumulate funding from developers and zoning attorneys to take their almost assuredly liberal ideas to the legislature is bad policy. And just because a voter thinks you might be good at filling the city’s potholes, doesn’t mean they agree with you on your positions on a whole host of issues that would never show up on the docket at town hall. This bill just wouldn’t die and kept moving in its resurrected state until the middle of June before the Senate shoved it in a drawer.
- HB2939 Liberal AND Swampy
And because we take special pride in our role in thwarting Katie Hobbs’ agenda, it was very gratifying to see Hobbs’ top priority bill that would have provided handouts to corporations to subsidize more welfare never get a hearing.
Don’t Take the Victory Lap Yet
These were all great wins to be celebrated (thanks to conservative grassroots!) in what was a long and fairly contentious 2025 legislative session. And although we shouldn’t spare the hand clapping and back pats, there is no reason to lower our defenses. Despite Hobbs continued dysfunction this session (and the two before that), we should never underestimate her, or the Republicans ability to self-implode. For now, we will slow-walk the victory lap with a prudent eye on the 2026 legislative session.
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