Arizona’s 10 Ballot Propositions: The Good, the Bad & the Ugly (video)

Posted on by Pamela J. Powers
Arizona Ballot Propositions

Arizonans will face a long ballot when they cast their votes in the November 8, 2022 election. Besides voting on statewide, legislative, judicial and school board candidates, there are 10 propositions on the ballot. Of the 10 propositions, eight were referred to the voters by the Legislature. For the Legislature to make a ballot referral, the body must pass enabling legislation. Six of the legislative referrals are bad ideas that limit the rights of Arizonans or attempt to game the system. Five of them are Constitutional Amendments.

My views on the propositions are in the graphic. Below, you can read more about the propositions and watch the two part video from The Arizona Ground Game (TAGG) Speed Dating the Ballot Propositions event held on Sept. 17, 2022 and inserted at the end.

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Podcast: Rep. PPH Capitol Updates: Taxes Breaks & Voter Suppression to the Border Wall

Posted on by Pamela J. Powers
A View from the Left Side podcast

Season 2, Episode 5 of A View from the Left Side is a compilation of Legislative Updates from Arizona House member Rep. Pamela Powers Hannley. These updates were recorded in late February and early March 2022. They range in topic from tax breaks and trickledown economics to bullying in the Arizona House, nursing workforce development, fixing the housing crisis, funding the Border Wall, and remembering Senator Olivia Cajero-Bedford.

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Republicans Push 100 Bills to Discourage Voting & Sow Chaos (video)

Posted on by Pamela J. Powers
Rep. Pam Powers Hannley on voter suppression by Republicans

Arizona Republicans are passing one voter suppression bill after another. In this video, I highlight a handful of voter suppression bills that were heard on the same day. Many more have passed either the Senate or the House. This is just the tip of the 100-bill voter suppression iceberg that is on a collision course with your right to vote.

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Podcast: Arizonans Fight Back Against #AZGOP with Six Referenda (video)

Posted on by Pamela J. Powers
Rep. PPH Podcast

If you followed my Legislative video updates during the 2021 session, you already know that it was a grueling session that lasted two months longer than the 100-day target for Legislative sessions in Arizona. Republicans generally prefer to push bills through the process as soon as possible before the people catch wind of what they are proposing and show up to protest.

Why did the Republicans drag out this session? Because they spent two months twisting members’ arms on the budget and making individual backroom deals to buy votes.

With their extreme hubris and entitlement on full display during the 2021 session, Republican Legislators acted as if their one vote margin was a mandate to impose authoritarian government and crushing austerity on future generations, while suppressing the vote, further reducing women’s rights, and secretly pumping up mandatory sentencing. (The failed mandatory sentencing laws that Republicans unconstitutionally stuffed into the budget were discussed in Episode 1 of this podcast.)

The result was that some of the most extreme bills proposed in my five years in the Arizona House were debated and passed — or inappropriately shoved into the budget. Stuffing multiple Republican Legislators’ failed pet bills into the budget just to buy their votes on the Flat Tax, the alternative tax for small business, and other fiscally irresponsible ideas is a dangerous trend. Instead of negotiating with the 29 Democrats in the House, the 31 Republicans did everything they could to pass laws to take away the financial benefit of Prop 208 Invest in Ed to public education and automatically eliminate more than one billion dollars a year in new tax revenue from future budgets.

Continue reading Podcast: Arizonans Fight Back Against #AZGOP with Six Referenda (video)

Arizona Republicans Pass More Voter Suppression Bills (video)

Posted on by Pamela J. Powers
voter suppression in Arizona

Each session has a pattern. This year, everything seems more orderly. We have had only one night where we were on the floor past 7 PM. Mondays generally have a leisurely pace, now that there are no committee meetings, but Thursday’s make up for it with rousing debates.

Arizona House members had several debates on voter suppression and unnecessary election tinkering on April 29. Three bad election bills passed on a party line vote. The worst one sets up a differential system for paper ballots that have missing, messed up or non-matching signatures. Ballots with missing signatures can be cured only up to 7 PM on the night of the election, while messed up signatures can be cured for up to five days after the election.

People whose first language is not English are more likely to not sign their ballots, according to Rep. Jasmine Blackwater-Nygren from LD7. People, who are older and whose handwriting may be impaired or changing due to a medical diagnosis, would end up in the five-day signature resolution pile. You can see why this two-tiered system for signature curing matters. Also, many people drop their completed paper ballots off at the polling place. Those ballots are usually counted AFTER election day. Any of those ballots without signatures wouldn’t be counted at all if SB1003 is signed into law.

The Navajo Nation sued the state of Arizona over this issue in 2018 and won. Why are the Republicans putting into law, the very system on which we lost in court? SB1003 is a terrible bill.
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What Did #AZLeg Do in the First 100 Days?

Posted on by Pamela J. Powers
Phoenix

For many years, the Arizona Legislature has had a 100 day target for the length of each session. April 20, 2021 was day 100 for this session. When more than 1000 bills are proposed every year and more than 300 are usually signed into law in non-pandemic years, the Legislature doesn’t generally finish in 100 days.

So, what did we do in the first 100 days? Here are a few examples of bills that have been signed by the governor. Below is the complete list of 33 video updates that I have created in 2021 … so far.

The Legislature passed two massive corporate tax giveaways that will primarily help Maricopa County — the qualified facilities tax credit (HB2321) and the data center tax incentive (HB2649).  Fun Fact: according to the Financial Advisory Committee, 90 percent of the job creation touted by Governor Doug Ducey has been in the Phoenix metro area. Bills like HB2321 and HB2649 perpetuate the inequitable system that exists in our state.

We passed a passed another Ducey priority, the  massive expansion of gambling (HB2772/SB1797), which legalizes sports betting, fantasy sports betting, and app-based Keno. In exchange for additional casinos and a portion of the app-based gambling action, the tribes backed and heavily lobbied for expanding off-reservation gambling. Since most of the new tribal casinos and all of the major league sports teams are in Maricopa County, the millions generated from gambling will disproportionately benefit Maricopa County. I have serious concerns about the negative public health and privacy aspects of this dramatic expansion. Gambling will be everywhere, and gambling apps will be hounding people on social media — thanks to HB2772. Every click, every bet, every win, every loss, and every betting location on every app-based gambler will be collected, stored, and used to advertise more gambling.

Ducey surprisingly vetoed Cathi Herrod’s bad bill which put ideological guardrails on what can be taught in sex education (SB1456). A second Center for Arizona Policy bill which criminalizes doctors and patients for even talking about abortion (SB1457) is awaiting the governors signature (or veto) at the time of this writing.

Many bills are stuck in the process somewhere, which is a good thing. Arizona would be in terrible condition if all of the tax giveaways, voter suppression schemes, and education privatization bills passed. In my opinion, Democrats should push for a speedy end to this horrible session, so the Legislature doesn’t do any more damage to our state or take away more of our rights.

There are many other examples. Check out the good, the bad and the ugly. Below is a list of my video updates for 2021 … so far.

Continue reading What Did #AZLeg Do in the First 100 Days?