by admin | Jan 19, 2023 | Misc, News and Updates
The people of Arizona do not want to turn our state into the next California. But just a few weeks into her reign as governor, Katie Hobbs has made it clear—that’s exactly what she intends to do. Last week, Hobbs released her first budget plan, and it’s nothing more than a liberal wish list of big spending, extreme proposals, and corporate welfare designed to reward her special interest friends.
Her first target is education, and she wasted no time going after Arizona’s expansion of Empowerment Scholarship Accounts (ESAs). Yes, the program that is so popular that it overwhelmed the Department of Education’s website immediately after launch—the one that even some Democrats have openly supported. Despite being a private schooler herself, Hobbs wants to dismantle school choice for all with a full repeal of universal ESAs. And that’s just the start.
While seeking to prohibit minority children and low-income families from choosing their K-12 school, Hobbs also wants to use your tax dollars to subsidize college tuition for illegal immigrants. On the heels of the narrow passage of Prop 308 in this November’s election, Hobbs proposed a budget of $40 million to establish a new tuition scholarship program for Deferred Action Childhood Arrival (DACA) eligible students. This means that, using your taxpayer dollars, illegal immigrants will now be paying less for college than in-state students! (But hey, at least we have Biden’s student loan forgiveness program. Oh wait…that turned out to be the complete failure we predicted it would be.)
In addition to her focus on public education spending, Hobbs’ plan contains a massive expansion of government-funded health care. It includes $463.5 million and $115.8 million in federal fund expenditure authority to utilize year three of federal funding given directly to AHCCCS and the Department of Economic Security respectively. It sets aside $257 million for AHCCCS program caseload growth and the unwinding of federal COVID-19 policies. And consistent with her view that no laws limiting abortion should exist, Hobbs put $6 million toward “family planning services.” But that’s not all.
No liberal budget is complete without bowing down at the altar of AOC’s Green New Deal. So, of course, Hobbs pledged $15 million to install more electric vehicle charging stations despite evidence that debunks their so-called “green” benefits. And along with a myriad of other “green” transit projects, she proposed using $7.5 million toward an interstate commuter rail in Phoenix. That seems like it would go well with another decision in her budget—to eliminate Arizona’s border strike force. Illegal immigration is at an all-time high, and our state has seen a stark increase in the amount of illegal immigrants apprehended with one or more prior criminal convictions. But Hobbs wants to turn a blind eye to the problem while providing illegal immigrants with easier access to Phoenix through a commuter rail. What could go wrong?
We are at a crucial moment in our state, and now is not the time to waver or give in. The Decline to Sign movement to defend school choice showed us that when we fight back, we can win. Now, Republicans need to stand united against Katie Hobbs’ radical budget. Otherwise, she’ll get her ultimate wish—that Arizona resembles our neighbors to the west.
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!
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by admin | Jan 17, 2023 | Elections, News and Updates
From their pulpit at press conferences, they shrugged off questions and concerns about the potential for long lines on election day and whether they would have their voting centers properly equipped. For weeks, the mainstream media blasted out to Arizonans that they are competent election officials, about to implement the “safest, most secure” election in history.
Then it all came crumbling down in what was one of the worst election days in recent history. Long lines, yes. But more importantly, critical equipment failures resulted in the complete inability to tabulate ballots at dozens of voting locations for several hours. It didn’t stop there. The issues persisted in the coming weeks for Maricopa County, who responded to requests for information with hostility. And then, we found out Pinal County (following major problems in their primary election) had miscounted hundreds of ballots, shrinking the already miniscule gap between the candidates for attorney general.
Two months later, these issues are still being litigated. But regardless of how the election contests being pursued by Kari Lake and Abe Hamadeh turn out, nothing changes the fact that Maricopa and Pinal Counties bungled the election.
Going forward, Arizona must learn from what happened, craft meaningful solutions, and focus efforts on productive goals ahead of 2024.
We Need a Legitimate Investigation into Maricopa and Pinal Counties
What happened in Maricopa and Pinal Counties is nothing short of a disaster. Internal reviews or nontransparent “audits” conducted by the counties themselves won’t cut it. We need a thorough and transparent investigation into what led to the various issues in these counties to find out what really happened. Why did so many printers malfunction the morning of the election? Why did it take more than half the day to fix them? Why were early ballots not counted before they were transported from the voting centers? These and numerous other questions demand real answers.
At this time, the state legislature is the only entity capable of sufficiently investigating the election day failures. Lawmakers may look to do it themselves, but it may make more sense to hire an independent investigator to conduct the work. An ex-prosecutor or judge would make the most sense given their experience with conducting investigations and executing subpoenas (which the legislature has the authority to do). The cloud surrounding the election offices in Maricopa and Pinal won’t be lifted until a thorough and transparent investigation is completed.
We Must Defend and Enforce New Election Integrity Laws
It’s important to remember that in the last two legislative sessions, lawmakers and the governor did enact dozens of meaningful election reforms. Just last session, two of the most critical were signed. Together these two laws will ensure only qualified, U.S. citizens are able to register to vote (HB2492) and that only eligible voters remain registered by requiring regular voter roll maintenance (HB2243). Both laws went into effect on January 1st of this year.
Unsurprisingly, the Left (including the Biden administration) has filed multiple lawsuits in federal court to stop these laws that will prevent illegals from voting and clean up the voter rolls from impacting the 2024 election. HB 2492 and HB 2243 must be staunchly defended in court, but that is not likely to happen with Democrat Kris Mayes currently occupying the office of attorney general.
Recently, the Republican National Committee successfully intervened in the case, meaning the laws, now in effect, still have some protection. But the better news is that Republicans retained their majorities in both legislative chambers. Now we need them, the individuals who passed these bills into law, to intervene in these lawsuits as well and protect their work to ensure only qualified individuals are registered and voting in our elections.
We Should Proactively Litigate to Hold Election Officials Accountable
What can’t be denied from this past election is that counties and their election officials are acting lawlessly when it comes to implementing elections. It’s not always that we need new laws or reforms to existing statutes. First and foremost, what we need is for current laws to be enforced.
The Left has been involved in proactive lawfare for years, making every election cycle more and more litigious as they sue over every commonsense reform conservatives enact. Most importantly, these liberal groups do not wait for the election to start filing lawsuits. Unlike our side, the bulk of their legal activity occurs outside of election season, seeking change through the courts while most are not paying attention.
Our side must start engaging in this fight as well, to ensure that existing laws—like maintaining chain of custody for early ballots between the voting center and central count facility, not allowing early ballots to be injected into the system at a private vendor (Runbeck), and others that were potentially ignored in 2022—are faithfully adhered to moving forward.
We Need to Continue Pushing for Good Election Integrity Policy at the Legislature
Katie Hobbs is not likely to sign any good election integrity proposals, but that doesn’t mean the legislature should stop doing its job—legislating and governing on behalf of the voters who elected them.
For example, Arizona voters are tired of the weeks-long tabulation process, with drops of new ballots here and there over the course of two or more weeks. We deserve to know, or at least have a good idea, who has won on election night. Last session, Senator J.D Mesnard tried to accomplish that with SB1362 to require counties to tabulate the early ballots of voters who appear at a voting location on election day after showing ID. The bill did pass and was signed into law, but through the process it became permissive, simply allowing the counties to offer the opportunity to voters.
This session, lawmakers should mandate it. That would provide voters more options for casting their ballots, increase the number of voters showing ID before casting a ballot, and increase confidence and transparency in the process by eliminating the possibility of those ballots being adjudicated. This would allow voters to tabulate their own ballots themselves and work toward the goal of obtaining results on election night.
Reforms like this increase both access and security, making it easy to vote and hard to cheat. It is a commonsense proposal. There are and will be others too, and Republicans should work to get them passed and on to Katie Hobbs’ desk.
Whether it’s in litigation, through the legislature exercising its oversight authority, or lawmakers crafting commonsense reforms, there is still work to be done. And there is ample opportunity for Arizona voters to have secure elections in which they have confidence in the results, regardless of the outcome.
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 | Jan 12, 2023 | Misc, News and Updates, Uncategorized
For the last two years, Republicans have been winning the education debate, and Democrats are not happy. Public education has long been their baby, using it to indoctrinate children with their radical ideas all while deceiving voters into outrageous tax increases.
But after watching Republican Tom Horne win the race for Arizona’s Superintendent of Public Instruction this November—while 19 conservatives picked up school board seats—Democrats went into a tailspin. That’s why it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that Governor Katie Hobbs is willing to do whatever it takes to change the narrative, including lying to voters about K-12 education spending.
In Hobbs’s first State of the State address delivered earlier this week, she got right to work—claiming that our schools are woefully underfunded and that “investments” in our schools are long overdue. Right on cue, the liberal and anti-school choice Arizona Republic swooned over her comments. But there’s a problem: Hobbs’s assertion just isn’t true.
Funding for K-12 education in Arizona is at its highest level in state history. And the reason we know this is because there is a constitutional expenditure limit—which Hobbs couldn’t help but attack in her address. But this limit, which was approved by voters, isn’t some subjective cap that legislators can manipulate to cover up how much or how little is being spent. It’s an objective formula used by the Department of Revenue every year to determine funding levels based on student population, plus inflation, plus an additional 10% on top of that.
Do you know what that amounted to for Fiscal Year 2022? $14,326 per student. That’s the highest per pupil spending in state history! The FY 2023 budget passed last June put hundreds of millions more into the K-12 bucket! And yet, Democrats continue to push the lie that our schools are underfunded.
That’s why it’s time for Republicans to step up and forcefully push back against this narrative from the Left. It is nothing more than a ploy by Democrats to change the education debate because they know that they have been losing so badly on the issue. And that’s because for the last two years, Republicans have been focused on what matters most: parental rights, school choice, accountability, and stopping the woke indoctrination in our schools.
But Hobbs wants to turn back the clock to 2019, when the entire education debate was focused on how much money we should plow into K-12 schools while many in the GOP cowered from Red4ED and capitulated to their demands. We ended up with Prop 208 because of this failed strategy. And that would have made Arizona a high tax state had it not been for litigation pushed by the Free Enterprise Club and the Goldwater Institute challenging the constitutionality of the plan killing it once and for all.
Republicans can’t make the same mistake this time by getting pulled back into a bidding war on the education issue. Momentum is on our side, and that’s why it’s critical for the GOP to reject Hobbs’s premise that schools are underfunded while staying laser focused on the parental rights and school choice messages that will continue to lead to success on this issue.
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 | Dec 22, 2022 | News and Updates, Tax
Arizona taxpayers are tired. It’s bad enough that our state has been getting crushed by the highest inflation rate in the country, but during this past November’s election, the government tried to swoop in and take more of your hard-earned dollars out of your wallet. This time, Arizona voters said enough is enough. Not only did they reject several tax increases, but they ensured victory for one key protection against future tax increases.
Arizonans Reject Prop 310
Prop 310 aimed to increase the statewide sales tax by 0.1% to fund fire districts throughout Arizona, and its proponents used the oldest trick in the book. Just like we’ve seen with past education or transportation tax increases, they tried to convince voters that Prop 310 would only cost them a penny when they buy coffee or a dime when they buy dinner.
But Arizona voters saw through it—with 53% of the people rejecting the tax.
The fact is that Prop 310 would have been a massive tax increase. The Commonsense Institute estimated that it would have cost taxpayers $5.5 billion over the next 20 years while resulting in the loss of thousands of jobs. But the problem with Prop 310 wasn’t just that it was bad tax policy, it was lazy legislating. Arizona currently has a $5 billion surplus and will likely have another one in the coming year, thanks to prior tax cuts. Saying no to this tax hike on the ballot doesn’t mean that the people of Arizona said no to public safety. It just means that our state’s lawmakers need to do their jobs and create a plan that doesn’t burden taxpayers further.
Transportation Taxes Fail in Pinal County and Kingman
Earlier this year, the Arizona Supreme Court ruled against a Pinal County transportation tax scheme in a lawsuit brought by the Goldwater Institute. So, how did the county respond? It pushed for Prop 469 on the ballot—a half-cent sales tax that the county claimed would be used for a long list of transportation projects and programs through the next 20 years.
But Pinal County voters have a good memory, and they’re tired of the government wasting their hard-earned dollars or trying to illegally take more money from them. So, they voted down this ill-conceived tax increase. And they’re not the only ones who rejected a transportation tax in this November’s election. Kingman residents joined them by saying no to Prop 415—a 0.56% sales tax increase for single items below $10,000 to fund residential street repair and maintenance.
The Success of Prop 132 Will Protect Against Future Tax Increases
As important as the rejection of these tax increases was, it is the success of Prop 132 that gives taxpayers the most hope for the future. With its passing, this constitutional amendment will require a 60 percent majority vote of the people on any ballot measure that seeks to raise your taxes.
Not only does this super majority reflect the current process for tax increases in the state legislature, but it will put a check on out-of-state special interests that want to increase Arizona’s taxes to fund their schemes. Now, thanks to Prop 132, if we’re going to ask the people of Arizona to part with more of their paycheck, it will need to be for something that has broad agreement from every part of the state. And that is critical because tax increases should never be taken lightly—especially in the midst of a worsening economy, rising inflation, and high gas prices. The people of Arizona recognized this in November’s election, and now we can all truly enjoy massive tax cuts starting in 2023.
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 | Dec 15, 2022 | News and Updates
In this past November’s election, Arizona voters were misled into passing Prop 211. Billed as the “Voters’ Right to Know Act” that’s supposed to “Stop Dark Money” in our state, it sounds harmless enough. But that was all a part of the clever messaging from its campaigners—like former Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard—to scare the average person into voting “yes.”
Unfortunately, it worked. But Prop 211 is unconstitutional, and that’s why the Arizona Free Enterprise Club, in partnership with the Center for Arizona Policy and the Goldwater Institute, filed a lawsuit to stop the Act from being enforced.
Prop 211 Threatens Donor Privacy
Every American should be free to peacefully support causes they believe in without being harassed or intimidated. But the broadly written Prop 211 puts this in significant jeopardy.
The Act requires groups or entities that spend over $50,000 on “campaign media spending” in a statewide race or $25,000 in any other race to disclose the names, mailing addresses, occupations, and identities of employers of donors who gave more than $5,000 to the organization during that election cycle. And it requires the organization to disclose its top three donors regardless of whether their money was used for “campaign media spending.”
This is just another attempt to target, harass, and dox conservatives who won’t submit to the Left’s agenda. And if you don’t think this happens, think again. Just ask Brendan Eich, who was forced to step down from his position as Mozilla CEO several years ago after it was made public that he donated money to support a California initiative that aimed to define marriage as between one man and one woman. Or you could also talk to our staff here at the Club, who have received numerous phone calls and voicemails threatening violence—including one staff member whose car was vandalized for engaging in public communications on our behalf.
Prop 211 Threatens Free Speech
Both the U.S Constitution and the Arizona Constitution guarantee citizens the right to speak freely, which includes the right to not be forced to speak. Prop 211 not only violates this right for donors by silencing them from supporting causes they believe in, but it impairs the speech of nonprofits like the Club as well.
The Act’s definition of “campaign media spending” includes any public communication that “promotes, supports, attacks, or opposes” a candidate within six months of an election or even “refers” to a candidate ninety days before a primary election. In other words, pointing out a favorable (or unfavorable) vote by an incumbent lawmaker in an article, blog, or social media post by the Club would trigger enforcement and compliance with Prop 211 starting in January of an election year. And if you think that by simply avoiding traditional campaign media spending (sending out a mailer, airing a TV commercial, etc.) will protect you from Prop 211, think again. The measure applies to all “research, design, production…or any other activity conducted in preparation for” a public communication about a candidate. Since writing articles and producing social media posts have a cost, we would have to calculate and regularly track how much staff time and office resources are used to produce these materials.
This level of onerous accounting is almost impossible and would drastically limit the Club’s public communications during legislative sessions and through the campaign season. That is why, as we state in our lawsuit, that Prop 211 will force us to cease many of the activities and publications that are not even campaign related in order to avoid the absurd dragnet and complex regulatory labyrinth established by this Act.
On top of that, this hopelessly vague standard is left to the loose discretion of the Arizona Clean Elections Commission—a group that has often been at odds with our organization in past ballot initiative campaigns and litigation, including a landmark U.S. Supreme Court case that significantly reduced the Commission’s power.
Now, it’s in the hands of the Maricopa County Superior Court, who may want to take a look at another recent U.S. Supreme Court decision in the case of Americans for Prosperity v. Bonta. In its decision, the high court struck down a similar law out of California because the First Amendment protects the freedom to support organizations and nonprofits anonymously. That means Prop 211 is unconstitutional, and the Maricopa County Superior Court needs to make that clear.
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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