Today was a red letter day for the state of Arizona. The Arizona House debated — at length— three competing bills on distracted driving and texting while driving.
The Democrats backed the clean texting while driving bill proposed by Rep. Noel Campbell. He worked with Rep. Cesar Chavez (who had had a texting bill that died in committee) to bring this bipartisan bill forward. Many family members, who lost loved ones to texting while driving, were in the gallery for this historic day.
The Democrats voted “no” on two of the three bills. The Mesnard bill was way too broad and included lots of different activities that could be construed as distracted driving. The Democrats were concerned that this would impinge upon peoples’ civil rights and lead to racial profiling. (Because of our principled stance, the Republicans dubbed us the “Perfection Caucus.” Aren’t they the Perfection Caucus since ~90% or more of the bills that make it through the process are their bills, even three are 48% of the House?)
The Brophy McGee bill was amended with language to make texting while driving a secondary offense, and the Democrats voted “no” because of that amendment. All of the cities that have texting while driving bans categorize texting as a primary offense. So, the amendment to make it a secondary offense would have been preemption.
Bother the Mesnard and Campbell bills passed and were sent to the governor.
This will save lives.
Please support SB1001 to repeal the extraordinarily harsh $32 fee on the poor and those who are preserving older vehicles.
I support a sliding fee which would charge little or nothing to people who drive older, less expensive cars and significantly more to people who drive new, expensive cars. Our license plates are done that way. I think this fee to fund the Department of Public Safety should be the same. ALSO– we could eliminate some of those corporate tax cuts to ease our financial situation.