MAG’s Transportation Plan Is Already Failing to Meet Promises—Lawmakers Need to Act Accordingly 

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 

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The Capitol Light Rail Extension is on Track – To Be Another Boondoggle 

The idea to extend light rail to the State Capitol has occupied the dusty shelves of bureaucratic transit plans for ages.  Phoenix first floated it in their 2000 “Transit 2000” plan, their 2015 Transportation 2050 initiative, and the concept has taken up space in every MAG and regional planning cycle since 2004. The idea’s longevity is not a testament to how good ideas endure; rather how bureaucrats remain unaffected regardless of light rail’s failure; unwilling to change course despite low ridership, high costs, high crime, or changing travel patterns. The world changes but a transit plan apparently never dies.  

In fact, it turns out it can’t be stopped from destroying the Capitol corridor even when lawmakers pass a law to stop it.   

In 2023, Republican legislators negotiated Proposition 479, Maricopa County’s half cent sales tax for transportation, which included a clause prohibiting the use of any public resources for light rail coming within 150 feet of the State Capitol.  The goal of the provision was to insulate lawmakers from the disruption and destruction caused by light rail.  This neat trick of making the “Capitol Line” someone else’s problem would likely backfire.   

Well, it turns out we were right, and what Phoenix has in store for the Capitol corridor is worse than anyone could have imagined.   

 The Light Rail Line no Neighborhood Wants 

Following the 2023 law change that scuttled the “single track” rail loop around the capitol on Adams and Jefferson Street, most assumed that the transit agency would move the line north to Van Buren. That option seems to be shelved for the moment, largely due to the outcries from the small mom and pop shops that would have been decimated by the construction and reduction of the roadway from four lanes to two.  

Now, bureaucrats are devising alternative alignments, all of which are just as disruptive and nonsensical as the next:  

  • One scheme would run the line north on 15th Avenue, west on Van Buren, then elevate at 17th Avenue to cross existing infrastructure. 
  • Another would push the line south on 15th, then west on Madison, then north on 19th with an elevated crossing beginning near Adams Street.   
  • Meanwhile, residents in the Woodland Historic District warn that at least one variant would require razing historic houses. 

The Capitol Line Will Be the Most Expensive Rail Yet 

If there is one thing light is good at, it’s burning through taxpayer cash. By 2023, the Capitol Line had already cost taxpayers $20 Million in just planning and consultant costs for the scuttled Washington street route. Millions more is now being set on fire to identify an alternative route that no one wants. 

But if Phoenix is successful in forcing this project to the construction phase, the real red ink will start bleeding.  

When Phoenix built its first rail line 20 years ago, the price tag at the time was $75 million per mile. In 2020, construction on the the South-Central extension began, which will end up costing $1.4 billion, more than triple the original estimate.  That’s a staggering $250 million per mile. 

But taxpayers should expect the Capitol Loop to make the South-Central line look affordable. Current estimates have the project coming in at $499 million, or $350 Million per mile! And this assumes it doesn’t go over budget, which it most certainly will. 

And when it’s finally built, don’t expect the paltry passengers to pick up the tab. Valley Metro recovery from fares for operating light rail was a dim 7.6% in FY 2024. Meaning over 90% of the significant operational costs are covered by the vast majority of people who don’t and will never ride it. Given how poorly previous Valley Metro projections have been, it’s fair to assume the Capitol Line isn’t going to be too crowded either, locking taxpayers into permanent operating subsidies on top of the enormous upfront capital bill. 

And Who Will Ride the Train? 

Which goes to the heart of the question. Who are we even building this route for?  Light rail ridership in Phoenix has been on a steady decline since peaking in 2014. By 2019, that number had already fallen below 40,000, and in the years since COVID, weekday boardings have hovered around 25,000–30,000. And since boardings only represent one person getting on and off (not round trip), actual ridership is half that amount.  

The result is we are spending billions, destroying neighborhoods and businesses, and increasing traffic congestion for a transit option that is being used by less than 1% of all commuters in the Phoenix metro area. 

Remote work, telecommuting, and changing travel habits, especially after COVID, likely mean transit ridership in general—let alone light rail—will never come back to pre-2014 levels. Sprinkle in the crime statistics and the recent and high-profile violent murders taking place in urban America and who can expect light rail’s popularity to rise? Even despite Valley Metro’s best propaganda to convince people they hate their cars. 

Time for the Legislature to Step Up 

This project persists not because it makes sense, but because bureaucratic inertia is stronger than common sense. Lawmakers tried to sidestep the problem in 2023 by shielding their own backyard but leaving the project itself alive. That was a mistake. The Capitol Extension is a more than half-billion-dollar boondoggle in search of riders, that will destroy properties, inconvenience drivers, and suck the pocketbooks of taxpayers dry. 

The Legislature should come back and do what it should have done in the first place: ban the Capitol Extension outright. Redirect our money toward projects that actually reduce congestion and serve commuters. The alternative is to watch hundreds of millions evaporate on a short, slow train to nowhere. 

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Page Residents VS. The Road Diet

Freedom-loving, car-driving residents of Arizona have long been fighting the constricting “road diets” local government officials, city planners, and corrupt bureaucrats have pushed for years. Proponents of these diets claim that by tearing out perfectly good vehicle lanes, everyone will somehow be safer, healthier, and probably save the planet too.  

For those of us who live under the blazing Arizona sun, we recognize this as foolishness. Road diets have not been successful accomplishing any of the goals their proponents claim they will. Instead, the result is that the streets become more congested, you’re spending more time on the road, emergency vehicles have a harder time getting around, and everyone is mad.  

Luckily the U.S. Department of Transportation under the leadership of President Trump has promised to stop funding this nonsense. After all, if local city councils are dumb enough to waste money ripping up perfectly good roads, they shouldn’t be able to use everyone else’s tax money to do it. 

Of course, unsurprisingly, the residents of those very cities often don’t want their own tax money to go to ripping up the roads they rely upon. One such city is the tiny town of Page, Arizona, where in 2022, the city council approved the “Page Downtown Streetscape Master Plan” which calls for removing vehicle lanes along a 1.4 mile stretch of Lake Powell Boulevard in the heart of the downtown area. In the small northern town, residents stood up against these restrictive, dumb transportation ideas. Page is a community known for its tourism, with visitors bringing boats and heavy gear to explore Lake Powell. For locals, these roads are lifelines for tourism, commerce, and daily living, and Page residents aren’t willing to surrender any more of their precious infrastructure.  

The council claims removing two of the four lanes will magically create MORE foot traffic, which in turn will generate more revenue for businesses in that area. Councilmember David Auge has even written in his list of priorities a goal to reduce lane widths stating that Lake Powell Boulevard can only be improved if it is narrowed.  

But residents haven’t accepted that. A strong voice against the Page road diet, founder of the Page Action Committee and current Page Councilmember, Debra Roundtree, said: 

“The proposal to reduce Lake Powell Boulevard from five lanes to three narrow lanes with back-out parking threatened numerous established businesses. Some owners considered relocating off the mesa to the Navajo reservation. Despite being vital to the community for decades, many businesses felt overlooked by city council members and the Chamber of Commerce, who suggested they move their businesses because they did not belong on Main Street. Concerns voiced by business owners about the negative effects of these changes were ignored, risking further economic decline as tourists would have avoided Page’s downtown sector, choosing to patronize businesses located off the mesa.” 

This battle has been brewing for years, with residents scoring a meaningful win when the Arizona Supreme Court ruled that the initiative to vote on the proposed road diet was legislative in nature, affirming that voters, not just the council, have the final say. This ensures that the people of Page will decide whether their main road is stripped of lanes, a change that would make commuting and traffic flow more frustrating. The measure is set for the November 2026 ballot, giving residents the chance to save the road the city wants to demolish. 

And now with their backs against the wall, the entrenched municipal political class has started saying the quiet part out loud: they don’t like it when voters have a say. Nancy Davidson of the AZ League of Cities and Towns went on record expressing how concerning it is that voters actually have a say in city projects. She warned that letting residents “second guess” city planning decisions will “wreak havoc” on all their perfect plans. How dare you citizens have opinions about your own streets? You are supposed to sit quietly, obey your council overlords, and let them destroy your infrastructure in peace!  

Of course, Page is not alone in the road diet fight. Some cities aren’t as forthcoming as Page has been about removing vehicle lanes. Many have attempted to sneak these road diets into hefty general and transportation plans that often go unnoticed by most citizens. Also known as “Complete Streets” (ironic), municipalities such as Tucson, Scottsdale, Mesa, Gilbert, and most likely the city you live in, have already introduced or implemented measures to accommodate bicycles and public transit over cars. 

Road diets are often repackaged with buzzwords like “traffic calming,” “lane narrowing,” or “Vision Zero,” but no matter how city planners and bureaucrats dress them up, they’re still the same failed experiment. In 2022, even in the extremely blue city of Philadelphia, residents expressed concerns of losing 2 of 5 traffic lanes on Washington Avenue. Their concerns regarded how that would affect emergency vehicles and add to congestion. This ultimately led to the plan being abandoned altogether. San Antonio, TX, Culver City, CA, and others have similarly had road diet plans introduced and then rejected or reversed due to the problematic nature of these plans. Arizona’s very own Scottsdale residents have fought city council in attempts to eliminate lanes along Thomas Road. 

Arizona residents can learn from our northern tourist city of Page. Citizens do indeed have a say in their local road projects despite councils and bureaucrats trying to gaslight them otherwise. So, when these anti-car, virtue-signaling, road-diet-loving activists and city councils inevitably propose plans to remove vehicle lanes, and it is inevitable, take a page out of Page’s book. And let them know you like your car, you need your car, and you don’t want to bike or take a bus to get around.  

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We’re Not Backing Down: ASU and PBS Must Answer for Colluding Against Kari Lake 

Taxpayer-funded resources should not be used to tilt the scales of any election. This isn’t a difficult concept to understand. So, when Arizona State University (ASU) and PBS were exposed for colluding to help Katie Hobbs in the 2022 governor’s race against Kari Lake, we demanded accountability. We called on Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes and Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell to launch a full investigation. After all, Arizona law is clear that universities must remain impartial and neutral in election-related activities.  

In a ridiculous decision, both Mayes and Mitchell refused to take action on our complaint. But this battle is far from over. 

The Illegal Use of Public Funds 

This all began back in 2022 when Katie Hobbs was ducking just about everyone during her campaign for governor, most especially Kari Lake. It culminated in Hobbs’ refusal to debate Lake on Arizona PBS. From there, the process should’ve been simple. According to long-standing Arizona Citizens Clean Elections Commission (AZCCEC) rules, Kari Lake should have been provided with airtime, and the AZCCEC planned to do just that. But hours before Lake’s interview was scheduled to take place, the AZCCEC learned that Arizona PBS went behind their back to schedule an exclusive interview with Katie Hobbs—moving them to postpone Lake’s interview.   

Then, last month, a series of emails came to light revealing that ASU leaders including President Michael Crow, former Arizona Republic publisher Mi-Ai Parrish, and Arizona PBS leaders allegedly colluded to jettison the debate rules to help Hobbs. This was a blatant and illegal use of taxpayer funds, and that’s why we filed a Hatch Act complaint with Mayes and Mitchell against ASU. But in a shocking and shameful decision, both decided against taking action. 

Mayes and Mitchell Abdicate Their Responsibility to Taxpayers 

In her response to our complaint Arizona AG Kris Mayes claimed to have a conflict of interest because she supposedly represents ASU. But that’s laughable. Mayes has never seemed to have a problem attacking the Department of Water Resources or going after the Department of Education over Empowerment Scholarship Accounts (ESA). Did you notice that? She only seems to claim a conflict of interest when it suits her political appetite. Additionally, Mayes was employed by ASU as a professor. Could it be that she has a financial interest in protecting the guy who signed the front of her checks? Hmmm… 

Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell was also a big disappointment, stating that her office simply “isn’t interested” in our complaint.  

Isn’t interested? We have evidence of taxpayer-funded organizations allegedly colluding to help one gubernatorial candidate over another. And her office won’t even bother to look at it? This is outrageous! Either Mitchell’s office is afraid of ASU, or she is ok with the illegal use of taxpayer resources because it targeted a politician that her office didn’t like. In both scenarios, she appears to be giving the green light for any political subdivision to break the law and engage in electioneering since apparently her office has no interest in investigating these cases.  

So while both have decided not to investigate, we believed a response to their failure to act was appropriate, so we sent a letter to both offices outlining why their decision to roll over for ASU was wrong on both the facts and the law. 

We’re Not Giving up The Fight 

While Kris Mayes and Rachel Mitchell may be content to abandon their responsibilities to Arizona taxpayers, we won’t give up the fight. That’s why we have referred our complaint to Mohave, Yuma, and Pinal County. We believe all three counties retain jurisdiction over this matter and we are hopeful their offices will take the issue much more seriously.  

The people of Arizona deserve to know that our public universities and media will be prohibited from any more collusion in future elections. That begins with accountability for both ASU and PBS. And we are hopeful that these county attorneys will be much more interested in upholding the law than Mayes and Mitchell have shown. 

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The One Big Beautiful Bill Helps Deliver on Trump’s Promise to Terminate the Green Scam on Day One 

It was Biden’s biggest “accomplishment.” The so-called Inflation Reduction Act, which he later admitted had nothing to do with inflation (it actually did, just not in the direction the name suggested) but was really about dumping billions (really trillions) into subsidizing the green new scam. It was the biggest acceleration towards the “Net Zero” climate scam resulting in utilities across the country, especially here in Arizona, spamming the grid with unreliable energy generation such as solar, wind, and battery storage, driving up rates for utility customers while shattering reliability.  

And President Trump promised on the campaign trail that he would terminate it on day one, instead committing to unleash American energy dominance, “drill, baby, drill”, and slash harmful regulations standing in the way of building affordable baseload generation. The recently passed “One Big Beautiful Bill” was the avenue to do the first.  

What finally made it through Congress and was signed into law on July 4th terminated tax credits for electric vehicles, “energy efficient” home improvements, and residential solar this year. As for the much larger credits, those subsidizing grid scale solar and wind farms, it’s much more complicated.  

The initial version coming out of the House came the closest to accomplishing what President Trump wanted. But in the Senate, things began to change. A critical element of the rollback in the House was a requirement that a project would have to “commence construction” within 60 days and be placed in service by 2028 to be eligible, when President Trump would still be in office. But this requirement was removed in initial Senate drafts, allowing, as energy expert Alex Epstein noted, for subsidies to continue until Trump’s 94th birthday

What ended up passing was neither as bad as the initial Senate drafts, nor as strong as the House version. Instead of a “commence construction” and “placed in service” requirement to obtain the credits, the projects would either have to be placed into service by 2027 or “commence construction” within the next year.  But that left a big question: what does “commence construction” mean?  

Under the Obama administration, the Treasury Department had a definition that captured any project that spent at least 5% of their total costs. As Isaac Orr and Mitch Rolling of Always On Energy point out, that would be like having a $2,500 bathroom remodeling project, purchasing a $125 vanity online, and considering yourself to have “commenced construction.” And, in the context of green new scam credits, that would mean projects could run to the trough and gulp up massive subsidies in the next few months that last for 10 years, simply by spending some money and not even touching the dirt once. 

Thankfully, following passage, President Trump issued an executive order titled, “ENDING MARKET DISTORTING SUBSIDIES FOR UNRELIABLE, FOREIGN CONTROLLED ENERGY SOURCES” to prevent this language from being gamed to spam the grid with costly and unreliable “renewables.” Last month, the Treasury published that guidance, removing the 5% safe harbor, instead requiring construction of a “significant nature” before qualifying for credits. Meaning they would have to do things that actually resemble beginning construction – pouring concrete footings, building support structures for solar panels, etc… And they excluded all of the expenses these projects were likely counting on – environmental studies, grading, planning, etc…  

If strictly enforced, this guidance could protect billions in tax dollars from being wasted on worthless projects around the country. Here in Arizona, dozens of projects are in the queue seeking to cover BLM lands to build massive solar, battery, and solar plus battery projects. Now to qualify for the credit, they will have to begin substantial work by June of next year, while also facing scrutiny from Secretary Burgum, who now must personally review and approve every proposed project. Already, the left is crying about projects in Arizona that will no longer be qualified to gobble up subsidies.  

This is a huge step in the right direction. The Green New Scam has already cost taxpayers and ratepayers hundreds of billions and devasted grids across the country with alarming reliability concerns. Now it’s imperative that the Trump administration continue to hold a strict interpretation of the new guidance, that Secretary Burgum hit the brakes on approving any new projects, and that here in Arizona, our elected officials at the Corporation Commission take up the mantle to prevent utilities from raking up subsidies so they can later burden ratepayers with more rate hikes and blackouts. 

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ASU and PBS Must Be Held Accountable for Colluding to Help Katie Hobbs in the 2022 Election 

If Katie Hobbs is thinking about what to do after her time as Governor is up, one option would be to test her skills in the Hide and Seek World Championships. After all, she proved during the 2022 gubernatorial election campaign that it’s what she’s best at.  

After dodging any request to debate her opponent Kari Lake during her campaign, Hobbs also ducked reporters who dared to question her about it. She even hid in a restaurant bathroom after another reporter asked her why she didn’t like discussing politics.  

All this hiding should have resulted in a simple decision. According to long-standing Arizona Citizens Clean Elections Commission (AZCCEC) rules, an opponent (in this case Kari Lake) should have been provided with airtime when a candidate (in this case Katie Hobbs) refused to debate. And the AZCCEC planned to do just that. But hours before Kari Lake’s interview was scheduled to take place, the AZCCEC learned that Arizona PBS went behind their back to schedule an exclusive interview with Katie Hobbs—moving them to postpone Lake’s interview.  

If you think all this reeks of collusion, you’re right. And now, a public records request has made it clear. Katie Hobbs wasn’t playing hide and seek alone. She was purposefully aided by leadership at Arizona State University (ASU) and at PBS.  

Earlier this month, a series of emails came to light revealing that ASU leaders including President Michael Crow, former Arizona Republic publisher Mi-Ai Parrish, and Arizona PBS leaders allegedly favored Hobbs over Lake during the 2022 Arizona gubernatorial election. Crow even went as far to say in one of his emails that jettisoning the debate rules to help Katie Hobbs was necessary because of “the fact that it is our venue and brand. We need structure…and format…….and….people who believe in elections as participants.” 

How do you like that? The President of ASU thinks that he has the right to abuse his authority if it means stopping his political opponents. Hubris and arrogance appear to be endless at our ivory institutions.  

All this represents a perfect storm of how our major educational institutions and the media are blinded by ideology, self-righteousness, and a sense of moral superiority. In their arrogance, they are willing to cross lines and break the very laws they accuse their opponents of violating. It’s outrageous. And we don’t have to stand for it.  

Thankfully, Arizona Senate President Warren Petersen has called on the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to investigate Arizona PBS for its role in this collusion and its blatant viewpoint discrimination and have their FCC license revoked. And just last week, we here at the Arizona Free Enterprise Club filed a Hatch Act complaint against ASU for using public resources to influence the 2022 gubernatorial election.  

This was a blatant misuse of taxpayer-funded university resources to tilt the scales of a gubernatorial election. And Arizona law is clear that universities must remain impartial and neutral in election-related activities.  

That’s why we’re calling on Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes and Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell to launch a full investigation and pursue all appropriate remedies, including civil penalties. ASU leaders can certainly enjoy their First Amendment right to express their opinions in their personal capacities during their free time. But they cannot be allowed to get away with using university resources—including compensated personnel time, university email systems, and other university assets—to subsidize their favored political candidates.  

It’s time to ensure that the people of Arizona won’t be subjected to any more collusion from universities and the media in future elections. And that begins with accountability for both ASU and PBS. 

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