by admin | Oct 23, 2025 | Arizona, Elections, News and Updates
In 2022, the Arizona legislature passed—and then-Governor Ducey signed into law—a landmark election integrity bill: HB 2492. Authored by the Arizona Free Enterprise Club, the law bolsters safeguards to our election process by requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote, ensuring that only U.S. citizens are voting in our elections.
It’s commonsense legislation that is popular with the public and a blueprint for other states looking to adopt nearly identical bills. And why wouldn’t it be? U.S. citizens cannot go into France, Australia, or any other country throughout the world and vote in their elections, so why should citizens from other countries be allowed to vote in our elections?
Yet immediately after HB 2492 was passed, a consortium of liberal organizations and the Biden Justice department sued to stop the law from going into effect. Now, after multiple trips to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, one of which included a bizarre ruling that required an emergency appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court to let Arizona enforce our proof of citizenship requirements for the 2024 election (which we won), the entire law will now be going to the nation’s highest court.
We are confident that the Supreme Court will uphold the law in its entirety, but one issue about the litigation has been simmering beneath the surface: Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes.
After taking office in January 2023, Mayes joined the lawsuit (which includes the state legislature) to “defend” HB 2492. But throughout the process, it’s been pretty obvious that her legal team has been doing as little as possible to protect the law from the onslaught of litigation from the left. When you follow the money, that doesn’t come as much of a surprise.
Of the dozen or so liberal groups that filed suit to stop the law, several spent huge sums of money in 2022 to get Kris Mayes elected as Arizona’s Attorney General. Just look at this list of donations to Mayes’ campaign right here. It’s riddled with groups that either give money to Mi Familia Vota (the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit against HB 2492), receive money from the group, are partners with the group, or have positions that stand in opposition to any election integrity measure in general. Chief among them is Arizona Wins, a lobbying organization founded in 2011 to oppose election integrity measures and enforcement of immigration laws in our state. Mi Familia Vota has received tens of thousands of dollars from Arizona Wins. Does that sound like a conflict of interest to you?
The liberal Ninth Circuit ruled against HB 2492 earlier this year, and most recently, it rejected a request for a full review from the court (although an astounding 11 judges dissented). Now, the case should be fast-tracked to the U.S. Supreme Court once again. But surprise, surprise. Mayes’ office appears to be slow walking the appeal. And can you guess why? Mayes knows that if she can hold out long enough, it would prevent the Supreme Court from hearing the case until after the 2026 general election (when Mayes will be up for reelection).
At this point, it’s obvious that Kris Mayes is trying to play both sides. On the one hand, she wants to say that she defended a wildly popular law with citizens across our state. On the other hand, she wants to do everything she can to appease her liberal friends by sandbagging the case.
That leaves just one solution. It’s time for Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes to recuse herself from the defense of HB 2492 and let the legislature finish the job. The legal team representing the House and Senate is more than capable at handling the appeal and defending the law at the U.S. Supreme Court. And organizations like ours are more than happy to provide outside support to their legal efforts.
If she had any integrity, Mayes would be getting out of the way so the nation’s highest court can once again overturn the Ninth Circuit, return common sense to our voter registration process, and restore confidence in Arizona’s elections. Of course, given her history of politicizing the office with ridiculous lawfare that have resulted in embarrassing legal defeats, we suspect she will do everything she can to drive this lawsuit into a ditch.
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by admin | Oct 21, 2025 | Arizona, News and Updates
This November, Tucson voters will decide whether they would like to continue doubling down on Tucson’s failed policies that have invited rampant crime, made it impossible to navigate the city without extreme frustration, and drain its wealth and livability to pursue virtue-signaling but poverty-inducing policies. Or if they would rather get off the merry-go-round of insanity.
Prop 417 is the city’s updated 10-year general plan, and a ‘Yes’ vote continues the madness. A ‘No’ vote on Prop 417 is the only reasonable choice for anyone who wants to save Tucson from itself.
A Blueprint for Failure
“Plan Tucson” is essentially a bundle of every bad idea the city has produced over the past decade including the Housing Affordability Strategy for Tucson (HAST), People, Communities, and Homes Investment Plan (P-CHIP), Move Tucson the transportation masterplan, and the Tucson Resilient Together climate plan. Each of these plans has helped create the mess Tucson is in today. Codifying them into 14 goals and 190 policies through Prop 417 would simply lock in these failures in for another decade.
Crazy Climate Commitments
Take for example the city’s climate action plan published in 2023 which set the delusional goal of having 40% of Tucson residents to be walking, biking, taking public transit or “rolling” around the city by 2050. The plan includes a commitment to “net zero” by 2030 for government operations and by 2045 city-wide—including private residents and businesses.
To achieve this fantasy, the city plans to build out a massive transit agency that if they meet their targets of hiring 900 new people every year will eventually eclipse Raytheon as the largest employer in Tucson by more than double (despite collapsing ridership and a 100% taxpayer subsidy since fares were permanently eliminated in 2020.)
The plan requires residents to hold to a “Zero Waste” commitment to empty out the landfills, imposes new road diets, and even pays city employees to not use their cars. This list of insane ideas is also very very expensive, with a price tag of roughly $365 million.
Transportation Tyranny
The “Move Tucson” plan, as the foundation of transportation initiatives in Prop 417, is a shocking $13B cost over 20 years with the express purpose of building out “infrastructure” that serves everyone but drivers. Perhaps the most expensive element of the plan is their Complete Streets initiative which they adopted as an ordinance in 2021 (as an “emergency” order.) “Complete streets” is a cute way of saying narrowing or reducing road lanes to provide “mobility equity,” starving space for drivers to give equal space to all the other types of “transportation” that the vast majority of people don’t use and will never use unless coerced. Every new road must now be “remodeled” to serve the few at the expense of the many, worsening congestion and safety alike. They have even added another layer of intrusive oversight, making an already costly initiative of ripping out decent infrastructure even more cumbersome and bureaucratic.
Unaffordable Housing
And then there’s housing and development – guided by the same anti-driving, wouldn’t it be nice if we all lived in a 15-minute city – vision. Tucson’s Transit Oriented Development Handbook promote designs that “eliminate the need for personal vehicle use.” Its “best practice” for parking? Don’t provide it—or else put it somewhere inconvenient. The plan claims that done “right” mixed-use and transit-oriented development throughout the city will lead to “eliminating the need for personal vehicle use”.
Meanwhile, Tucson’s real housing problem is affordability: in 2023 only 38% of homes in the region were considered affordable to a family earning the area median income. Tucson’s idea of addressing the problem is more socialized housing schemes (paid by other Tucson residents who can barely afford their homes) and forced densification, waiving fees only for developers that commit to the city’s “equitable transit-oriented development” standards that force home buyers to submit to living in these carless communities.
The likely outcome? Artificial housing scarcity, higher prices, and more government control.
It’s All About Equity
Finally, the underpinning of the entire Tucson Plan is the city’s obsession with “equity.” Every initiative answers to the “Equity Index,” a bureaucratic checklist that prioritizes racial and demographic quotas over everything else. But like all communist utopian visions – Tucson’s ideological engineering has only made everyone in the city worse off.
The Bill Always Comes Due
If Prop 417passes, it will cost Tucson voters billions- as every utopian experiment does. But this won’t be new for the city despite voters’ opposition. Tucson has tried this before: Prop 414, a proposed sales tax hike for climate spending—rejected by voters. Prop 412, a “franchise agreement” turned climate slush fund—rejected again.
Just Say No, Tucson
So maybe there is hope that Tucson residents will reject another one of Tucson’s logrolled propositions. Voters should ‘Vote No’ on Prop 417 and send another message to city leadership that Tucson doesn’t want another climate-crusading, anti-driver, equity-obsessed bureaucratic plan to ruin Tucson.
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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!
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by admin | Oct 16, 2025 | Arizona, News and Updates
Ever since Arizona passed universal school choice, the Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) program has been the target of the Red for Ed teachers’ union, Democrat lawmakers and their corporate media allies. They demand transparency and accountability for alleged abuse of ESA dollars—all while scandal after scandal continues to pop up in our state’s K-12 public schools.
We saw it at the beginning of the year when the Isaac Elementary School District (IESD) was placed under a state receivership after it was determined that it had a budget shortfall of over $12 million! And this wasn’t a surprise. The Auditor General had been sounding the alarm on IESD’s mismanagement of funds for five years!
But where was the corporate media? Where was the digging? Where was the series of articles and threads on X exposing the corruption?
We got none of it. Instead, we have certain Red For Ed reporters, like Craig Harris, attacking Arizona’s popular ESA program with liberal talking points about unspent funds and alleged waste and abuse.
But if the failures of IESD weren’t enough, now we have the sordid financial tale of Tolleson Union High School District, a story so scandalous that it should make every taxpayer’s blood boil.
Bailouts, Conflicts of Interest and Stonewalling Public Record Requests
About eight months ago, Tolleson Union High School District (TUHSD) popped up in the news when they bailed out the aforementioned Isaac Elementary School District after its money woes were revealed. The transaction appeared legally questionable at the time, and after some digging by the legislature, it turns out that Tolleson is entangled in their own web of fiscal malfeasance and cronyism.
In a July hearing, TUHSD Superintendent Jeremy Calles revealed that he holds two professional roles, one as a consultant and the second as district superintendent. But here’s where it gets particularly fun. Calles not only serves as a consultant for dozens of school districts across the state, but he allegedly had a consulting relationship with Isaac Elementary School District before his district decided to bail them out. And the conflicts of interest don’t end there. At least two TUHSD employees appear to be on the payroll for Calles’ consulting business.
In an attempt to gain transparency, State Rep. Matt Gress followed up on the hearing with a reasonable public records request seeking two years of financial records from TUHSD, including purchase orders, contracts, and payments to vendors. But instead of complying, the school district responded by refusing to release electronic records and instead imposing more than $26,000 in fees for hard copies!
This is outrageous! TUHSD is behaving as if they are not accountable to anyone and that our lawmakers don’t have a right to know how the district is spending the money being appropriated to them by the state legislature. The irony and hypocrisy are ripe, especially considering the endless attacks against ESAs and a new revelation about how much superintendents are making around the state.
It Pays to Be Superintendent of TUHSD
While the state was busy untangling what transpired with the Isaac Elementary bailout, the Goldwater Institute released a report in September revealing the lucrative salary and compensation packages received by district superintendents throughout Arizona. Along with high base salaries, the report uncovered perks including car allowances, performance bonuses, generous personal and vacation leave banks that can be cashed out, and funding for private retirement accounts on top of their state pension benefits.
Guess which school superintendent is the highest paid in Arizona? That would be none other than TUHSD Superintendent Jeremy Calles, who makes nearly $500K per year in salary and perks!
But surely TUHSD must be performing far better than all the others to earn this type of compensation. Nope. Most of the schools in Tolleson are receiving “B” grades from the state, with Math and English proficiency rates below statewide and peer district marks. Also, TUHSD is also only the 16th largest district in the state.
Of course, most of this financial information had been hidden from the public, and the only reason we know about it now is because Goldwater spent months doggedly pursuing these documents. We would have never known about this if we left it up to the districts themselves or our AWOL corporate media that intentionally avoids stories that make their Red for Ed pals look bad.
$80 Million for an Indoor Domed Stadium!?
If the exorbitant administrative salaries, conflicts of interest, reckless bailouts and petty demands for record request reimbursement weren’t bad enough, it was discovered just last week that TUHSD is in the process of building an indoor football stadium that will cost taxpayers at least $80 million dollars! All under the direction of Superintendent Jeremy Calles.
During testimony at the Joint Legislative Audit Committee (JLAC), a former principal that worked at Tolleson UHSD revealed that Superintendent Calles has been lusting after this indoor stadium for years, with him going as far as trying to manipulate enrollment numbers in order to build his domed white elephant.
When questioned on why he thought it was appropriate to spend such a huge sum of money on a completely unnecessary project, he defended it by saying that “If there is any state that should have more domed stadiums…it is definitely this one.”
Contemptible may be the only word to describe this fiasco.
So, Who Really Lacks Transparency – ESAs or District Schools?
Despite all of this obscene waste, corruption, fraud and abuse found in just one of our school districts, the corporate media, Red for Ed and Governor Katie Hobbs remain obsessed with attacking the ESA program, claiming that it is unaccountable and lacks transparency.
The undeniable truth is that Arizona’s ESA program already requires an incredible amount of financial reporting from parents, and audits have turned up only a tiny percentage of actual abuse and fraud that totaled less than $1 million. Plus, when abuse is found, parents are forced to repay the funds and can even be prosecuted.
District schools by comparison to ESAs have a fraction of the financial reporting requirements. And you are dreaming if you think that Superintendent Calles (or any other administrator for that matter) will ever be forced to repay taxpayers for stonewalling record requests or for spending money on boondoggle domed stadium projects that were hidden from the public.
The reality is that ESAs are far more transparent and accountable than any school district in the state. And if the opponents of the program don’t believe that to be true, perhaps it’s time to pass legislation next year that requires every district in our state to adhere to the same reporting rules as ESAs, including repayment of misspent funds by school administrators and possible prosecution. After all, if the requirements for ESAs are as lax as its opponents claim, then meeting this standard should be no problem, right?
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 | Oct 14, 2025 | Arizona, News and Updates
What’s most likely to get your local officials fired up to fight for you? Lower utility rates? Wrong. Removing sexually explicit material from our libraries? Nope. How about just filling potholes in our roads? You’d think so. But what really gets the local officials in Chandler going is making sure they can sit on city council or as mayor longer.
Proposition 410, a local ballot measure, seeks to amend the city charter’s term limit section to extend the term for how long councilmembers and the mayor can serve. The measure is particularly problematic because it directly benefits a sitting councilmember, Matt Orlando, allowing him to run for mayor in 2026 without interruption after finishing his second consecutive council term. This proposition is not about reigning in political power; it’s about conveniently clearing the path for one councilmember to extend his political career. If it doesn’t pass in November, Orlando will face issues being elected mayor after his stint on the council, and clearly, he can’t have that.
The current city charter provision essentially says that one person can serve no more than two consecutive terms as councilmember, mayor, or a combination of both, and must wait four years before running again for either office. Therefore, someone can only serve two consecutive terms total.
However, some argue this language is ambiguous, allowing for another interpretation, one that allows a person to serve up to sixteen consecutive years: eight as a councilmember and eight as mayor. This interpretation has been the practice in Chandler for the past three mayors. Kevin Hartke, Boyd Dunn, and Jay Tibshraeny each served eight years as councilmembers and eight years as mayor – sixteen consecutive years.
The proposed language change on the ballot effectively attempts to legitimize the last three mayors by expanding the term limits in the city’s charter. It now states that a person can serve up to two consecutive terms as councilmember and two consecutive terms as mayor, sixteen years total. After reaching either limit, or a combined sixteen consecutive years in both offices, they must wait four years before running again for either position.
Why the rush for a change? Current Chandler Mayor Kevin Hartke was sued by his 2022 challenger, Ruth Jones, who alleged he was ineligible to run in 2018 for mayor because of his prior service on the city council, making him an illegitimate mayor. While she ran against him in 2022, the formal lawsuit was not filed until May of 2025. In August, a judge dismissed the case, ruling it lacked merit and thereby affirmed that Hartke, and similarly situated past mayors, were eligible to hold the office. Nevertheless, the council had already voted to place Proposition 410 on the ballot in June.
Mayor Hartke was exploring another run for city council after completing his time as mayor, but the lawsuit and controversy put those plans on hold. He is now seeking a seat in the state house in Legislative District 13 (part of Chandler and Gilbert).
Campaign signs around Chandler misleadingly claim that Prop 410 “establishes term limits” for city officials and urges voters to “keep term limits” by voting yes. If anything, this is granting more leeway to the officials, giving them more time in office. Voters need to know that this proposition is not about serving the people but about furthering the ambitions of self-interested local politicians.
The website cited on these deceptive signs, keepchandlertermlimits.com, claims that this measure “respects the voter.” It also falsely insists that it’s imperative to pass Prop 410 to “make sure those limits stay the same.” Because the current charter language is vague, claiming with confidence that this proposition won’t extend or alter term limits is misleading at best and deliberately false at worst.
Instead of pretending that this is all to the benefit of the voters, let’s be honest; this is nothing more than power-hungry officials gaslighting both themselves and the public into believing that nothing is changing. They (Matt Orlando) simply do not want to face the fact that the current city charter might hold them back from more years in office.
Chandler residents deserve transparency rather than being thrown into the middle of a political game designed to protect insiders. Be wary of the slogans and messaging that sound good but are purposely misleading. Vote NO on Proposition 410.
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by admin | Oct 7, 2025 | News and Updates
How long must taxpayers be forced to throw money at a failed plan before something is done about it? For the Maricopa Association of Governments’ (MAG) regional transportation plan—which for two decades spent billions on light-rail and other wasteful “active transportation” projects and has primed the pump for another twenty years of boondoggle spending—The Club hopes the answer is not much longer.
Since 2004, local governments through MAG have siphoned more and more funding from a transportation tax to build white elephant transit projects throughout Maricopa County. Yet MAG won’t budge from its broken plan despite collapsed ridership, worsened congestion, and ballooning costs – for projects that don’t match how people actually travel.
The good news is that with the next statutory transportation audit coming due July 2026, lawmakers on the Joint Legislative Audit Committee (JLAC) will have an opportunity to weigh in on the MAG plan and provide recommendations for change.
State law requires that these five-year audits evaluate several elements of the MAG plan, including transit service, costs, ridership, congestion, and mobility. While previous audits flagged some deficiencies, they lacked any concrete performance metrics, and on a few occasions were prepared by a firm tied to MAG (a conflict of interest). So, to further bolster the JLAC process, the Arizona Free Enterprise Club brought in a nationally recognized transportation expert to conduct an audit of the plan. The result: MAG’s plan is failing and needs a major overhaul.
Costs Are Sky-High and Rising
Previous audits narrowly reviewed costs within agency budgets, not whether investments were wise. Our audit applied business metrics such as operating cost per revenue mile, capital cost per route mile, and total cost per passenger-mile to light rail.
These tell a clear story; costs have always been high but they’re now out of control.
- The initial light-rail line cost $75 million per mile; recent extensions have topped $250 million, with the Capitol extension likely exceeding $350 million per mile.
- Ridership per route mile dropped 24% since 2014 even as driving increased.
- Post-COVID, inflation-adjusted operating costs rose sharply for both bus and rail, with administration costs rising even faster.
- Transit eats 25–30% of regional transportation funds but serves <2% of commuters. Those dollars could fund scalable bus networks instead.
Ridership is Low and Not Recovering
Transit isn’t just expensive—it’s irrelevant. Though prior audits looked at projected and actual boardings, they fail to dig any deeper. Better measures consider transit’s share of commuter miles and job access. And the results aren’t good:
- By 2019, travelers traveled 165 auto miles for every transit mile.
- Even among car-less households, 88% still chose not to commute by transit in 2023.
- Bus ridership grew 7% annually from 1998–2008, but after rail opened in late 2008, combined bus plus rail ridership fell 7% (2009–2019) despite 39% more rail miles.
- Rail serves downtown and ASU, while 98% of jobs are in dispersed edge-city centers it largely ignores.
Congestion & Mobility is Worsening
MAG’s plan also fails on congestion and mobility, though these metrics are vague in statute. Our audit uses job access within travel time and congestion delay by hours annually.
- Annual commuter delays grew faster after light rail: 1.1% annually pre-rail, 2.2% post-rail. COVID briefly paused the trend but now it is back to its pre-COVID trajectory.
- In 2015 a 10-minute auto trip reaches 354 times more jobs than transit; by 2022, that’s increased to 373 times.
- For trips up to 50 minutes, bicycles outperform transit in job access.
Billions have been spent on projects promised to reduce congestion, yet drivers sit in more traffic.
An “Active Transportation” Slush Fund
MAG wastes tens of millions on projects like pedestrian bridges and walking paths that should be local responsibilities, not regional priorities.
Perhaps the most egregious is a $30M pedestrian bridge over Rio Salado on 3rd Street, just three blocks away from an existing bridge on Central Ave. Yet it accounts for about one fifth of the active transportation budget. It connects nothing meaningful and if Mayor Gallegos wants it, Phoenix should pay for it.
Lawmakers: Audit Hard, Reset the Plan, Redirect the Money
For two decades, MAG promised rail would reduce congestion, improve mobility, and meet demand. It hasn’t. And lawmakers should act accordingly by:
First, by directing the 2026 audit to apply clear, outcome-based metrics so that MAG actually has to make a business case for the projects they’ve proposed.
If they do this the results will be predictable. They’ll show, as our audit did, that MAG’s plan is broken and needs to be fixed.
The Legislature should require reform, including stricter guardrails and statutory metrics to actually gauge performance of these systems and projects. They could shift funding toward better-designed bus networks and ridesharing services that meet real travel patterns and eliminate local “active transportation” projects or at the very least redirect them toward better projects – not bridges to nowhere.
An honest, independent audit will document MAG’s failures. Lawmakers should use that evidence to end outdated, costly plans and redirect billions toward projects people actually use.
Link to our independent MAG plan audit here: https://azfree.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/MAG-Transportation-Audit-2025_R4_Digital_FINAL.pdf
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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