Hey! Your MesaZona is busy enough already getting a grip on the Mesa City Council - never mind what Arizona State makers-of-laws have up-their-sleeves!
The session ends today. Let the fun begin . . .
Arizona lawmakers introduced 1,289 bills this session.
Proposed bills that never received hearings died silently in the Arizona Legislature this week, the last week for committees to hear bills in their chamber of origin.
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ERA, criminal justice reform, legislative immunity bills
left to die
Arizona Capitol Times-3 hours ago
Arizona lawmakers introduced 1,289 bills this session, but a slew has already ... Mark Finchem of Oro Valley and Kelly Townsend of Mesa were never even ...
Here are some choice excerpts:
Among them is the push to repeal legislative immunity, which made headlines when it deliberately stalled in the House because Speaker Rusty Bowers declined to move the measure forward.
But other notable legislation, including Arizona’s attempt to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment, several criminal justice reform measures, also hit a wall.
Red for Ed supporters, however, can rejoice because a series of controversial bills targeting educators had not been assigned to committees yet, spelling their apparent doom.
Ideas contained in dead bills could still be revived via amendments later in the legislative process, but their likelihood of success is just as grim.
Equal Rights Amendment
Arizona could have been the final state to adopt the amendment.
Perhaps the most high profile legislation that failed to get committee hearings before the deadline carried national implications for women.
Arizona Democrats failed in their third attempt to push the Legislature to vote on ratifying the Equal Rights Amendment, which seeks to amend the U.S. Constitution to bar discrimination on account of sex.
WHY?
Democrats lost a key ally when freshman Sen. Tyler Pace withdrew his support on January 31. Two other Republicans in the chamber had expressed support for the measure, and, along with Tyler’s backing, Democrats would have had the votes to pass ERA in the Senate.
In the end, the number of floor votes didn’t matter because the ERA bills never got a hearing in Senate Judiciary, which is chaired by Sen. Eddie Farnsworth. In the House, Rusty Bowers never assigned the legislation to a committee.
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In God We Trust
Public outrage – local and national – was not enough to sustain Mendez’s bill that sought to repeal the statute authorizing “In God We Trust” specialty license plates.
Almost a year before session began, the Secular Coalition of Arizona enlisted the Democratic senator’s help in revealing that the license plates help fund an organization that the atheist group says attacks the LGBT community.
Mendez, D-Tempe found out from the Arizona Department of Transportation that the “In God We Trust” specialty plates are funding the Alliance Defending Freedom, which The New York Times described as the largest legal force of the religious right.
But Mendez’s SB1463 never got a committee hearing
