4-7-17 AZ NOW Leg ACTION ALERT

Actions at the Governor’s desk

To no one’s surprise, Ducey signed SB1367 on 3/31 mandating legislative interference into medical science and family decisions. SB1254 that allows charter schools to refuse to admit children who are in a school with a desegregation order passed the House 33 to 24, pretty much on party line. It was sent to the Governor on April 6. Urge Ducey to VETO it.SB1071 allows a person with a criminal conviction to get provisional licenses for vocations with criminal convictions. It was amended to include the graduated sanctions bill for DOC i.e. rather than put a technical parole violator back in prison, give said person graduated sanctions to both aid re-entry and save prison bed money. It passed the House on April 5. Urge Ducey to SIGN it.SB 1253 allows cops in an administrative investigation to review the video and give any additional information. They are read a statement before doing so about the fact that video testimony may be different from what the officer recalls and s/he need not explain. It’s not as bad as it was, but still urge Ducey to VETO it.SB1342 requires search warrants for tracking devices and cell simulators (sting ray). It passed the House on April 6. Urge Ducey to SIGN it.HB2477 is a little out of our wheel house but is an important bill as it curbs the ability of police to seize your property and keep it without even charging you with or proving you committed a crime. Property forfeiture in AZ has grown to be a cottage industry with law enforcement. It’s a good thing when it’s the proceeds of a crime; but it’s a bad thing when it’s not. The bill requires law enforcement to at least show probable cause that there is a relation between the property seized and the proceeds of a crime. Reasonable enough. But Maricopa County prosecutor Bill Montgomery is lobbying Ducey not to sign the bill. If you are concerned, urge Ducey to SIGN the bill.

Senate President Steve Yarbrough
[email protected]
602.926.5863Speaker of the House JD Mesnard
[email protected]
602.926.4481.Of course you will want to have the email and phone numbers of your own legislative district Senator and two Representatives. If you don’t know, go to this web site:http://www.azleg.gov/findmylegislator/
and find out.If a bill gets to Governor Ducey’s desk, his contact is:

The Legislative Committee of Central Phoenix Inez Casiano NOW chapter is always happy to have new members. We are not only scrambling to finish this session, but already planning for next year to have even more impact. You don’t need any special skills. we’ll teach you all you need to know! If you are interested or curious, please do join us.

Featured Items

Like the anti-woman bill (SB1367) before it, SB1431 – empowerment scholarships, expansion, phase in – went sailing through the Senate and House and to the governor in one day, April 6. This whole idea was dead early on in the session. But at the behest of Ducey, it has arisen. In spite of tremendous opposition including from the Arizona Republic, in spite of the State’s own estimate that it will cost the state budget $2.1 million in 2018; $5.8 million in 2019; $12.9 million in 2020 and $24.5 million in 2021, it passed the Senate 16-13 as amended on April 6 and was sent to the House. The vote was mostly party line except that Brophy-McGee voted against it.In the House, with of course no committee hearings so no opportunity for public input, it passed 31 to 28 on party lines and was whisked away to the governor’s desk suite. So this is your answer to what comes after Prop 123 – step 4 is to turn Arizona’s public schools over to for-profit companies. These schools often do a poor of education, discriminate against children and oppress staff. Businesses are refusing to come to AZ because we do not have an educated workforce; our graduation rate is one of the worst; we spend less per student than Mississippi. Yet all the governor and his minions can think to do is suck more money out of the state budget for private, for-profit schools. This is his welfare plan – for the rich.

The resurrection of “empowerment scholarships” at the behest of Ducey is an example of what happens as the legislators sit around waiting for the budget to be finalized. They have too much time on their hands and start doing the devil’s work. Unfortunately, they don’t have to post agendas until the day of the hearing so normal people who have to work for a living cannot know what is going on. Keep your eyes and ears open to the news daily and sign up to every “alert” you can find. Take action.