Hopefully you’ve noticed that we moved off of Substack a few weeks ago.

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We’ve had many people ask why we moved. And we have many reasons.

A big one is that Substack is a percentage-based system, meaning the more we grow, the more money Substack takes as its cut. Substack charges 10% of our subscription revenue to use its platform, and that starts to sting when you realize that that could pay for half of a reporter.1

But more than that, Substack has changed since we first joined in 2021.

And the direction it’s heading — more algorithm, more social media — just doesn’t mesh with the direction we’re heading. If Substack had put half as much effort into improving its email system as it did into trying to compete with Twitter, we might not have moved.

And, of course, there’s the Nazi issue.

Being associated with a platform that hosts literal Nazi publications goes against our core values. But honestly, this isn’t just a Substack problem. Fascism is an American problem that goes much deeper than a handful of publications or a single platform. These bastards are everywhere these days.

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We don’t want to hear from some corporate schmuck that the Agenda violates their terms of agreement, just as we don’t want to hear from some government goon that the Agenda is fake news and therefore must be silenced.

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We credit the company for having the vision to build what they’ve built and change the entire media landscape. Without Substack, we’d still be working for terrible corporations that own most of our news ecosystem (yeah, we’re looking at you, Gannett). Or maybe we’d be flipping burgers.

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Besides our two flagship newsletters, we’ve also parlayed your support into launching three weekly publications focusing on some of the most important issues facing Arizona: education, artificial intelligence and water. (Subscribe!)

Our relationship with Substack has always been a business arrangement. And at the end of the day, we made a business decision that Substack is no longer the right home for us.

So we moved!

Recently, we were talking to a local news reporter who was thinking of going independent and had noticed our move away from Substack. They asked if we thought it was a bad idea to launch their publication on Substack.

On the contrary. Substack is still a great turnkey operation, and many of its tools help budding publications grow. And it’s mostly idiot proof.

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Two years ago, we sent you a guide to the “power players” at the Legislature that was among our most-read editions of all time.1

A lot has changed in the past two years — new lawmakers, new leaders, new political dynamics.

And some things never change, like the legislative process, the influence of lobbyists, and the pettiness of our politicians.

But it’s always good to have a refresher!

So today, we’ve got a write-through of that story explaining the Capitol power players for 2026.

Also, today is our final post on Substack!

Starting Monday, the Agenda family of newsletters will be coming to you from Beehiiv, our new email platform. We’re super stoked about this move, which will save us some money — but more importantly, will allow us to build better emails and an online home to share tools, resources, stories and more outside of the daily email blast.

Nothing should change for you readers and paid subscribers.

But if you have any problems or questions, please reach out to info@arizonaagenda.com and we’ll fix any glitches that arise.

Enjoy!

In some ways, the Arizona Capitol is like a small town.

A town of about 1,000 residents, with another 10,000 seasonal visitors and tourists, where everyone spends all their time at the town hall. About 90 of the core residents are on the town council, which is bitterly divided. The rest work there or show up frequently to argue about things. Everyone is all up in each others’ business, and decades-old grudges and alliances color every interaction.

For outsiders, it can be hard to tell who’s who and what really matters in these town squabbles.

But we residents of the Capitol know who’s the mayor, sheriff and judge. We know who’s the crazy neighbor and who’s a quiet power broker.

So, before the 2026 legislative session begins on Monday, we’ll introduce you to a few of the other residents so you don’t feel like an outsider.

The big three

Three politicians at the Capitol wield far more power than the others: Senate President Warren Petersen, House Speaker Steve Montenegro and Gov. Katie Hobbs.

As the elected leaders of their respective chambers, Petersen and Montenegro have immense power to do just about anything within their buildings. They control their chambers’ multi-million dollar budgets and can hire and fire the entire staff at will. They can add or remove lawmakers from prestigious committee positions and can strip away a lawmaker’s access to resources or even an office in the building.

And perhaps most importantly, they control the flow of legislation in their respective chambers, and can singlehandedly ensure a bill dies, or that it gets every opportunity to succeed.

But without the governor, no bill or budget can become law.2

Knowing these three people and a little about their motivations and goals will give you insight into how the whole system works.

Senate President Warren Petersen

Petersen has held the title of Senate President since 2023, but he may not hold it much longer.

He’s in the midst of a contested primary election to challenge Kris Mayes for attorney general, and he has repeatedly suggested that his time as the chamber’s leader is running short (though he has implied he won’t resign from the Legislature altogether).

Petersen has a campaign trail to hit, and juggling fundraising and kissing babies with the responsibilities of running a chamber has been the downfall of many a politician. We don’t expect him to make that mistake.

Two Republicans are waiting in the wings for the chance to take over:

• Republican Sen. TJ Shope, the current president pro tempore (it’s basically the president’s hand-picked fill-in), has been around the Capitol since 2013 and has served as the pro tempore in both the House and Senate — meaning he knows what the job of leading a chamber entails. Despite being a relatively moderate Republican, he has strong relationships with all sides of the caucus, and he claims to have the votes lined up to ascend to the president’s chair, whenever Petersen is ready to step down.

• Republican Sen. John Kavanagh, the longtime budget guru and new Senate majority leader, is also hoping to take over. You couldn’t call Kavanagh a moderate — he’s a fiscal hawk who revels in the culture wars (Read: bathroom bills, etc). But his style of populist conservatism is more Tea Party-flavored than MAGA. Much like Shope, his experience, accessibility and easy-going attitude make him widely liked at the Capitol, even by Democrats who hate his politics.

But Petersen hasn’t pulled the trigger on stepping down just yet.

Staying on as Senate president, at least for a while longer, means he’s getting a lot of free press. And he’s gonna need it as he faces his currently better-funded opponent in the GOP primary for AG, Rodney Glassman.

And as long as he remains a lawmaker, you can expect much of the legislation he pushes to highlight his priorities — and Mayes’ failings — as attorney general.

House Speaker Steve Montenegro

Montenegro is a fascinating character.

He first joined the Legislature in 2009, and quickly became a rising star in the GOP as the only Latino Republican at the time and a champion for Arizona’s notorious anti-immigrant law, SB1070.

He rose to the ranks of majority leader before suffering a sexting-scandal-related downfall while running for Congress in 2018. (He maintains he never solicited the topless photos that a staffer sent him.)

After a few years off, he reappeared as an older, wiser politician who employed a servant leadership style of boosting other Republicans (who would then be loyal to him).

It worked. He won back his old seat at the Capitol, and just two years later, ascended to the highest position in the House.

Still, he presides over an unruly chamber and a divided caucus, and has already survived at least one threatened coup from the Freedom Caucus wing of his party.

But the dust seems to have settled on that battle, especially as two of the House’s main rabble rousers — Joseph Chaplik and Alexander Kolodin — have their eyes set on higher office.

As one of the few leaders not running for anything new, Montenegro has the potential to be a stabilizing force in our divided government this year.

His reputation and chance at keeping the speakership in 2027 depend on his ability to hold his caucus together and keep them happy — while actually getting Republican bills and a budget signed by the Democratic governor.

Governor Katie Hobbs

Hobbs enters the final year of her first term weakened by years of battles with Republican legislators.

She’s the only governor in recent history to operate without a full, permanent cabinet — her picks to lead state agencies have been harangued by the Republican lawmakers who have largely refused to confirm them.

But not all of her wounds have been inflicted by Republicans.

Hobbs’ administration has been plagued by missteps and self-inflicted wounds, including accusations of pay-to-play schemes and unchecked fraud within Arizona’s social service net. And Republicans are sure to use this legislative session to highlight those scandals in any way possible.

Still, as a governor in her last guaranteed year in office, she’s a force to be reckoned with.

Hobbs has made liberal use of her veto stamp in her first three years, earning her the title of “veto queen” and showing she won’t compromise on her core beliefs.

But to win reelection in a mostly Republican state, she’ll have to compromise somewhere — and likely options include conforming Arizona’s tax code to federal tax cuts. Already, she’s attempting to take credit for popular portions of the “Big Beautiful Bill,” including dropping income taxes from tipped wages.

Unlike lawmakers, she doesn’t have to worry about ending the session early to hit the campaign trail. But a dragged-out budget fight that leads to even a short-term government shutdown would be disastrous for her campaign.

With her reelection on the line, expect Hobbs to be more willing to cut deals with Republican lawmakers than in past sessions.

The trouble makers

Some of the Capitol denizens show up get work done — others seemingly show up to ensure their enemies don’t get work done.

Republican Sen. Jake Hoffman is a good example. Of the roughly 80 bills he has filed in the last three years, two have become law. More than a dozen have met Hobbs’ veto — a fact he seems to relish.

But more often than not, Hoffman’s fire is trained on his fellow Republicans — he has sown and exploited divisions within his own caucus and is currently organizing primary challenges to several statewide Republican officials he deems not pure enough.

With Republicans’ thin majorities in the House and Senate, a handful of troublemakers can screw up the whole Republican agenda. And Hoffman has a loyal posse of fellow Freedom Caucus Republicans like Kolodin, Chaplik, and John Gillette — none of whom are seeking reelection this year.

Keep an eye on Republican Sen. Janae Shamp, who was voted out of her position as majority leader late last year after opposing the budget that Republicans had negotiated with Hobbs.

Kicking Shamp out of her leadership position may come back to bite Republicans.

To paraphrase former President Lyndon Johnson, “It’s probably better to have (her) inside the tent pissing out, than outside the tent pissing in.”

Committee chairs

One rule of thumb at the Capitol is that bills don’t die because they’re voted down.

They die from not getting a vote.

Chairing a committee is a privilege bestowed by the chamber leaders, and chairmanships are often the price that lawmakers exact in exchange for supporting a candidate for speaker or president.

Needless to say, only Republicans are allowed to be chairmen at the Republican-controlled Legislature.

New committees can pop up every year to reflect the interests and expertise of members. For example, this year, the House created a new Artificial Intelligence and Innovation Committee and a new Rural Economic Development Committee.

And committee chairs can singlehandedly stop even the most popular bill in its tracks by keeping it off their committee agenda.

The speaker and president generally assign bills to committees based on the topic,3 and each year, committee chairs decide whether to hear the bills, giving committee chairs an effective veto over any ideas within their policy domain.

Want to run a bill about education? You’ll need to win over House Education Committee Chair Matt Gress and Senate Education Committee Chair Hildy Angius to get a hearing.

For environmental bills, you’ve gotta go through Rep. Gail Griffin and Shope.

Changing the criminal law? You probably gotta get Rep. Quang Nguyen and Sen. Wendy Rogers to give your bill a hearing in their House and Senate judiciary committees, respectively.

Want to make a new environmental crime? Your bill might end up assigned to both the environment and judiciary committees.

The chair of the Rules Committee is next-level powerful. Every single bill has to go through the Rules Committee in both the Senate and House, on top of the other committee assignments.

Rules Committee members are only supposed to consider whether a bill is “constitutional and in proper form,” not debate its merits. It’s a rubber-stamp committee — assuming your bill gets a hearing at all. That’s up to the chair.

But with great power comes great responsibility. In the House, Laurin Hendrix holds the position. In the Senate, it’s David Farnsworth.

The influencers

Some people just naturally have clout.

A small group of politicians at the Capitol wield more influence than others — either because of their positions, skills or personalities.

The House and Senate Democratic leaders — Rep. Oscar de los Santos and Sen. Priya Sundareshan — are examples of being inner circle by the nature of their positions and the fact that there’s a Democratic governor in office.

The chairs of the appropriation committees in the House and Senate — David Livingston and Farnsworth, respectively — wield outsized influence, as they’re the negotiators on the budget process.

Some lawmakers build their clout by sticking around for years, or leaving the Capitol and coming back older and wiser — like Republican Reps. Jeff Weninger or Tony Rivero.

Others are simply well-liked by their colleagues, like Republican Rep. Teresa Martinez.

Still others gain influence by being willing to cut a deal across the aisle, like Democratic Rep. Alma Hernandez or Republican Rep. Walt Blackman.

The lobbyists

Lobbyists generally fall into four categories. Some types are more distasteful than others, but despite their unsavory reputations, professional lobbyists are not all as bad as they’re made out to be.

There are some shady characters (who we won’t call out by name today). But mostly, lobbyists are kind of like idealistic salespeople. Except the thing they’re selling is a bill and the customer is lawmakers.

• Hired guns: These are the lobbyists you’re probably imagining. They can work at giant firms or as solo operators. Some will represent any company, industry or issue that can pay. Others work only for progressive causes or conservative ones or within certain policy niches. Their unifying trait is that they represent multiple clients and provide access to and influence over lawmakers.

• Industry/issue: These lobbyists work for a company, group or cause, and besides their relationships, their main value is their knowledge. A lobbyist for a company like Airbnb, or a think tank like the Goldwater Institute, for example, would fall into this category. Lobbying is their main job, and they only have one client or cause.

• Liaison: They are government employees representing government bodies, like the courts, a city or a state department. They often pull double duty with other tasks within their office.

• Grassroots: Activists come in many forms. Some are paid to organize and lobby full-time on behalf of a union, trade or cause. Others are just citizens with a bone to pick and don’t have to register as lobbyists. But the defining feature of a grassroots lobbying organization is the ability to bring a crowd.

Remember, the categories aren’t always mutually exclusive, and the different types of lobbyists can all engage in different ways.

If Airbnb wants to pass a bill in Arizona, for example, it might find a local hired gun to team up with its in-house expert to get them in the door to woo lawmakers and also pay a grassroots pro-worker or entrepreneur group that can bring a mob to the Capitol in support and buy dinner for the liaison to the AG’s office to try to tamp down that office’s opposition to the bill at the Capitol.

The staff

The army of legislative staffers who do the real work are often the overlooked power players at the Capitol.

From the chiefs of staff who set the direction and strategy, to the clerks who choreograph the daily hearings, to the lawyers who write the bills, to the interns4 who summarize bills so that lawmakers can understand them, it takes several hundred people to bring the annual legislative session to life.

In this ecosystem, even lower-level positions wield influence. Assistants act as gatekeepers — if you’re trying to get an emergency meeting with a lawmaker, it helps to be friends with the person in charge of their schedule.

But if there’s one name you must know, it’s still Richard Stavneak, the director of the Joint Legislative Budget Committee, which tracks the economy, builds the budget and analyzes the fiscal impact of legislation. Stavneak has been doing the job for a long time, and his knowledge of the state budget is unmatched.

When he speaks, both Republicans and Democrats listen closely.

The Capitol press corps

About a dozen reporters keep an eye on all the chaos. Another dozen or so pop in regularly for Capitol stories that touch on their beats.

A decade ago, there were twice as many reporters. Two decades ago, it was double that.

In those 20 years, the number of lawmakers has remained the same. The state budget has roughly tripled.

We won’t do a full roll-call of every reporter at the Capitol, but if there’s one byline you should recognize, it’s Howard Fischer, who runs Capitol Media Services, a wire service that feeds almost every newspaper in the state (except the Republic). He produces more content in a day than the rest of the press corps combined, and he’s the “dean” of the Capitol press corps.

But over the past few years, we’ve lost many of the pros who have covered the Capitol for decades — most recently, Capitol veteran Mary Jo Pitzl, who took a buyout at the Republic.

Gone are the days of multiple daily print newspapers, each with a team of Capitol beat reporters and investigative journalists lurking around the Capitol.

Those of us who are lucky (or crazy) enough to still be doing this gig are increasingly working for scrappy startups (ahem) that desperately need your support.

Reporters are your eyes and ears at the Capitol. We keep the politicians honest and the system fair.

But we’re vastly outnumbered.

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Considering the League represents 91 municipalities that collectively make up lawmakers’ districts, legislators tend to take its positions seriously.

So when League staff invited us for a sit-down to go over their priorities for the year, we decided to take it seriously, too.

The League’s core thesis is advocating for local control, so it most often weighs in on housing bills that affect zoning and other regulations that city councils traditionally set.

But the rapid growth of short-term rentals has pushed the League into the offensive. This year, it’s championing two bills to give cities and towns more latitude to regulate them.

This year, the League is finally being freed from an agreement it made with major short-term rental companies in 2022.

But first, a little backstory: After then-Governor Doug Ducey signed SB1350, or “the Airbnb bill,” in 2016, local governments were largely prohibited from regulating short-term rentals.

Cities got more say on short-term rental regulation in 2022, when the League got a new law passed that let municipalities force short-term rentals to get licenses. The licensing permission means local governments can impose penalties after three nuisance violations within one year.

The League’s lobbyist, Nick Ponder, was part of the negotiations to get the new law across the finish line. The League made concessions, he said, by signing onto an agreement with Airbnb and Expedia Group to not lobby for a full repeal of SB1350 until 2027.

Part of that behind-the-scenes agreement, however, was that after 2025, the League could push for a bill to let cities cap the number of short-term rentals in their jurisdictions.

So it’s no surprise that’s one of the League’s top priorities this year: legislation that would allow cities to cap the share of their housing stock that can be used as short-term rentals, with each city setting its own limit.

The bill, which hasn’t been introduced yet,1 wouldn’t force existing short-term rental owners to give up their licenses. Instead, Ponder said, cities that hit their cap would only issue new licenses as others are surrendered.

“The objective here is just to try and, at some point, get our communities back to the way that I think we intended them to be, which is not these horizontal hotel chains, but communities again,” Ponder said.

The second short-term rental bill on the League’s agenda fixes an oversight of the 2022 bill that gave cities licensing authority.

Cities can revoke a short-term rental license for one year after three violations — which mainly cover nuisance issues like excessive noise and trash — but only if those cases make it through municipal court within a year. That’s an unlikely feat in the bureaucratic slog of city courts.

The League’s second short-term rental bill proposal changes the law so that three or more violations adjudicated within two years can get a license revoked.

Several lawmakers are on deck as potential bill sponsors, including Republican Reps. Selina Bliss and Walt Blackman, and Sen. John Kavanagh. Bliss represents Airbnb-plagued Sedona and unsuccessfully ran a bill to let cities cap short-term rentals in 2023.

The League’s bills will have to face Airbnb’s sophisticated local lobbying efforts, which have recently ramped up in Arizona. In September, the multibillion-dollar company formed an Arizona-based PAC called the “Airbnb Responsible Tourism Coalition.”

Tom Savage, the League’s legislative director, said League staff are “not deterred.”

“I think this is a direct response from the industry to try to change the narrative,” he said. “We’re not trying to ban short-term rentals, so if that’s going to be part of their narrative, it’s just simply not true. We’re just trying to achieve balance in the law so Airbnbs and our neighborhoods can operate cohesively.”

Even though the League is free to lobby for a total repeal of the 2016 law that prevents municipalities from regulating short-term rentals after 2027, a move that would let cities ban short-term rentals, Savage acknowledged “the Legislature (isn’t) going to entertain that.”

We’re tracking the housing bills at the Capitol with Skywolf, our legislative intelligence service.

You can follow along by bookmarking our housing bill tracking list — or you can sign up to track bills like a pro!

#LockMeUp: The Trump administration is suing Arizona and Connecticut to get access to unredacted voter rolls — including voters’ names, birthdates, residential addresses, driver’s license numbers and partial Social Security numbers, Carrie Levine reports for Votebeat. We’re the 23rd state to refuse the request and get slapped with a lawsuit. Thirteen have turned over the files. Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes says it would be illegal for him to turn over that information, and the feds will have to “put me in jail” before he’d release the files, per Democracy Docket.

We’d run, too: An immigration sweep at a Home Depot in Phoenix might be the first concrete example of the Trump administration’s plan to make the Valley the next Chicago, the Republic’s Daniel Gonzalez and David Ulloa Jr report. The raid via unmarked vehicles that swooped down on the Home Depot on 36th Street and Thomas on Sunday netted two arrests — including a 60-year-old man with diabetes who has been in the country for 30 years. Not to mention, a brief detention of a U.S. citizen who ran from agents “because all of the other day laborers were running,” per the Republic.

Torched and standing alone: Heading into her final year as governor, Gov. Katie Hobbs still has eight unconfirmed agency directors, thanks in large part to Republican Sen. Jake Hoffman, who chairs the committee in charge of vetting her cabinet picks, Reagan Priest reports for the Capitol Times. Of the eight unconfirmed directors that will likely face confirmation hearings this year, seven are the governor’s second choice for their respective positions. But one consultant noted that Hobbs hasn’t exactly stood up for her nominees as they stared down Hoffman’s committee.

“When (Dr. Theresa Cullen) got eviscerated at (the committee hearing), she walked to her car alone,” the consultant told the Capitol Times. “… This woman just got f***ing torched, wrongly or rightly, she got torched and there was no one there to go, ‘Hey, you did fine, these people are just a**holes,’ whatever you say to someone who just got torched.”

Odd bedfellows: Trump announced yesterday that he would crack down on large investors who buy single-family homes. The announcement spurred Democratic state Rep. Oscar De Los Santos to say he has been “fighting to stop large corporations from buying Arizona homes” since he was elected, and he’s “glad President Trump has seen the light.”

Pet pigs at your own risk: After children got sick with E. coli at a petting zoo at the Arizona State Fair last year, Republican Sen. John Kavanagh introduced a bill requiring petting zoos ensure visitors wash their hands, Capitol scribe Howie Fischer reports. Fun fact: It’s not his first bill dealing with animals at fairs.

In other, other news

A Scottsdale smoke shop has to pay $460,000 after a team of undercover teens helped the Arizona Attorney General’s Office show the store was selling vapes to kids (Morgan Fischer / Phoenix New Times) … The Trump administration’s attack on Venezuela is getting rave reviews from GOP officials in Arizona (Stephanie Murray / Republic) … Opponents of the Oak Flat copper mine got their day in court yesterday (Debra Utacia Krol / Republic) … Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne pushed back on the Trump administration’s plan to charge a huge fee to international teachers (Graham Krewinghaus / Nogales International) … And if you missed our edition about “Hell Week” this week, you can hear Hank talk about it on “The Show” instead (Lauren Gilger / KJZZ).

The race for Arizona’s congressional seat in CD1 is starting to look a lot like Arizona’s gubernatorial primary: Donald Trump liked it so much, he endorsed it twice.

In a Jan. 6 Truth Social post, Trump announced he was backing former Cardinals kicker Jay Feely, who switched from running in CD5 at Trump’s behest.

The president previously endorsed GOP state chair Gina Swoboda.

But the third Republican candidate in the race, Republican state Rep. Joseph Chaplik, was left empty-handed.

But as the opening day of the 2026 legislative session nears, lawmakers are short on money, time and consensus.

When the Arizona Legislature convenes on Monday, the governor and Republican House and Senate leaders will roll out their priorities for the year. But beyond the political wish lists, there’s a core set of must-do tasks that lawmakers of both parties have to tackle.

For instance, H.R. 1 — President Donald Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” passed by Congress last year — created hundreds of millions in expiring funds, and the state doesn’t have enough money to make up the gap.

While the various provisions of the massive federal budget bill will be phased in over the next decade, the Legislature has to address parts that go into effect this year, like adopting a new tax code and increasing funding for additional staff to more frequently verify eligibility for social service programs.

There are a few other matters to attend to, like renewing a major funding source for Arizona’s public schools and addressing significant cuts to the Colorado River, which supplies one-third of the state’s water.

So before the culture wars commence, here are the most pressing matters that should make the top of lawmakers’ to-do lists.

H.R. 1

While Republicans lauded H.R. 1 for reducing federal spending, states are now on the hook for the lost federal dollars.

The financial experts at the Joint Legislative Budget Committee estimate H.R. 1’s various changes could cost Arizona $461 million this fiscal year, which ends on June 30. Next fiscal year, which starts on July 1, there’s another $405 million estimated hit.

Put another way, if Arizona’s General Fund were a bucket of water, H.R. 1 drills holes in the bottom while tax cuts shut off the hose meant to refill it.

The JLBC economists came up with their figures based on economic formulas and prorated federal data — but the actual cost will depend on the decisions lawmakers and Gov. Katie Hobbs make this year.

Tax cuts

There’s an array of tax changes embedded in H.R. 1, and because Arizona uses the federal tax code as the baseline for calculating state income taxes, the Legislature typically adopts federal changes wholesale.

This year is different.

The JLBC estimates that adopting all the federal changes will cost Arizona nearly $1.2 billion over three years.

The political optics are also an issue.

The tax cuts disproportionately benefit those with higher incomes while extending Trump’s 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Plus, there’s a host of new benefits for corporations.

So far, Hobbs has tried to manage the optics of eventually signing parts of the federal tax code into law by leaning into the more politically palatable provisions. In November, she issued an executive order directing the Department of Revenue to align Arizona’s tax code with select provisions of H.R. 1, including the more broadly popular parts, like exempting tipped income from taxes and creating an additional $6,000 deduction for seniors.

Republicans quickly criticized the governor for taking credit for Trump’s tax policies.

Democratic Minority Leader Rep. Oscar De Los Santos told us his caucus plans to support Hobbs’ “middle class tax cut package,” but won’t support H.R. 1’s “corporate tax cuts.”

Democratic Sen. Mitzi Epstein had the same sentiment: Arizona can adopt the federal adjusted gross income that sets the baseline for state taxes, “and still say no to new tax loopholes.”

Senate Republican Majority Leader John Kavanagh said Republicans want to adopt the entire federal tax package, including incentives for businesses.

“The governor has essentially thrown businesses under the bus, and we believe that businesses also help the middle class that Governor Hobbs wants to help, along with the lower class and the upper class, because they create jobs, and they pay tax revenue,” he said.

Medicaid

H.R. 1 slashes $900 billion in Medicaid spending throughout the next decade, largely by reducing what the federal government pays states to administer their Medicaid programs.

The various changes will be phased in through 2032. The JLBC estimates that by 2030, 171,000 people will be kicked off of Arizona’s Medicaid system, AHCCCS.

The overall impact on state finances is difficult to pin down. While Arizona will spend less by covering fewer people, it will also lose revenue elsewhere. For example, as insurers collect less premium revenue, the state takes in less in insurance tax collections.

The more immediate fiscal hit comes from the cost of following the new rules.

H.R. 1 imposes new work requirements and more frequent eligibility verification for Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), and states have to absorb the administrative burden of implementing them.

AHCCCS is asking lawmakers for an extra $19 million this year to adapt to the new rules.

De Los Santos said there’s not a lot Democrats can do to avoid federal mandates. This year, he wants to make sure state agencies have the resources to follow them.

“What this coming year is going to be about is making sure that we are mitigating as much coverage loss when it comes to both Medicaid and SNAP, and a big part of that means making sure that the agencies have the resources they need to manage this new red tape,” he said. “If they don’t have the resources to do that, I’m nervous that even more Arizonans are going to get kicked off of AHCCCS.”

SNAP benefits

Unlike Medicaid, the federal changes to SNAP won’t save Arizona money by reducing enrollment.

Right now, the federal government pays the full cost of SNAP benefits, or food stamps. Starting in late 2027, states with higher error rates (a measure of how often they get benefits or eligibility wrong) will have to start paying for part of those benefits themselves — pushing new costs onto state budgets.

States currently split the cost of running the SNAP program — things like caseworkers, customer service and computer systems — 50-50 with the federal government. Beginning in October, states will be required to pick up an additional 25% of those administrative costs, and that shift comes as the price of running the program rises due to stricter work requirements.

In Arizona, the Department of Economic Security requested $26 million from the General Fund to hire more staff to administer the new work requirements. And when the 25% cost shift takes effect in 2027, the JLBC estimates it will cost the state $33 million.

Prop 123

Last year, lawmakers opened the session knowing that Proposition 123 — a major funding source for Arizona’s public schools — was set to expire in June.

Voters approved Prop 123 in 2016 to draw more money from the State Land Trust for K-12 education. A judge ruled the state had failed to adjust school funding for inflation, so the move allowed lawmakers to increase the basic aid formula without raising taxes.

As Prop 123’s end date drew near, Hobbs and several legislative Republicans floated competing extension proposals last year.

None made it across the finish line, and lawmakers adjourned without a renewal, opting instead to backfill the lost dollars for a single year.

That stopgap is likely to be far harder to justify as federal policy changes squeeze the budget this year. Still, there’s little sign the partisan trench warfare will let up.

Last year, Hobbs and Democrats pushed for a clean renewal that preserved the 6.9% distribution rate and continued funding the same priorities, like teacher pay and flexible school spending. Republicans countered with narrower proposals, such as limiting the money to teacher salaries or tying an extension to constitutional protections for the state’s ESA voucher program.

Adding to the urgency — and a sense of déjà vu — a judge ruled in August that Arizona is once again unconstitutionally underfunding its public schools, reopening the legal fault line that gave rise to Prop 123 in the first place.

Democrats will also try to boost public education funding this year by asking for more school voucher limits, per House Democrats’ assistant minority leader Nancy Gutierrez.

The proposals will be less severe than previous ESA reform proposals that limited who can use the vouchers.

Instead, Democrats want to ban luxury purchases, require more ESA money to be spent on core subjects and make sure any funds leftover when a kid goes to college is returned to the state.

“We do want to see (ESA) spending capped and halted, and at the same time, we also have to recognize that it hasn’t moved in the past four years,” Gutierrez said. “So we can continue with those bills, and we will add these item-by-item bills. Because, frankly, if the Republicans don’t want to move on any of these, they are showing the people of Arizona that they are not for fiscal responsibility.”

Water

On the more existential end of the to-do list: Arizona is running out of water.

Arizona and six other states have missed multiple deadlines to reach a long-term agreement on managing the Colorado River. After states blew past a November target, federal officials reiterated that a joint proposal is due Feb. 14.

The seven basin states regrouped at a Las Vegas conference in December and, unsurprisingly, failed to reach a deal.

Hobbs and other Arizona water officials have blamed the upper basin states for negotiating in bad faith.

But what can the Legislature, and Arizona’s self-appointed water gatekeeper, Republican Rep. Gail Griffin, do about it?

While lawmakers don’t control Arizona’s negotiating position on the Colorado River, they do control the conservation policies, funding and water laws that shape how the state manages shrinking supplies in the meantime.

That part doesn’t look too promising, either. Over the past three years, lawmakers have repeatedly used a $1 billion water fund to plug budget holes, and the water debate has largely devolved into a proxy fight over housing.

Griffin, for her part, has already introduced 30 bills for the 2026 session, almost all related to water policy, including allocating $1 million to a Colorado River Litigation Fund.

Meanwhile, Republican Sen. Janae Shamp is also diving into the water debate by offering a bill to ban fluoride from drinking water.

It’s a big swing, but probably not big enough to solve the water crisis.

When we called around to ask lawmakers about their priorities for the 2026 legislative session, most pointed to the same core issues already on the collective to-do list.

But lawmakers are also sketching out the side projects, bargaining chips and bills they think they can realistically advance this year. Here’s what some lawmakers told us is at the top of their personal to-do lists.

Last year, Blackman teamed up with Republican Sen. Shawnna Bolick to pass a last-minute bill creating an office dedicated to overseeing the state prison system. While the new law created the office, it provided no funding to implement it.

This year, Blackman wants to get his HB2063 across the finish line to fund the office with $1.5 million, which he said will end up saving Arizona “quite a bit of money” by avoiding more costly lawsuits over inadequate care.

Epstein is heading into her 10th legislative session, and since she isn’t seeking reelection, it’ll be her last year as a lawmaker. Her priorities for the end of her lawmaking career include reining in the ESA program and data centers.

“I think the public has started to recognize that it’s a bad thing to have data centers cause their electricity rates to go up, and then even worse, that the state is giving tax incentives to locate more data centers here,” Epstein said. “I believe that the people will want to repeal the incentives.”

After winning his seat back from former Sen. Justine Wadsack in 2024, Leach says he’s officially retiring after this session.

Before he swaps Capitol life for retirement, Leach wants to tackle the “illegal vape problem” by passing a bill that failed last year to ban vapes that haven’t been submitted for FDA approval.

He also wants to get to the bottom of the Sunshine Residential Homes scandal — allegations that Gov. Katie Hobbs’ administration gave the group home rate increases because its owners made significant campaign donations.

After watching actress Halle Berry give a presentation on menopause at a States Project event in December, Gutierrez said she was inspired to take on the lack of perimenopause awareness.

The assistant minority leader said she’ll champion a bill this year to create a task force of healthcare leaders to study education and services related to perimenopause, which is the body’s transition phase before entering menopause.

Kavanagh has a lot on his plate this year — he’s stepping into the Senate majority leader role while vice-chairing three committees. Still, he’s sticking with a familiar tradition: introducing his annual veto-bait bill.

This year, Kavanagh wants to break the veto cycle by sending his bill — which prevents students from using bathrooms or pronouns that don’t align with the sex they were assigned at birth — to the voters to decide.

Former Republican state lawmaker and Turning Point Action director Austin Smith was sentenced yesterday for committing election fraud. He forged signatures on his nomination petitions to run for reelection in 2024.

He’s banned from running for office for five years, had to pay a $5,500 fine and will spend two years on supervised probation.

So now seems like a good time to resurface this tweet he sent a few months before getting busted for forging signatures.

Also, we’re really loving the online reactions to the news that the Arizona Diamondbacks signed Ruben Gallego to play for them.

No, not the U.S. senator. He’s a 16-year-old Cuban switch-hitting shortstop.

Hell Week is the annual tradition of strictly following the letter of the law that prohibits lobbyists from contributing to lawmakers’ campaign coffers during the legislative session — by packing in all those donations at a series of fundraisers right before the session begins.

“As much as the institution changes, the one thing that seems to stay the same is that everybody’s going to find the way to bend the rules as much as they can for grift,” one lobbyist told us. “It’d be hard not to view it as anything other than like quid pro quo.”

For the next few days, any lobbyist worth their salt is racing between fundraisers for lawmakers, building alliances that will carry them through the session by cutting checks to the lawmakers who will decide the fate of their bills.

“You can’t swing a dead cat without hitting a fundraiser this week,” as another lobbyist put it.1

The lobbying corps dubs it Hell Week because it’s a very expensive and exhausting week for them.

“It’s an evil necessity,” a third lobbyist said, noting that they don’t want to go to fundraisers, but, as a professional lobbyist, “you look like a jerk if you’re not there.”

But Hell Week isn’t just about lobbyists currying influence with lawmakers (and the governor, who is also subject to the ban and also holds Hell Week fundraisers, to a lesser degree). There’s a whole ecosystem of influence, favors and funding that are in play during Hell Week.

For example, Hell Week is the last chance for lawmakers who want a leadership position to show that they can bring home the bacon for the caucus. Those seeking leadership positions organize fundraisers for the rank-and-file as a gesture of their ability to help colleagues win reelection, and as a way to get a leg up in their bids for speaker or whip.

And there’s even a pecking order among lobbyists. Those who organize the fundraisers are seen as more willing and able to help than those who simply show up, check-in-hand.

Not to mention the professional fundraisers themselves, who take a cut of the money brought in at these events.

“Fundraisers get their hooks in these candidates, and the fundraiser has legislators call (a lobbyist) and say, ‘hey, will you throw a fundraiser for me at your office?’ And you say, sure, because how are you going to say no? … And so you’re trying to get people to show up, because now it’s going to be embarrassing if there’s no one there to eat your carrot sticks,” one lobbyist explained.

For old pros, there’s less urgency to actually show up to these events, since they have the connections and the relationships to get a meeting. (Longtime lobbyists will often just donate online and skip the event, though many still show up just to get that face time.)

But for newcomers, Hell Week is a must.

“If cornering (Republican Sen. John) Kavanagh outside the men’s room or at a fundraiser where he’s got to raise money is the only way you can pin him down, then you better be there with bells on,” one lobbyist said. “If you can’t get a return call from someone, this is your shot, man.”

Why do we have a Hell Week?

Lobbyists have been banned from donating to lawmakers during the legislative session ever since the AZScam scandal rocked the state Capitol in 1991. The law was part of the wave of accountability reforms that came immediately following the scandal.

AZScam, for the uninitiated, was an undercover corruption sting by a fake mob boss/FBI informant who bribed lawmakers to get them to support a proposed legalized gambling bill.

If you’ve never heard the story, we suggest this awesome documentary by Capitol videographer and documentary filmmaker Mike Shahin (which new lawmakers now watch as a cautionary tale as part of their onboarding) — and the classic book about it called “What’s In It For Me?” by the mob boss/FBI informant at the center of it all.

That is to say, there’s a damn good reason we bar lobbyists from donating to lawmakers during the legislative session. (Yes, you read that correctly: The way the law is written, it is illegal for a lobbyist to give a campaign contribution during the session, not for a lawmaker to accept that contribution.)

To ensure they pack in all the checks that they can ahead of the deadline, lawmakers have started streamlining the process for lobbyists, hosting more joint fundraisers than individual ones in hopes that lobbyists will have more time to cut more checks in fewer locations.

“It used to be in yesteryear, you would have one or two people that would have a fundraiser, and you’d go to 30 or 40 of them during the week. But certainly, this week, they’re aggregating. So you’ll go to a fundraiser and there will be five to 10 politicians or candidates there. … Because, if not, you just run from from location to location,” one lobbyist said.

And that aggregating of fundraisers serves another purpose, as another lobbyist noted.

“In some cases, it’s fundraisers organized by legislative committee. So it makes it really convenient if you know there’s a transportation bill you’re trying to stop to just hit that whole (transportation) committee with money,” another lobbyist noted.

There’s always a loophole

And while the idea behind the ban is to keep lawmakers from tacitly accepting bribes to vote on the bills that come before them, the ban doesn’t even work. Because many bills are “pre-filed” before the session starts, everyone knows who they have to lobby on what.

“Hell Week is the last seven days before that (prohibition) kicks in, when everyone already knows what legislators are assigned to what committees, when you’ve already seen bills that are dropping, so you know where the problem areas are and you are racing to give them money before the door shuts,” one lobbyist said.

And Hell Week fundraisers are only one of the many tactics they use to violate the spirit of campaign finance law.

For example, while lobbyists themselves are barred from donating to politicians while the legislative session is in swing, the clients that they represent aren’t. So lobbyists are often invited, urged or expected to drum up donations from their clients to help grease the wheels of government while lawmakers are considering bills.

The lobbyists often don’t mind.

“I’d much rather give them my clients’ money than my own money,” one lobbyist quipped.

Or lobbyists can donate to PACs like the Republican Legislative Victory Fund or the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee — PACs that are controlled by lawmakers to benefit candidates on their side of the aisle, but that don’t technically fall under the ban on donating to specific lawmakers’ campaigns.

Or there’s the old favorite, famously employed by former lawmaker and current Glendale Mayor Jerry Weiers,2 of asking lobbyists to donate to your favorite charity in order to curry some favor at the Capitol.

An aisle-crossing affair

And like most events inside the halls of power, Hell Week is not actually about party.

The flier below is a good example. It’s for a Hell Week fundraiser for Republican incumbents that is being hosted by two former Democratic lawmakers now making their living lobbying their old colleagues at the Capitol.

That’s not uncommon, and it’s not even frowned upon, our lobbyist sources explained.

As a lawmaker, you have to be tribal — helping only your fellow party-mates.

But as a lobbyist representing clients at the state Capitol, you have to play all sides, and make alliances with even those you don’t want to see win their elections.

“It tells you that cash is king. It’s not about party or party platform or policy. It’s about access,” one lobbyist said of the fundraiser.

Here’s a strange little observation about the looming legislative session that we pulled from our legislation tracking service, Skywolf.

Of the 224 bills that had been “pre-filed” as of our deadline today, only seven of them come from Democrats.

The other 217 are sponsored by Republicans.

That disparity won’t hold for too long, per House Democratic spokesman Robbie Sherwood, who told us that, as far as he knows, there’s no edict from Democratic leaders to slow-walk the bill filings this year.

Democrats are just taking time to perfect their bills before joining the avalanche of legislation, he said.

However, Democratic Sen. Mitzi Epstein had a more fatalistic (realistic?) take on why Democrats are in no rush to get bills in the hopper.

“I’m going to be real honest with you: When you know that the chairs of the committees are not going to hear your bills, and that’s the only way your bills, your work, is ever going to get moved forward, you plan for amendments and you don’t drop a lot of bills,” she told us. “A lot of those Republican sponsored bills are written by lobbyists who take them to the majority party because they want them to get passed, right? That’s why you don’t see a whole lot of Democratic sponsored bills.”

That’s a lot of bomb threats: The Arizona Supreme Court building was evacuated on Monday after a suspicious package was found in the mailroom of the building, AZFamily’s Ben Bradley reports. The package tested positive for homemade explosives. In a separate incident near Queen Creek, a bomb threat turned out to be a hoax — an example of swatting, per Fox10’s Brent Corrado. And in yet another bomb-related incident on Monday, Sedona police checked on a bomb threat at the Sedona Airport Terminal parking lot, but didn’t find anything suspicious, Joseph K. Giddens reports for the Red Rock News.

Shot across the bow: U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth censured Democratic U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly for urging servicemembers to disobey illegal orders, per the Associated Press. In a lengthy post on Twitter, Hegseth said the censure was a necessary step toward demoting Kelly and reducing his retirement pay. Kelly called the decision “outrageous and wrong.” He claimed Hegseth was trying to “send the message to every single retired servicemember that if they say something he or Donald Trump doesn’t like, they will come after them the same way.” Kelly has 30 days to appeal the censure, per Politico.

Nothing (for) burgers: Republican Rep. Teresa Martinez doesn’t want Arizonans to be able to use food stamps at fast-food restaurants, Capitol scribe Howie Fischer reports. Meanwhile, Republican Rep. Leo Biasiucci and nine other Republican lawmakers want Arizonans to be able to fund Turning Point USA by buying a specialty license plate, the Mohave Valley Daily News reports. And Republican Sen. John Kavanagh wants school districts to be able to sell or lease vacant schools so they can be turned into affordable housing for teachers or other government workers, per Fischer.

RoboCop isn’t what we expected: Officials in Gilbert are testing whether drones can respond to 911 calls faster than police or firefighters, the Daily Independent’s Tom Blodgett reports. The Gilbert Police Department has already been doing a 45-day test of the program, and has found that the drones can also help determine when sending a real human cop isn’t actually necessary.

“We can delay the actual physical response,” in low-priority calls, Gilbert Police Lt. Geoff Soderman said. “Assign those assets on the ground to other priority calls of service.”

Axon in the air?: Banner Health is pulling out all the stops as executives try to get approval for a $400 million medical campus in Scottsdale, J. Graber reports for the Scottsdale Independent. Banner hired canvassers to go door-to-door asking residents to send letters to the Scottsdale City Council, which is considering a rezoning request that Banner needs to build the campus. Executives also asked their employees to email a form letter to the council as Banner tries to head off critics who say the zoning would make way for an “unnecessary hospital.” The strategy hasn’t gone unnoticed, with a deluge of emails all arriving simultaneously in the council’s inboxes.

“It’s very obviously an electronic set up,” Scottsdale City Councilwoman Jan Dabauskas said.

After hours of watching traffic crawl across freeway cameras on New Year’s Eve, a state Transportation Department worker got a rare change of pace.

Traffic Operations Center Supervisor Scott Stenbakken spotted a dog wandering on an I-10 overpass, then tracked down her owner through a lost pets Facebook page.

Nala is now back with her family — a rare case of government surveillance actually being kind of wholesome.

We’re just glad she made it home without a citation.

We hope you missed us while we took a chunk of December off to bank some family time, plan a whole election year’s worth of newsletters and migrate our entire operation to a new email provider.

As usual, we were a bit ambitious with the time allotted … We need another week or so to finish our big move, bosses!

We’ll continue publishing here on Our Regrettable Platform (TM) as we work out the final kinks in our new system. By next Monday, we’ll be all moved into our new home(?).

In the meantime, we have some big news: the Agenda is hiring yet another reporter. (Yay!) We’ll tell you all about them after they come on board next week.

But first, we wanna say thanks to all of you readers who have upgraded to paid subscriptions to support our work.

You folks keep the Agenda alive and growing, and we can never thank you enough.

Since launching the Agenda in 2021, our small team has been working at burnout speed to deliver the kind of news, notes and gossip that gets newbies hooked on local politics, and keeps you political junkies from withdrawals.

With this latest hire, we will — for the first time ever — have just slightly more bandwidth than it takes to keep the Agenda fresh.

And that means we can be ambitious this election year.

As we embark on this next chapter of the Agendaverse, it’s worth a quick reminder: This is only possible because of your support.

We’re living in a moment when some of America’s greatest media institutions are crumbling. Some are dying under the weight of their own poor financial and editorial decisions. Others have been captured by billionaires interested only in expanding their own influence. Still others are more concerned with appeasing an authoritarian president than serving their readers.

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December was a wild month of Arizona political news, making it a fitting cap to 2025.

To get you up to speed on what went down last month, today we’re running down the top storylines that caught our eye, even while we tried to ignore the news.

We have a lot of ground to cover, so let’s get to it.

1. The Legislature is (almost) back

State lawmakers kept dropping bills in the hopper over the holidays, giving Arizonans a sense of what to expect when the Legislature reconvenes next week.

A bill from Republican Rep. Nick Kupper would raise speed limits on rural highways and launch a pilot program allowing unlimited speeds between Casa Grande and Yuma.

Republican Sen. Janae Shamp is pushing legislation to fund a state study of “Trump Derangement Syndrome.” She also introduced a bill to ban fluoride in drinking water.

Democratic Rep. Stacey Travers wants voters to give lawmakers a pay raise. It’s been tried before — many times — and the public has said no.1 This time, Travers is tying the raise to actual term limits2, which she hopes will convince voters to support the measure.

Meanwhile, GOP lawmakers are reviving gun bills that Gov. Katie Hobbs vetoed last year, teeing up another election-year fight over campus carry, business restrictions, gun registries and silencers.

2. New faces in the races

The GOP primary in Arizona’s 1st Congressional District is shaping up to be one of the most interesting races in the state.

Republican state Rep. Joseph Chaplik jumped into the race to succeed Rep. David Schweikert in CD1. Chaplik is part of the Freedom Caucus and has the backing of some big names in the MAGA crowd, but he didn’t get the coveted endorsement from President Donald Trump. That went to Arizona Republican Party chair Gina Swoboda, who announced her bid for the seat in October, much to the chagrin of the Freedom Caucus crowd.

Also running in CD1 is former Arizona Cardinals kicker Jay Feely, who, at Trump’s urging, dropped a bid to run in Andy Biggs’ open seat in CD5.

Swoboda’s team is already calling Feely a “carpetbagger.”

3. MAGA infighting

The MAGA crowd put on quite a show in Phoenix last month.

Turning Point’s annual AmericaFest conference in downtown Phoenix descended into open infighting among conservative influencers.

Under different circumstances, rapper Nicki Minaj’s fawning praise of Trump might have been the headline — but clashes between Ben Shapiro, Megyn Kelly, and Tucker Carlson drew national attention instead.

4. Not enough (land) trust

Is Arizona State Land Trust money going to be a big deal this legislative session?

Lawmakers couldn’t get on the same page on renewing Prop 123 last year, but both Dems and GOP officials are saying they’re “hopeful” about getting it done this year.

In the meantime, Republican lawmakers are lambasting Hobbs following an audit of the land trust, which is the funding source for Prop 123, alleging the agency failed for years to follow state law.

5. Trump vs. Kelly

It already seems like a million years ago, but the spat between Trump and Democratic U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly over Kelly’s “illegal orders” video is still making news.

If the Pentagon moves forward with charges against Kelly, it could actually elevate him into the ranks of leading Democratic presidential contenders in 2028.

As for those illegal orders, Kelly didn’t outright say the Trump administration’s attack on Venezuela last weekend was illegal, but he did say Trump’s foreign policy over the past year has been “reckless, chaotic, self-serving and unconstitutional.”

Democratic Sen. Ruben Gallego came out and called the war “illegal,” while Arizona Senate President Warren Petersen, a Republican, called it “100 percent constitutional.”

6. Going nowhere

The Colorado River is going to get a lot less water next year than experts predicted months ago.

Water gurus now expect the 2026 inflow to be 27% below normal levels, which further complicates the already contentious negotiations among the seven states that depend on the river.

Arizona and the other states have until Feb. 14 to strike a deal on future water allocations — or the Trump administration will impose its own plan.

The seven states have largely failed to agree on a solution for more than two years, and it didn’t get any better at last month’s meeting of the Colorado River Water Users Association.

“If you distill down what my six partners just said, I believe there’s three common things: Here’s all the great things my state has done. Here’s how hard/impossible it is to do any more. And here are all the reasons why other people should have to do more,” John Entsminger, general manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority, said. “As long as we keep polishing those arguments and repeating them to each other, we are going nowhere.”

7. Five years later…

Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes is moving ahead with her cases against the fake electors, despite recent setbacks in court.

But her office dropped its fake elector charges against Jim Lamon after Lamon, a businessman and former U.S. Senate candidate, agreed to turn over emails. Our best guess is that the deal is tied to Mayes’ ongoing case against the remaining 17 fake electors.

Meanwhile, election conspiracy promoter Jovan Pulitzer is trying to raise $400,000, claiming he needs the money to preserve 2.1 million digital images from the 2020 election.

8. Sinema’s new career

Leaked emails show that, despite previous denials, former U.S. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema is working as a lobbyist. That revelation followed her veiled threats to the Chandler City Council ahead of its vote rejecting a massive data center proposal.

Sinema later railed against the left for killing the project while praising the Trump administration for backing AI data centers.

9. Legal weed gets a challenge

Critics of Arizona’s voter-approved recreational marijuana law are planning a signature drive to put a partial repeal of the law on the ballot next November.

The group says it doesn’t want to ban marijuana sales outright. They just want limits on potency and advertising, arguing current rules don’t adequately protect children.

10. Tent City 2.0

The Department of Homeland Security is planning to add Phoenix to the already long list of Democratic-run cities targeted by the Trump administration, per the Bulwark.

The plan, according to anonymous former federal officials, is to make more immigration arrests and build “soft-sided facilities” to increase the overall number of beds in detention centers in the Valley.

The details are still sketchy. Presumably, the Phoenix deployment would look a lot like the havoc wreaked by Border Patrol and ICE agents in Chicago, Los Angeles and other cities.

As our sister newsletter, the Tucson Agenda, previously noted, the Trump administration paved the way for the deployment in Phoenix by removing the top ICE official in Phoenix last October. That decision opened up space for Border Patrol agents, who don’t follow as strict rules on arrests as ICE does, to take charge of immigration enforcement in Arizona.

11. Whodunnit?

Officials are pointing fingers over who pulled the plug on the popular PBS’ NewsHour West program.

The show was produced through a partnership between ASU’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication and the Greater Washington Educational Telecommunications Association (WETA).

But now, both sides say the decision to end it came from the other side.

WETA — a major public broadcasting station that produces news content for PBS — said ASU’s priorities changed, effectively ending the contract. ASU, meanwhile, says the call was PBS’s.

12. Last but not least: the Don Bolles bill

Republican Rep. Selina Bliss once again introduced a bill to build a memorial across from the state Capitol honoring Arizona Republic journalist Don Bolles, an idea we started advocating for in 2023. And this year, there’s a strong news hook: The proposal coincides with the 50th anniversary of Bolles’ murder, after his car was bombed outside the Clarendon Hotel.

As we look back on all the lolz we missed sharing with you during our December break, there are two stories we can’t move on without discussing.

First, a big mazel tov to Republican activists Marissa Hamilton and Jeff Caldwell, who tied the knot in one of the stranger politically themed ceremonies we’ve ever seen.

Hamilton, best known for her work on the grassroots MAGA organization EZAZ, wore a “taxation is theft” themed dress while the groom wore one heck of a shiny gold suit and top hat for their shindig, which was held in the “Gulf of America.”

Also in December, disgraced former Democratic state lawmaker Leezah Sun launched her gubernatorial campaign.

Sun, as you may recall, has been through a string of controversies far too long to recount here, which culminated with her resigning ahead of certain expulsion from the state House of Representatives in 2024.

She’s running as an independent after Democrats widely denounced her.

That break runs from next Monday to the first week of January. During the break, we’re catching up on projects and preparing for the political antics of 2026.

As you know, we’ve been combing through our work over the past year for a professional game of Secret Santa.

Today, intern Alysa is writing about her favorite story that Joe wrote for the Tucson Agenda.

Joe has been tracking Project Blue since day one, and his grasp of its twists and turns is unmatched. That dedication is just one example of how deeply he’s invested in Tucson.

I chose this story because Joe’s affection for Tucson and its people pulls you in. Before the Agenda, I was a diehard, proud Phoenician — but his reporting made me fall for a city a hundred miles south.

This story is quote-heavy from the jump, because Joe knows the most important part of the job is you — the readers. I love this story because it’s a clear example of how loyal Joe is to Tucson.

Joe shows up to the daily editorial meeting with multiple story ideas and a list of meetings he will attend during the week. He is proof that being a journalist is a 24/7 job — he never stops working for Tucson.

In this story, Joe showed up yet again. He lets the Tucson City Council speak for themselves, while still controlling the story. Joe is constantly on the move and this story shows why — so he can include the voices of the community he is proud to be part of.

RIP Project Blue

The politicians got the message

Joe Ferguson, Aug 07, 2025

Project Blue started with a roar — promising a massive investment in Tucson’s water infrastructure, the creation of thousands of construction jobs and millions of dollars flowing into government coffers.

It died on Wednesday with a whimper, as every single member of the Tucson City Council denounced the NSA-like secrecy demanded from Amazon Web Services and its proxies, the excessive water usage and their overall lack of trust in the people behind the proposal.

More than 100 residents — many wearing red to show their resistance to Project Blue — cheered as the council unanimously voted to kill the proposal.

That vote canceled the planned annexation hearing scheduled for August 19 and ensured the item would not return on a future agenda.

The bottom line? Tucson is not for sale.

Here’s the council in their own words:

Councilwoman Karin Uhlich was the first to openly discuss ending talks with Project Blue at Tuesday’s meeting. Uhlich had already told residents in her midtown ward she wouldn’t support the project.

”The point is that we’re not going to consider or approve Project Blue. We are directing the manager and staff to end those negotiations immediately,” Uhlich said.

Councilman Kevin Dahl, who had long opposed the proposed data centers, said he felt misled by the developers when he asked if other cooling options existed for the massive, water-hungry facilities. He said he hoped future proposals would bring jobs and revenue without jeopardizing Tucson’s precious water.

”I remember asking, is water the only way to cool? And I was given, yes, that’s the only way we can do it. But they do (use other technologies to cool data centers) elsewhere,” Dahl said.

Councilman Rocque Perez said he’s keeping an eye on the developers’ earlier claims that they planned to stay in Tucson.

“I now urge Pima County and our counterparts in other municipalities, as well as the public that’s here today, to pay attention closely as to what happens next. Because data centers aren’t going anywhere in this battle. It’s just the beginning for Tucson,” he said.

Councilwoman Nikki Lee said the secrecy surrounding Project Blue — and poor communication with the city — badly damaged the proposal’s chances.

“Project Blue represents a lot of things to a lot of people right now, more than just the data center and the project itself. It’s a distrust in government, it’s a distrust in corporations, it’s a very large distrust in tech companies, a distrust in technology and privacy in general, and a fear of artificial intelligence and how fast things are moving and how little control we have and what does it mean for ourselves, society, and for jobs,” she said.

Councilman Paul Cunningham pointed out that the proposal offered no guarantees that Tucson Electric Power wouldn’t pass on future costs to local residents. And he didn’t trust the developers, who insisted on hiding behind non-disclosure agreements — and holding elected officials to them — despite Cunningham never signing one personally.

“I’m the most realistic, non-conspiracy theorist guy of all time. But some of these tech bros, some of the things they do is very concerning. So we need to keep our eye on the ball with all that stuff,” he said.

Vice Mayor Lane Santa Cruz said even baristas were talking about Project Blue — a sign that everyone in the community was paying attention. She also raised alarm about how the data centers could be used — calling out those working with the federal government to surveil and detain members of the community.

“These data centers aren’t being built to uplift our communities. They’re being built to serve private profit and government surveillance. What do we need all this AI for? To store data for ICE? To expand predictive policing? To feed the same systems that already harm our communities,” Santa Cruz said.

Mayor Regina Romero straddled the line between backing the vast majority of her constituents who didn’t want Project Blue and business boosters who argue residents are too quick to shoot down economic development opportunities. She acknowledged that while Project Blue is dead, more data center proposals are likely coming.

“We have to understand as a community that this industry is out there and that everyone, including Donald Trump and Congress as well as the state, have incentives and policies to preempt cities like Tucson. So it doesn’t end here,” Romero said. “We also have to work together because we can’t just say no. What do we want to say yes to? What type of jobs do we want for our residents, for our construction workers and trade workers?”

Romero also blamed the Pima County Board of Supervisors for approving the land sale that set the project in motion.

“The Board of Supervisors and their team also should have stopped this right there,” Romero said.

We reached out to Pima County Supervisor Steve Christy — the highest-ranking elected Republican in the county — who voted to sell the county-owned land to the developers in June.

At the time, Christy acknowledged the project’s fate rested with the Tucson City Council and said he hoped the seven Democrats would support the $3.6 billion economic development deal.

On Wednesday, Christy told the Tucson Agenda that the council made the wrong call — and that the decision would hurt future economic growth.

“The city of Tucson missed a great opportunity,” Christy said. “It is very disappointing that Pima County will continue in the economic malaise we are globally known for.”

We also asked former Pima County Supervisor Adelita Grijalva — who is widely expected to win her father’s seat in Congress next month — whether she would support the city if the federal government tried to override its decision.

“Land use and water resource decisions should be made by local elected officials in close consultation with the community — not imposed from Washington, D.C. I would oppose any attempt by the federal government to override local decision-making on this project,” Grijalva said.

There was no immediate reaction from any of the principals behind Project Blue on Wednesday, but we expect to hear more soon about their promises of a “Plan B” for Tucson.

We’re back with another installment of our Secret Santa series. We had a lot of fun putting this together and we hope you’re enjoying it, too!

Today, we’re serving up a savory story Nicole wrote about one of the least appetizing subjects you can think of.

Bon appétit!

Government budgets are hugely important.

They’re also really technical and difficult to make interesting.

But Nicole pulled it off when she wrote about the state budget in May.

I’m a sucker for weird journalistic gambits. In this one, Nicole sidestepped the usual way of writing about a budget and turned it into a recipe, just like you’d find online while trying out a new dish.

It’s a really fun read. I found myself chuckling several times as I re-read the story.

It also gets the job done, and then some.

Nicole has covered state government every day for two years now. She can write with authority about the players and process that go into making a budget, like saying “the annual budget leak is a sign that the budget process is getting serious.”

What really surprised me was how well the “recipe” shtick holds throughout the story. It wasn’t just a clever gimmick. At the end of the story, I came away thinking, “wow, a budget really is like a recipe.”

Even now, six months later, when I hear about the state budget I think about the “ingredients” she listed in her story, like “heaping scoops of discretionary pork” and “1 giant pot of formula-funded programs.”

Without further ado, let’s put on our aprons and step into the budgetary kitchen.

Arizona’s budget recipe

How the budget sausage gets made

Nicole Ludden, May 30, 2025

Every year, your lawmakers meet behind closed doors to game out how to spend billions of your tax dollars.

It’s a convoluted, clandestine process that leaves out the public and the Legislature’s minority party as Gov. Katie Hobbs and Republican leadership try to agree on how to spend the state’s money next fiscal year, which starts on July 1.

The House and Senate have taken several weeks off for budget negotiation time — there aren’t a lot of bills left to vote on. But Hobbs’ spokesperson, Christian Slater, told us that official talks between Hobbs’ staff and legislative leaders only started last week.

Since the public doesn’t get a seat at the budget table, we figured why not lay out the budget process in a way that actually makes sense? So we turned the state’s annual budget process into something easier to digest: a recipe.

Soon, budget talks will turn into a plan. And the majority of Arizona’s 90 lawmakers will have to vote to approve that plan by June 30 or the state government will shut down. The deadline is likely sooner this year because Republican Rep. Matt Gress, who vice chairs the House Appropriations Committee, has to leave by June 22 for his wedding in Italy.

The budget was delayed even more than usual this year after Republicans announced a plan to give Arizona’s universal school voucher program state constitutional protection through the renewal of Prop 123 — the $300 million per year public school funding stream that’s about to run dry. Last week, Republicans gave up and said they’ll wait to send a Prop 123 renewal to voters next year.

Now, budget negotiations seem to be back at the starting place they were supposed to be at when lawmakers left for vacation earlier this month.

But even though the budget will be baked in the next few weeks, it takes a lot of time to prepare for it.

Kinda like a really complicated recipe.

Recipe: Arizona State Budget

Prep time: 5 months (minimum)

Serves: 7 million+ Arizonans

Warning: May cause indigestion (fiscal and otherwise)

Ingredients

• 1 Executive Budget Proposal (from Gov. Hobbs)

• 1 JLBC Baseline Budget

• 1 divided Legislature (Republican majority)

• 4 competing caucus proposals

• 1 giant pot of formula-funded programs (AHCCCS, prisons, schools)

• Heaping scoops of discretionary pork

• A dash of optimism (optional)

• Endless spreadsheets

• Political brinkmanship (to taste)

Step 1: What does the governor want to make?

When you hear about the “governor’s budget,” we’re really talking about her budget proposal. Legislative Republicans will have one too, as will Democrats. Each of the four legislative caucuses might even craft its own budget proposal.

After the governor reveals her plan each January, Republicans skim it for anything spicy they can publicly reject.

This year, Hobbs announced she wants to spend $17.7 billion on things like childcare, public safety and housing affordability. Republicans were on board with some of her initiatives, like boosting border security funding, but not Hobbs’ plan to put income caps on who can get school vouchers. This was the third year she proposed cutting back vouchers, and the third year Republicans called it a nonstarter.

Hobbs updated her budget in March to reflect that school voucher spending will surpass $1 billion next fiscal year, and that the budget needs $48.4 million for vouchers in the current fiscal year.

Step 2: What are the must-have ingredients?

After the governor announces what she wants to spend the state’s money on, two separate groups of economists offer opinions on how much money Arizona has.

It’s kind of like deciding to make lasagna homemade or with store-bought ingredients: You have two very different lists to follow based on the recipe.

The politicians and economists projecting the state’s revenues offer different, constantly evolving opinions on the economy. Lawmakers can choose to budget based on revenues that are higher or lower than the economists’ projections.

The Joint Legislative Budget Committee advises the Legislature. It’s staffed by economic intellectuals who create a “baseline budget” as a starting point based on spending increases passed in prior years and predetermined formulas. There are must-have ingredients — the lasagna’s noodles and sauce — like formula-based spending for K-12 education, Medicaid and prisons.

The Governor’s Office of Strategic Planning & Budgeting is comprised of Hobbs’ staff who create their own revenue projections and write up her fiscal priorities for the state.

Like the JLBC, it starts with a baseline estimate. But this budget also includes how much money the executive branch wants to put toward specific policies.

Step 3: The budget roast

Lawmakers on the House and Senate appropriations committees hear presentations on the governor’s budget. This year’s hearings were extra spicy.

After that, there is usually a long lull in the budget action. Everyone is waiting for the more accurate, timely projections that JLBC comes up with in April.

This year, the JLBC warned that Arizona will have a lot less new revenue than originally projected — President Donald Trump’s tariffs threw the economy into a tailspin — but they revised those projections slightly after individual income taxes came in higher than expected in April.

Economists warned lawmakers not to count on that extra revenue, but to treat it as a one-time spending opportunity. And they’re still urging cautious budgeting: Although a federal court shut down Trump’s tariffs (thanks to a lawsuit led by Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes), the federal budget bill making its way through Congress shifts a lot of expenses to states.

Step 4: Stir in the pork

This is the fun part for Arizona’s lawmakers.

Leaders hold a series of three-way meetings between the governor, Senate President Warren Petersen and House Speaker Steve Montenegro in the proverbial “cage”¹ where the three fight it out to come to some sort of final product that all parties can settle for.

Once that agreement becomes public, House and Senate leaders have to round up enough votes to pass it. The documents that outline spending usually get leaked to the press (often via lobbyists, who lawmakers share the documents with freely) and foster some (unintentional) public discourse.

The annual budget leak is a sign that the budget process is getting serious.

To whip up the 31 minimum votes in the House and 16 in the Senate, leaders can give a lawmaker’s bill a hearing, fund their pet projects or make other concessions. Think of them as the extra spices tuned to lawmakers’ preferred flavor profiles to make them sit down and eat.

In 2023, lawmakers put together a budget with widespread bipartisan support by giving lawmakers their own individual pots of money, up to $30 million each, to spend as they pleased in exchange for supporting the overall package.

Lawmakers overspent.

They had to fill a $1.3 billion gap the following year, but leaders still gave lawmaker-specific handouts to get the votes.

Democratic Reps. Myron Tsosie and Mae Peshlakai, who represent the Navajo Nation-based Legislative District 6, supported the budget after it included $2 million for the Navajo Nation.

Lawmaking sisters and Democratic Reps. Alma Hernandez and Consuelo Hernandez voted for last year’s budget after securing health and food distribution programs in Southern Arizona and $7 million for an Arizona Holocaust Education Center.

Step 5: Serve the budget bills

Legislative leaders only introduce budget bills after they believe they have enough votes to pass the deal outlined in the budget docs. Then they’ve got to ram the food down lawmakers’ throats before it gets cold.

Those budget bills are served in two main courses:

The General Appropriations Act is the main bill that supplies state agencies with their operating money from the state General Fund and comprises most of the budget’s allocations.

Budget reconciliation bills, or BRBs, cover more policy-specific areas connected to how the state spends funding buckets.

Those BRBs are often how we can tell whose votes were bought.

Step 6: Take a nap

Lawmakers sine die, or close out the session, after completing one of their only required tasks of passing a state budget.

While they’ve had a lot of time to rest on vacation, they’ll be able to take a break until next year. Most legislators have other gigs to beef up their income when they’re not in session.

Several lawmakers will turn their focus to 2026 election campaigns. Senate President Petersen is challenging Mayes for the attorney general spot, and Republican Rep. Alexander Kolodin is challenging Secretary of State Adrian Fontes. Others, like Gress, would be happy to sneak in a quick honeymoon and be reelected to their current gigs.

But even when lawmakers leave for the year, we’ll still be in your inboxes serving up important Arizona-based news. Add your line item to our budget reconciliation bill today.

Next up in our Secret Santa series, we revisit intern Alysa Horton’s report on a college group’s mission to hunt down Antifa.

It’s an entertaining story that she wrote for the Education Agenda about performative outrage, but there’s nothing performative about how bummed we are that Alysa’s internship is ending.

That being said, she’s moving on to do some really cool things next year — even cooler than hunting Antifa.

“It’s Antifa hunting season at ASU” is easily one of the best headlines of the year — and it’s also my favorite story from our ridiculously cool intern, Alysa Horton.

Alysa came to the Agenda already fluent in ASU politics. As the former editor-in-chief of the State Press, she knows the campus theater, the personalities and the way certain groups try to manufacture a moment and call it news.

So when College Republicans United announced an anti-Antifa press conference, she knew exactly what kind of spectacle she was walking into.

Those kinds of performative political rallies can be difficult to write about — they’re unserious, but the politics behind them aren’t.

But Alysa reported it straight, with the right amount of scene-setting and the perfect little reality checks — including details like that only four members of the college group showed up, led by a guy who graduated five years ago.

Alysa heads to D.C. next year to finish her master’s degree, and while I’m sad we’re losing her, I’m genuinely excited to watch what she does next. If this story is any preview, she’s going to be a menace to bad political theater wherever she lands.

It’s Antifa hunting season at ASU

Anti-fascists beware …

Alysa Horton, Oct 29, 2025

The College Republicans United group was back at it on ASU’s campus last Thursday with a new mission: Convince students to report “Antifa” to the FBI.

The group rallied support from a mere four members, most of whom aren’t students, for the event. That’s assuming you don’t count Paul Reevs, a Republican running for David Schweikert’s seat in Congressional District 1, who was the group’s guest of honor.

CRU’s invitation to the gathering bragged about their special guest, while bashing the Young Democratic Socialists of America at ASU and sharing information about Antifa — which President Donald Trump declared a “domestic terrorist organization” last month.

Armed with posters and not much knowledge of Antifa, the group spread out between the Nipple of Knowledge (as the kids call Hayden Library) and the Memorial Union — one of the most highly trafficked areas on campus.

“Our mission is to prevent violence and to let people know that that is not going to be allowed in a civil society,” pro-fascist protester Kevin Decuyper said.

Decuyper, who said he was the chairman of the group despite graduating more than five years ago, has a history as a known extremist and neo-Nazi. In 2019, the New Times published a collection of leaked chats that showed Decuyper and the rest of CRU made racist, homophobic and anti-Semitic comments.

Those comments are not to be confused with another, more recent, scandal of racist, homophobic and anti-Semitic Republican youth texts. In that one, the leaders of the Young Republicans, including the Arizona chapter, called for the rape of a rival Republican activist and one even said, “I love Hitler.”

ASU’s branch of the Young Democratic Socialists of America set up a table right next to CRU. Harold Branch, a member of YDSA, was quick to interrogate Reevs, the congressional candidate, about why he would align himself with CRU when they have a known history of extremism.

“I’m not joining a party. I’m joining a cause. The cause today is to recognize that there’s no place for violent criminals on campus,” Reevs said. “...I’m not here to take a side. I’m not here to get dragged into a conversation on a topic that does not represent what I’m trying to do.”

As the YDSA members stepped up to debate Reevs, and herds of students stood around gawking, the CRU members left their honored guest to fend for himself.

Micajah Jackson, a “proud” participant in Jan. 6, was at the event to support CRU, but later changed the conversation to how smart he thinks Nazis were.

“Their IQ was so much higher than the so-called Neo Nazis in America that it’s a joke. The Nazis of World War II were high-IQ, shaved-faced, professional men with families,” Jackson said.

Jackson graduated from Grand Canyon University and now runs an extremist Twitter account with more than 11,000 followers. Aside from the events he attends with CRU, he has no known connection to the university.

The only current student we were able to identify as part of CRU was Isaiah Alvarado, who studies anthropology and German. Alvarado was one of the event leaders earlier this year when CRU made headlines for asking students to report “their criminal classmates to ICE for deportation.”

ASU President Michael Crow defended the decision to allow the January event, saying it didn’t cross the line of intimidation that would make the university cancel it.

“Our judgment was that communication that they were projecting was borderline, but right at that edge,” Crow said to the State Press at the time.

But for students who witnessed CRU’s most recent “hunt” of fellow students, that’s not good enough.

Devan Clyde, was walking past the campus event last Thursday when he heckled the organizers and said they didn’t understand what Antifa was — people against fascism.

When asked why he thought this event was happening on ASU’s campus, he said he wasn’t surprised.

“ASU says that they have a longstanding tradition of standing up for freedom of speech, I would argue that they tend to … from my observations, prioritize the speech of conservative groups on campus rather than liberal or leftist groups on campus,” Clyde said. “I know they would strongly dispute that, but that’s based on my experience.”

The Agenda team is spending this week working on some projects for 2026.

But since you probably missed a few of our 200-and-something editions this year, we’re resurfacing our favorites, along with a few words about why we like them.

It’s kinda like our Secret Santa gifts to each other.

Today, Hank has dug through the archives to find Agenda intern Alysa’s coverage of this year’s hottest election.

“The Foxx news spin” is what we in the news business call a “quick-turn” story about the results of the July special primary election in Southern Arizona’s Congressional District 7.

And it was the first story where I got a real sense of the kind of reporter that Agenda intern Alysa Horton is.

She’s bold, clever, determined and hopelessly obsessed with politics.

And most importantly, she’s fun to party hop with!

The special election to replace Raúl Grijalva in CD7 was the main event of the otherwise off-season political cycle in Arizona. And Alysa wanted to be in the thick of it.

So she volunteered to trek down to Southern Arizona to join me and Joe Ferguson at the election night parties.

First stop was social media sensation Deja Foxx’s party — where Foxx delivered a concession speech via Zoom, which became the lens for Alysa’s postmortem of her congressional campaign.

The piece holds up as a capstone for that moment, but the real reason I chose it was the joy of watching Alysa work. She beelined for Foxx’s mom and got rejected for an interview, she nearly got washed off the road during a flash monsoon and she finished up this story soaking wet, through chattering teeth.

It was kind of a disaster of an election night! But Alysa was a trooper through it all.

Bouncing around with Alysa was a blast, and seeing the evening through her eyes made me a little nostalgic for my first election parties in Tucson. It was clear she had caught the politics bug that got me so many years ago — God help her.

While Foxx wasn’t destined for D.C., Alysa is. She’s leaving Arizona in January to finish up her master’s degree in the nation’s capital.

Her unique perspective, strong voice and can-do attitude will be sorely missed here at the Agendaverse.

But I’m sure that if she doesn’t have the good sense to leave this business now, she’ll have a very bright future in journalism.

The Foxx news spin

Teen Vogue reporters don’t vote.

Alysa Horton, Jul 16, 2025

At 25 years old, Deja Foxx’s lack of experience in traditional politics was the driving narrative that brought supporters and foes alike to follow the Gen Zer’s campaign over the last 100 days.

Foxx was a fresh face in a race that amounted to a match-up between two of the most worn names in Tucson politics. And as Democrats struggle nationally to decide why their party got trounced by President Donald Trump, Foxx provided a glimmer of hope that the answer wasn’t, in fact, more of the same.

Her campaign, which she documented daily on social media, especially her preferred channel, TikTok, inspired a whole universe of Washington-centric think pieces comparing her to Democratic U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and, more recently, New York mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani.

As recently as yesterday, Politico was still declaring her the “influencer (who) could actually win a seat in Congress.”

In the end, she didn’t even come close.

Foxx’s run for the Congressional District 7 seat left vacant by Arizona’s longest-serving member of Congress, Raúl Grijalva, came to a quick close Tuesday night.

Early ballot results showed the congressman’s daughter, Adelita Grijalva, won by an enormous margin. The Associated Press called the race within minutes of the first round of ballots being counted. The other candidates didn’t stand a chance.

The poor showing was a devastating blow to the few dozen Foxx campaign volunteers who eagerly awaited Foxx’s arrival at her election party in Tucson on Tuesday night.

Instead, the social media-savvy politician made her first appearance via Zoom. It was a brief moment of prioritizing her online following over her boots on the ground volunteers that spoke volumes about the campaign’s priorities.

Only later did she make a brief appearance in front of the fewer than 100 mostly young supporters who showed up.

“I know that everybody in this room shares the core belief that we picked possibility over predictability,” she said. “The people that we inspired are better off because we were in this race. That doesn’t go away after one election.”

Win — or in this case — lose, Foxx’s campaign used her age as a call to Democrats to bring younger voices to the party’s future.

That message was popular with national reporters and columnists who followed the campaign, and even some celebrities who latched onto Foxx’s moment of fame.

But it never landed with Southern Arizona voters.

Instead, Tuesday night’s results offered a testament to the strength of the Grijalva brand in Tucson — and the steady lifetime of public service that the Grijalva family represents.

Grijalva didn’t just win. She dominated to a degree that surprised even her supporters.

At the Grijalva victory party at the El Casino Ballroom in South Tucson, the dance floor was popping — packed with more young Tucson voters than the entire Foxx election party.

The future congresswoman made the rounds with open arms, thanking her supporters and promising she’ll strive to carry on the legacy of her father.

“This campaign was not about one individual, it was not about social media likes,” Grijalva told the crowd.

Still, it’s likely not the last time Foxx will catch the eye of national outlets. She’s proven herself as a valuable asset to Democrats — with a social media following Love Island contestants can only dream of — even if CD7 residents aren’t ready for a “political influencer” to take office.

Where Foxx is headed next might be unknown, but she’s clearly headed places… just not Congress.

As journalists by trade, we don’t exactly have “office gift exchange” budgets.

Regifting is much more doable.

So this week, we’re wrapping up each other’s best stories and handing them back to their authors (with a note on why they stuck with us).

It’s kind of like a professional Secret Santa.

We’ll be spotlighting the year’s best editions through Friday, then we’re off for the rest of December to be with our families and prep for some big things coming on the Agenda horizon.

To kick off our Secret Santa series, Nicole is writing about her favorite story that Hank wrote.

Here at the Arizona Agenda, we talk a lot about the importance of local, independently owned media.

And since we’ve all worked at corporate-owned papers, we’ve seen firsthand how profit-driven ownership damages the industry.

But the firing of Republic columnist Abe Kwok in July felt uniquely cruel.

While the Agenda was on break in August, Hank found out about the loss of decades of institutional knowledge through a wave of buyouts at the Republic. Kwok, however, was outright fired.

The announcement came while he was on medical leave after suffering a stroke.

That decision didn’t just merit coverage — it merited pushback.

So Hank returned from our hiatus to organize a letter-writing campaign to Gannett’s CEO to protest the move. More than 600 people wrote in, and Gannett rescinded Kwok’s firing.

That’s the Hank method: going beyond observation and into action — whether that’s running a bill to honor Don Bolles with a monument at the Capitol, or creating Deep Fake Kari Lake to show how easy it is to manufacture reality.

We may never know whether Gannett reversed course because of the campaign. But there’s no question it helped — and it’s a reminder of what independent journalism can do when it refuses to look away.

More bloodshed at the Republic

You can’t just “fix the glitch,” Mike.

Hank Stephenson Aug 25, 2025

Hey readers,

We’re still on vacation, but we heard a disturbing story that we wanted to share with you.

We’re hoping you can lend a few minutes to help right a wrong. Or at least make some corporate schmuck’s life a little less comfortable.

So… Last time we broke from our vacation, it was to tell you about the wave of buyouts at the Republic.

Those buyouts took out beloved longtime Capitol reporter Mary Jo Pitzl, plus the entire Republic editorial board.

But one member of the editorial board — 36-year Republic veteran and columnist Abe Kwok — didn’t get the buyout.

He got fired.

And not just fired — fired while he was on medical leave and still in a hospital bed after suffering a stroke.

And the corporate monsters at Gannett didn’t even tell him.

Also, the management at the Republic didn’t even know about it until they got bounceback emails from Kwok’s address.

We’ll let the Republic’s Richard Ruelas tell this tale of “Office Space” level of corporate incompetence and indifference.

Below you’ll find the letter Ruelas wrote to members of the Republic’s union.¹

But first, here’s how you can (maybe) help.

We used our grassroots advocacy tool, Wolfpack, to spin up a letter-writing campaign to Gannett CEO Mike Reed advocating for Kwok.

It’s super simple. Just type your name and email address, pick a custom talking point or write your own, and click the button.

Wolfpack will draft a unique email that you can edit or send directly to Reed with a simple click.

It’ll only take a second, and if enough of you do it, we might actually be able to help.

Click this button to take action!

Ok, here’s the lowdown from Ruelas.

See you all next week!

From: Richard Ruelas

Date: Fri, Aug 15, 2025 at 3:48 PM

Subject: An Abe Kwok update

To: Arizona Republic Guild

An update on our colleague Abe Kwok:

Abe Kwok’s 36-year career at The Arizona Republic has come to an abrupt end.

Gannett fired him in July.

Abe has been on medical leave since October after suffering a stroke.

In May, the Company drafted a letter informing him that he was being terminated from the Company, effective July 1.

The Company claimed it mailed the letter to Abe’s home address.

In late July, while Abe was in the intensive care unit of a Scottsdale hospital, his wife was informed for the first time that Abe had been fired.

She was told through a text message from Abe’s boss, Elvia Diaz.

Abe was released to his home a few days later. But his wife still hadn’t found the right moment to tell him he had been fired.

That day, Diaz texted Abe’s wife again asking about retrieving his work computer and power cord.

Gannett apparently wrote the May letter terminating Abe without informing Republic management.

In a mid-July email to Human Resources, editor Greg Burton said that Republic managers found out he was fired when they received automated notices about his computer and his access.

Human Resources said it was going to investigate where the communication breakdown occurred.

Upon receiving the text from Diaz that said that Abe was fired, Abe’s wife called and told me.

I sent an email to management asking about it.

The director of labor relations for Gannett sent me a copy of the May termination letter that was supposed to have been mailed to Abe’s home address.

I forwarded it to Abe’s wife.

It was the first time she had seen it.

Republic managers, in a labor-management meeting on August 1, said that the situation should have been handled with more grace.

Last Friday, I told Republic management that Abe had not yet been told of his firing.

I asked if anyone, or someone from Human Resources, might wish to make that notification.

With no one from the Company volunteering to do so, I met with Abe this Friday.

I gave him the letter from Gannett and we discussed the situation.

He had heard about the voluntary buyouts.

He requested that I ask the Company if it could let him participate in it.

“I want some compassion,” he said.

I drafted the email while sitting next to Abe and sent it. I have not heard a response.

Abe’s recovery journey has been difficult.

Each period of progress has been followed by a backslide.

This news was a tough blow.

Hearing it from me was not ideal.

But I’m sure he appreciated the humanity in someone telling him to his face, rather than finding out this life-changing news in an envelope sent through the mail.

Abe started working at The Republic in September 1989.

He remembered that date as we spoke on Friday.

And as I sat with him, I looked through the archives and verified he was correct. We pulled up his first stories, two that ran on the same September 1989 day.

Abe was also a key member of the bargaining committee that successfully negotiated our first contract.

This update is being sent because Abe said he wanted everyone to know the circumstances of his firing.

He can accept texts at 602-XXX-XXXX.

Though, as those of us who receive texts from him can attest, reading his responses might require some patience.

If you wish to send a card, his home address is: XXXXXXXXX

In solidarity

Richard Ruelas

unit chair

Arizona Republic Guild

The Agenda is a “subscriber-first publication,” meaning we take our cues from you, not from advertisers or corporate and philanthropic donors.

You pay the bills, so your opinions matter to us — and your survey responses help guide our plans for 2026.

Subscribe now

Nearly 200 of you have already taken a minute to tell us what you love, what you don’t, and how we can do better in 2026. Thanks for that!

We’d love to hear from more of you. Here’s that link again.

In the meantime, we thought it would be fun to share some of the survey results with you. Think of it as the first poll of 2026!

You’re too kind

First off, you readers are incredibly flattering. Whenever we need an emotional boost, we’ll just look back at the words of encouragement and thanks that you all sent in this survey.

They bring little tears to our ink-smeared eyeballs.

Here’s a very small sample of some of our favorite comments:

Suggestions box

Of course, there’s always room for improvement. And you all had some great thoughts about how to do that.

Among our favorites were these two ideas, which we’ve been working on for months now.

As we move from Substack to our new home over this winter break, we’re putting a lot of energy into categorizing and grouping our archives, which we hope you will find helpful. Super helpful, even.

In fact, a lot of your suggestions were things we’ve been thinking about. Like this idea of mapping the local news ecosystem.

Some of your ideas were big-picture, like doing more long-form investigative pieces, launching a podcast or starting an RSS feed. Some were hyper-specific, like requesting a table of contents at the top of the newsletter.

Some of them were more thematic — like this idea of focusing on the public good, which we loved.

We’ve sorted, categorized and color-coded each of your ideas, and we’re discussing feasibility.

Thanks for the feedback!

Mixed messages

There were two aspects of what we do here that you all have strong feelings about: gossip and snark.

Unfortunately, our readers are not of one mind about gossip and snark. Some love it, some hate it.

But overall, you readers argued for more snark and gossip by about a two-to-one margin. So our snark and gossip level must be about right.

Or as one reader put it:

We’re too liberal

This was actually the most surprising result — not because some of you think we’re too liberal (we’re used to that), but because none of you called us out for being too conservative.

We usually get a few “HOW DARE YOU INTERVIEW ALEX KOLODIN” type comments that help us feel more balanced.

So, message received — though we’d like to take a minute to talk about it.

To be clear, the Agenda has never aspired to provide the kind of both-sides journalism some of you want.

We don’t do news with “just the facts.” We do news with the facts, context, history, backstory, subtext, analysis and perspective that helps you make sense of the news.

And, yes, we add some snark and gossip to help keep us sane.

Unlike the corporate newspapers we’ve previously worked for, the Agenda is written from a viewpoint.

Not a partisan or liberal viewpoint, but the viewpoints of seasoned local journalists who have the freedom to call bullshit when they smell it.

But the bullshit is not spread evenly across the field. Not even close.

We view it as our patriotic duty to point that out — even if it costs us subscribers.

That said, some of your feedback on this topic was incredibly thoughtful. Thank you for taking the time to write, and for being honest enough to tell us that.

We’re listening.

It’s often easier to call someone an idiot than to debate the merit of their ideas. And in some cases, calling them an idiot and moving on is the right approach.

But it shouldn’t be the first approach.

Thanks for the reminder.

Ok, let’s not end this on a bummer. Here’s our single favorite response to the question of “what else is on your mind?”

These opt-out permits allow home owner-builders to eschew typical code inspections and use alternative methods and materials to construct their desert dwellings. This laissez-faire allowance has attracted all kinds of new residents to the area over the last decade, from libertarian off-grid individualists to community-seeking sustainability nerds. Before we take a closer look at how “opt-out culture” is blossoming in the area, some historic context.

Rural Characters

Flash back to 2006: Cochise County was preparing to update its building codes to align with the International Building Code, as many counties already had. But not everyone was keen on that tidy, one-size-fits-all framework.

At a public hearing on June 6 of that year, locals rallied in support of an amendment tailored for rural owner-builders.

The locals argued that the amendment would preserve the “rural character” of the county by keeping parcel sizes large, preventing high-density developments, air pollution and rising property taxes.

The Supervisors were convinced — mostly. The amendment passed 2–1. But did anyone anticipate that this provision would become a bat signal for young families over the coming decades?

Generation Drift

Millennials, Gen Z, Gen X, and Boomers are increasingly finding their way to rural Cochise County. That’s partly to do with the lure of the opt-out permit, made famous by local YouTube channels, but also because rents and home prices elsewhere became a forcing function.

As city dwellers start having families and looking for affordable housing, they have historically migrated to nearby suburbs. But no longer.

Home prices have more than doubled over the last decade, and remote office jobs have stabilized around 10% since the pandemic, incentivizing urban families to settle down outside of metropolitan areas.

And these migrants to rural America expect to own 1-5 acres, much more than you get in the ‘burbs.

Alternative Building

The opt-out permits can be used to build classic stick-frame houses, but many of the owner-builders in Cochise County want something more natural, affordable, energy efficient, and fire-resistant. Popular construction paradigms include geodesic domes, strawbale, and adobe.

One the most popular styles is the superadobe/hyperadobe method developed by the late Nader Khalili and popularized by his CalEarth institute. Often, but not always, constructed in the shape of domes or vaults, these homes are built with an adobe mixture of dirt inside long plastic or mesh tubes, tamped down one layer at a time. The earthen material provides a “thermal mass” which helps to stabilize indoor temperatures. And the fire-resistant property of earthen construction created an uptick in interest in superadobe construction after the L.A. wildfires earlier this year.

“I’ve never seen a house like this, but I like the shape of it,” one CalEarth visitor told the Los Angeles Times.

The Price is Right

The cost of alternative building is far more affordable than traditional construction, but varies depending on size, style, thriftiness and do-it-yourself willingness.

One local couple built their 1,200-square-foot strawbale home for $120,000, and another built their 750-square-foot strawbale home for $30,000. The former includes a private well, the latter has a rain catchment system, and both are powered by solar.

Most of the young families in the area are spending $20,000-$80,000 with utilities. A private well will cost an additional $30,000-$80,000, but many choose to haul water and/or install rain catchment systems. The DIY approach means lots of work hours invested, but the payoff is home ownership and very low monthly upkeep costs.

After talking to some locals, I got these rough estimates for price and labor considerations for various alternative home construction methods (without utilities):

Superadobe/Hyperadobe

Materials: $20 / square foot

Labor: Intensive

Classic Adobe

Materials:: $15-$25 / square foot

Labor: Intense

Straw Bale

Materials: $15-$40 / square foot

Labor: Moderately intensive

Geodesic Dome (foam-insulated)

Materials: $100 / square foot

Labor: Included in cost

Classic Woodframe

Materials: $50-$100 / square foot

Labor: Moderately intensive (skills needed)

Raw rural land in Cochise County goes for $1,500 — $10,000 per acre, depending on the location, your patience in waiting for a good deal, and who you know.

Rich Samartino, a web developer from Phoenix, was looking for a place to build his own home and discovered that Cochise County was, as he put it, a “homesteader mecca.” He moved into the area twelve months ago. He spent $45,000 for ten acres and $80,000 for materials and a hired crew to build his superadobe dome complex.

Other locals save costs, while also making friends, with old-fashioned “barn raising” or, in modern parlance, “work parties.” There are at least two larger organized cooperatives of neighbors in Cochise who regularly go to each other’s properties to help with construction projects.

And while earthen construction is already “dirt cheap,” nearly everyone manages to incorporate recycled materials into their builds.

Opt-Out For Everyone?

While Cochise County has an increasingly recognized reputation for homesteading and alternative building, it’s not the only place in the U.S. with relaxed construction requirements.

Neighboring Greenlee County doesn’t have any code requirements at all, and in 2019, Coconino County created the Innovative Materials and Systems Pilot Program for owner-builders who want to build outside of International Building Codes.

Last year, HB2096 would have allowed small home construction in all of rural Arizona without building code requirements. The bill failed along partisan lines, but when I collected signatures in support of the proposal at the Cochise County Annual Opt-Out Expo, I gave the option for signees to declare their political affiliations, and the response was ostensibly bipartisan:

Independents: 27

Undeclared: 25

Democrats: 17

Republicans: 12

While the rest of Arizona sleeps on the alternative homebuilding game, Cochise County is leaning into it.

In October, all three county supervisors unanimously approved a citizen-requested proclamation for October to become Cochise County Opt-Out month.

One of the supporters at the proclamation’s hearing was Joy Banks, last year’s Democratic challenger to newly elected Supervisor Frank Antenori.

Learn More

The most common way people learn about alternative building in Cochise is from the bevy of popular local YouTube creators. Tiny Shiny Home has over 200k subscribers, Our Self-Reliant Life has over 100k, and new ones pop up all the time.

If you want to check out the local scene or meet some of the local rural land realtors, the Annual Cochise County Opt Out Expo is happening on Feb. 7 in Elfrida.

She doesn’t just sue Trump: Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes sued Chinese online retailer Temu over allegations that the company is stealing customer data, per the Associated Press. Mayes says Temu gathers sensitive data about customers, including GPS locations and which other apps are on a customer’s phone. All that data could be handed over to the Chinese government at any time.

“It can detect everywhere you go, to a doctor’s office, to a public library, to a political event, to your friends’ houses,” Mayes said during a news conference. “So the scope of this invasion of privacy is enormous, and that’s why I consider it possibly the gravest violation of the Arizona Consumer Fraud Act that we have ever seen in Arizona.”

Voucher lawsuit incoming?: Mayes is also investigating Arizona’s school voucher system, particularly a policy of automatically approving reimbursements under $2,000, KJZZ’s Wayne Schutsky reports. That policy led to parents using voucher funds to buy items like jewelry and lingerie. Mayes said on Tuesday that “litigation is not off the table,” while her office pushes Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne to reform the voucher program.

Clock is ticking…again: Gov. Katie Hobbs suggested upper basin states are wasting time instead of putting up a Colorado River agreement, Heidi Hommel reports for KTAR. The governor suggested Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming ran out the clock for the Nov. 11 deadline for an agreement to the U.S. Department of the Interior and Bureau of Reclamation. The states that utilize the Colorado River will now have until Feb. 14 to submit a final agreement.

“Our users will not accept a deal where we are waiving our rights to the water that the upper basin owes us,” Hobbs said.

Tax cut or bust: Hobbs is standing by her proposal to cut personal income taxes by more than $200 million, per Capitol scribe Howie Fischer. The cut would make life more affordable for Arizonans, even though the state is facing economic uncertainty and cuts to federal funding, Hobbs said on Monday. She didn’t say which services would be eliminated if the tax cut were to take effect, but “this is something that we have calculated into the budget that we will present” in January. While some state Republicans support Hobbs’ plan, other members of the GOP want the governor to incorporate parts of the “Big Beautiful Bill” into the state tax code — like allowing businesses to quickly write off the cost of new equipment to reduce taxable income and a big tax break for the wealthiest Arizonans who itemize their taxes.

Sign of the times: Since Democratic U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly made a video urging soldiers not to follow illegal orders, which President Donald Trump said was “punishable by DEATH,” Kelly said he and his wife — assassination attempt survivor and former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords — have been getting “graphic” and “violent” threats, per The Hill.

“We get more threats now in a single day than we would get in months,” Kelly said.

In other, other news

The proposal for a Charlie Kirk memorial in Scottsdale might be no more after an indecisive city council meeting (J. Graber / Daily Independent) … The Paradise Valley Unified School District unanimously decided to start dismissal proceedings against the superintendent (Kyra O’Connor / 12News) … Republican Rep. Rachel Keshel said it was “complete BS” that Arizona’s Department of Child Safety spent $3 million on legal fees and a verdict in a case that dragged on for six years (Dave Biscobing / ABC15) … And the Scottsdale City Council rejected a proposal to limit the number of public speakers and the time for speaking — they instead increased the number of speakers allowed on non-agenda items to 12 from 10 (Irene Snyder, Kenneth Wong and Taylor Wirtz / Fox10).

Back in April, we ran a story headlined “Mayes against the machine.”

It was such a clever headline that Attorney General Kris Mayes’ campaign stole it from us and put it on reelection shirts that she’s selling for $36 each.

Thanks to savvy reader Camryn Sanchez, who never forgets a headline, for flagging and for suggesting a legal strategy.

We informed the campaign that we expect 10% of all revenue from shirt sales.

Mayes’ campaign spokesman, DJ Quinlan, replied, “Lol… Will have to check the campaign finance handbook.”

We’re also considering investing in a bot that will slap all of our headlines on t-shirts before the politicians can profit off them.

Instead, the town’s 4,000 residents line up at the post office for their bills, catalogs and to catch up on the small-town rumors.

Many residents know the rumors about Stephanie Barbour, a 63-year-old retiree who’s lived there for 11 years: That somewhere along the way, she crossed a line with the Carefree Town Council.

It’s public knowledge because the town council publicized its 15-page cease-and-desist letter against her, and held a 30-minute presentation at a public town council meeting, where a defamation attorney outlined Barbour’s alleged transgressions.

Her main offense: Sending a town official a recording of a phone call that made the town look bad.

Barbour is now suing the town in federal court, which she hopes will help clear things up. The way she tells it, Carefree turned a routine dispute over development into a public shaming meant to silence her.

The dust-up started because Barbour wanted to know why the previously planned development next to a major intersection was taking so long. A development company, Thompson Thrift, had already submitted a proposal to build in the area.

So in 2023, she decided to call the company herself.

A Thompson Thrift executive confirmed Barbour’s hunch: He said Carefree town officials were slow walking the development’s approval.

Barbour recorded that call and held on to the recording for more than a year, per the legal complaint. It only got out when the town’s vice mayor asked for a copy.

That transmittal, and the idea that Barbour sought damaging information about the town, amounted to defamation, Carefree said.

But residents wouldn’t know those details from Carefree’s version of events.

We reached out to town officials for comment, but town attorney Denis Fitzgibbons told us Carefree “does not comment on pending or ongoing litigation.”

Barbour’s experience was traumatizing and humiliating, but it wasn’t exactly unique. The town has a pattern of bullying its critics, her lawyers say.

Across the valley, cities are clamping down on the public’s right to give input. Last year, Surprise arrested a woman for criticizing the council. Earlier this year, Fountain Hills cut off the public comment portion of its meetings — neighboring Scottsdale is also considering restrictions on the public’s right to address the council.

And at the highest levels of government, attacking those who disagree with you has become the norm.

A town that cares

Carefree is an affluent retirement community north of Scottsdale, and despite its name, its residents actually care a lot.

Barbour, for example, said elections in Carefree can turn on a few dozen votes, so she takes time to really understand issues before she votes on them.

Before December 2024, Barbour regularly attended public meetings and spoke during the public comment portion.

She went to her last town council meeting about a year ago, when Craig Morgan, the town’s contract attorney, gave an impassioned speech detailing how Barbour and the Thompson Thrift company wronged the town.

A Thompson Thrift executive gave Barbour misleading details about the development, Morgan said, and Barbour secretly recorded the call to “impugn the integrity” of town employees.

“Hearts were broken because of this. Tears were shed, and families were put in peril,” he said. “These people deserve better.”

After the meeting, Barbour said other residents approached her at the grocery store to ask about the scandal. Others wrote letters to the local paper accusing her of “using false information to disparage others” and “orchestrat(ing) a smear campaign.”

Even if she skips council meetings, Barbour said, there’s no escaping it in a town as small as Carefree.

“We are forced to see each other constantly, almost daily. And what the town did to me was so incredibly hurtful, so incredibly humiliating, I cannot go anywhere now without people knowing exactly what the town did to me,” she told us.

Now, she’s suing her town in an attempt to “regain (her) voice.”

Barbour filed a complaint in U.S. District Court in January, alleging the town retaliated against her for exercising her First Amendment rights.

A secretly recorded call

While Carefree’s residents have plenty of disposable income, the town government doesn’t: There’s no primary property tax, so its revenue is heavily reliant on sales taxes.

The council tried to implement a primary property tax in 2023, but 80% of residents voted against it.

That’s around when Barbour’s questions began.

She wanted to understand why Carefree wasn’t working to boost sales tax revenue after the election failed. Five years before the failed vote, the town rezoned an area next to a major intersection for commercial use, but nothing was being developed there.

In 2022, Thompson Thrift applied to build 126 residential units and nearly 50,000 square feet of commercial space on the site, but Barbour said the town’s staff wouldn’t give her clear answers on why their proposal wasn’t moving forward.

She called Andrew Call, Thompson Thrift’s vice president of development management. He told her about his company’s repeated attempts to work with Carefree, and the town’s consistent reluctance to engage.

Barbour recorded the call.

“We’ve met with a lot of the staff. We have a zoning attorney that’s involved, and met with the mayor and some council members … They are pretty blatant about saying ‘No, we are not — we’re not receptive to developing it,’” Call said on the recording.

Barbour kept the recording to herself. That changed in April 2024, more than a year later, when she had a meeting with Vice Mayor Cheryl Kroyer, who was also wondering what was going on with the development. Barbour mentioned the recording, and Kroyer asked for a copy.

The vice mayor said she’d get Barbour some answers after listening to the recording, per the legal complaint against Carefree.

But Barbour never got those answers.

Instead, more than a month later, Barbour received a scathing, cease and desist letter from Morgan, Carefree’s contract attorney, who demanded Barbour and Thompson Thrift “recant” their “defamatory statements.”

The website is the first thing that pops up if you Google her name plus Carefree.

Thompson Thrift had initially proposed a predominantly residential project, the letter said, which the area isn’t zoned for, and the developer walked away from the project. Carefree’s lawyer alleged Thompson Thrift misrepresented Carefree’s intentions by claiming town officials didn’t want the development in a phone call the executive didn’t know was recorded.

And Barbour was to blame, Morgan said, for spreading a false narrative.

He cited her emails to the vice mayor, which stated “Carefree ran off Thompson Thrift,” and included capitalized words for emphasis. He cited that as evidence that Barbour knowingly spread false information.

“Using all-capitalized letters in a written communication is understood by some to mean to convey the act of shouting at a recipient. See Writing in All Caps Is Like Shouting (lifewire.com),” Morgan noted in a footnote.

The attorney also took issue with Barbour’s use of a plural pronoun in another email.

“Ms. Barbour’s e-mail mentions ‘we’ and begs the question: who ‘we’ means whether anyone is conspiring with her to defame Town Staff? If necessary, pre-trial, or even pre-filing, discovery will reveal any such individuals. And they, too, will be held accountable.”

Barbour’s attorney sent the town a response letter arguing the defamation claims were unfounded and meant to silence her.

Carefree’s attorneys didn’t respond until December, when Morgan made Barbour the topic of the town meeting, saying Barbour’s recording was “obtained entirely by unethical means.” (Arizona is a one-party consent state, so you don’t need permission to record phone calls.)

After that meeting, the town posted the “unethically obtained” recording on its official government website, alongside Carefree’s demand letter and Thompson Thrift’s written apology for mischaracterizing the planning process.

And the town posted Barbour’s personal email address.

Morgan told Barbour’s lawyers she didn’t have privacy rights as an “active, very vocal, and very public participant concerning these issues,” according to the complaint, and “Ms. Barbour can appreciate the fact that victims of bullying and false accusations have every right to set the record straight.”

“It feels to me like the town was trying to intimidate me, and if they were trying to intimidate me, they certainly did it,” Barbour said.

A pattern of bullying

In her lawsuit against Carefree, Barbour isn’t just asking a judge to clear her name — she wants the town found in violation of her constitutional rights and ordered to pick up the tab for damages and attorneys’ fees.

Barbour’s lawyers say her claims aren’t part of some wild conspiracy theory and she had genuine concerns that the town slow-walked the Thompson Thrift project. She spent more than a year digging into it — including by legally recording a phone call that “helps to defeat (Carefree’s) false allegations.”

Thompson Thrift’s attorney issued an apology clarifying “Town Staff never refused to work with us or derail any proposal we made.”

“Thompson Thrift regrets the inaccurate statements made by its agent and the distribution by third parties of these statements, along with a site plan not meant for public disclosure,” an attorney wrote in a November 2024 letter.

Carefree’s lawyers seem to know that one phone call alone won’t carry a defamation case. Morgan instead shifts to attacking the motive behind the recording, framing it around an email Barbour sent to other residents in early 2024 that called for the removal of prominent town staff members.

In the cease and desist letter, Morgan used the email as evidence that Barbour “has weaponized that secret recording and aims to sew divisiveness and disruption in the community and shatter the livelihoods of Town Staff.”

But Barbour argues that Carefree has a pattern of retaliating against those who challenge its positions.

In 2022, the town’s attorney sent a homeowners association a cease and desist letter threatening a defamation lawsuit over members’ opposition to water policies in 2022, per Barbour’s lawsuit.

And in 2018, Carefree’s attorney dressed down a city council member with an 18-minute speech on a council member’s alleged defamatory comments, the complaint says.

As Barbour awaits a hearing date, she still replays the night the town singled her out at a council meeting nearly a year ago.

“I still, to this day, do not understand this,” she said. “My husband and I wake up every morning going, ‘Why in the world did the town do this to me?’”

Meanwhile, the future of development on the corner of Carefree Highway and Cave Creek Road, where the entire conflict stems from, is moving along just fine.

In June, the town’s Development Review Board approved a final site plan with a different development company, the Empire Group, clearing the way for big-box stores and restaurants.

The town plans to let the new developers recoup up to $7 million through a tax-revenue sharing agreement.

Incoming federal funding cuts mean there are millions of dollars in lost funding to figure out, plus a major K-12 funding source and significant water cuts to deal with.

Legislators have already been busy — they’ve prefiled 26 bills and eight memorials and resolutions.

Instead of handling education funding and plugging budget holes, the legislation so far has ranged from remodeling Arizona’s elections to making Ivermectin available for over-the-counter sale.

Remember: 2026 is an election year, so brace yourself for months of political posturing and hundreds of bills that signal ideological alignments, not genuine policy.

The prefiled bills don’t contain the full story of the session, but they do set the tone for the kinds of fights lawmakers want to have next year.

And we’re tracking all the bills that matter via our legislative intelligence service, Skywolf. If you’re a policy pro, sign up for a tour of the system.

Here’s a look at those early priorities.

School vouchers and Marxist librarians

Republican Sen. John Kavanagh wants to make sure Arizona’s school voucher families can still tap into public school resources.

His SB1004 would require school districts to let students using Empowerment Scholarship Account money to join public school activities, and bars districts from charging ESA families more than they charge enrolled students. Kavanagh ran a nearly identical bill this year, but it stalled in the House.

Right now, districts have to let homeschooled students participate in extracurriculars, but they don’t have to extend the same access to ESA students. Some districts, like Mesa Public Schools, are cashing in on that gap: The district doesn’t charge its own students to play high school sports, but it bills ESA students about $2,000 per season, per ABC15.

Of course, the librarians have also made an early appearance. Republican Rep. Nick Kupper’s HB2008, the “Library Freedom Act,” bans public school libraries from spending tax dollars on groups that support libraries or IT services, such as paying dues to professional library associations.

Similar bills have advanced in other states. They’re meant to target library-based membership groups like the American Library Association, which opponents accuse of pushing a “Marxist agenda.”

Meanwhile, Republican Rep. Rachel Keshel wants to ensure that disruptive students aren’t charged with felonies.

Right now, the crime of disrupting an educational institution is defined as “threatening to cause physical injury to any employee or student” or “threatening to cause damage to any educational institution.”

But Keshel’s HB2020 would knock that crime down to a misdemeanor instead of a felony if the perpetrator is under the age of 18.

Ballot battles

Election reform made an early entrance into the 2026 legislative priority list, and Republican Secretary of State candidate Rep. Alexander Kolodin is leading the charge.

Kolodin also pushed the “Florida style” voting changes last year, when he chaired an ad hoc committee to workshop them. The stakes are higher as Kolodin vies for the state’s top elections officer, although the reforms would make it harder to vote.

Two of the first prefiled bills this year — Kolodin’s HCR2001 and Republican Sen. Shawnna Bolick’s SCR1001 — ask voters to ban early voting after the Friday before the election. The mirror bills also get rid of the active early voting list. The idea is that results would come out faster.

Meanwhile, Kolodin’s HB2022 changes Arizona’s election dates to meet federal deadlines, which was a big deal last year amid concerns the state would miss the deadline for certifying presidential election results. Gov. Katie Hobbs ended up signing a bill to move up the primary election date, and Kolodin’s bill makes that fix permanent by rescheduling Arizona’s primaries from the first Tuesday in August to the last Tuesday in July.

The bill also lets political parties send observers to ballot replacement locations. That topic caused a huge uproar during November’s elections after some GOP officials said the Pima County Recorder wouldn’t let their observers into replacement centers, which she’s not required to do.

Republican Rep. Selina Bliss’s HB2001 also imposes the Friday cutoff for ballot drop-offs while making schools serve as polling places even if there’s a concern for students’ safety or not enough space. The bill gets rid of county board of supervisors’ ability to set up emergency voting centers.

Cutting taxes, increasing fees

Lawmakers may finally be willing to address the gaping pothole in the way Arizona funds road construction and maintenance.

Arizona funds roads through taxes on gasoline. The problem is, fewer cars run on gas these days.

And anyway, the gas tax hasn’t increased in more than three decades — it’s buying us a lot fewer roads than it did in 1990.

Kupper’s HB2012 looks to make up for that by increasing the vehicle registration fee for electric cars, alternative fuel vehicles and hybrids.

Teslas and other electric/alt-fuel vehicles would have to pay $85 annually to register, compared to $8 for a normal gas vehicle. Your Prius or other hybrid would be $40. (That math means electric vehicle owners would essentially pay the regular $0.18 cent gas tax for about 500 gallons of gas every year.)

It’s not exactly a new idea — former Republican Rep. David Cook ran something similar in 2024 (with a higher fee), but that bill failed to get the two-thirds vote that any tax or fee increase needs to pass.

Still, Kupper is hopeful that as lawmakers look to trim the budget this year, they’ll realize that roads are critical infrastructure. and that his bill is about fairness for gas drivers, who are subsidizing roads for electric cars.

“I don’t like running tax bills, but it’s about parity,” he told us. “And in a year when we’re tightening our belt, it’s a good year to run a bill like this.”

Meanwhile, most Republican lawmakers are looking for new ways to cut taxes.

And Keshel has a novel idea for how to do that: Don’t charge married couples under 25 years old any individual income taxes, regardless of how much money they make.

If signed into law, her HB2019 would go into effect for tax year 2027.

Gillette’s farewell tour

Republican Rep. John Gillette is again doubling down on his anti-Muslim crusade, this time through legislation.

He introduced two memorials — which basically entail the Legislature sending a strongly worded letter — to designate the Muslim Brotherhood and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) as foreign terrorist organizations.

Gillette made a series of Islamophobic comments on social media this year, then called Muslims “fucking savages” when the Arizona Mirror’s Jerod MacDonald-Evoy called to ask about the rhetoric.

But Gillette isn’t seeking reelection, and Republican House Ethics Committee Chair Lupe Diaz rejected an ethics complaint that Democrats lodged against Gilllette for racist comments.

Still, Gillette wants to leave with the satisfaction that he transferred his rhetoric to legislative letterhead.

His HCM2002 “urges” Congress to formally review whether CAIR, a Muslim advocacy organization, meets the criteria for being designated as a foreign terrorist organization. Part of Gillette’s social media tirade was pointing out that Hobbs met with CAIR’s executive director in 2023, a group he called “a front group for the Muslim Brotherhood.”

Gillette’s other memorial, HCM2001, urges a federal terrorism designation for the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist sociopolitical movement. The bill also asks the Arizona Attorney General to “identify, monitor and report” any Muslim Brotherhood-linked groups in the state.

CAIR denies any connection to the Muslim Brotherhood, but the narrative has persisted in far-right circles. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott recently designated both groups as foreign terrorist organizations.

What a visionary: Former Sen. Kyrsten Sinema is heaping praise on Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr’s “Make America Healthy Again,” the New Times’ Zach Buchanan reports. That “tongue-bathing,” as Buchanan puts it, includes saying “MAHA is amazing” and wondering “how is this controversial?” She conveniently left out that RFK Jr routinely undermines the value of vaccines, even as Arizona goes through one of the worst measles outbreaks in decades.

Looks like it’s working out: Two years after the “Zone” debacle, Phoenix’s Safe Outdoor Space is running smoothly, KJZZ’s Katherine Davis-Young reports. Unsheltered people can camp on artificial turf under a huge awning, or they can go inside an air-conditioned, warehouse-like building nearby. They also have access to all the services that regular shelters provide, like bathrooms and laundry. The dark cloud on the horizon is that the Phoenix City Council approved the site for three years, which means there is only one year left, and homelessness continues to rise in Phoenix.

Shhhhhh!: The Scottsdale City Council is considering whether to curtail public comment at council meetings, but not as much as their counterparts in Fountain Hills did, the Republic’s Taylor Seely and Shawn Raymundo report. Scottsdale officials plan to cap speakers at eight, instead of 10, and cut speaking time from three minutes to two. Over in Fountain Hills, the council ended public comment late last month, saying speakers were performing political theater that got in the way of town business.

Familiar face: Barry Aarons has been around the Capitol for a long time, from working as a page 55 years ago to being one of the most recognizable lobbyists in Arizona. The Capitol Times’ Jakob Thorington did a Q&A with Aarons, who acknowledged that “nobody says ‘I want to be a lobbyist’ when I grow up,” while pointing to a long line of accomplishments, not least of which was deciding to wear a bow tie, his signature piece of apparel. For more words of lobbyist wisdom from Aarons, check out his pamphlet titled “So You Want to Be a Lobbyist.”

What are they really stopping?: What started as a mission to prevent human trafficking in Pinal County has turned into an immigration dragnet along a popular stretch of the I-10, Richard Ruelas reports for the Republic. Pinal County Sheriff’s deputies have been lying in wait along a stretch of I-10 to look for traffic infractions as a pretext to conduct immigration stops. Pinal County Attorney Brad Miller said the county doesn’t want to disrupt the travel of people on the freeway, but the actions are worth it if it means stopping the trafficking of drugs or humans.

“That person with a taillight out,” Miller said, “are they just a person with a taillight out or are they a known cartel member?”

There’s a lot to make fun of in this tweet from Republican Sen. Jake Hoffman, who is beefing with some online content creator about a video trashing the $1.5 million that Hoffman’s company has made from Turning Point USA contracts.

But for the sake of brevity, we’ll just stick to mocking the first sentence — with the most juvenile response possible:

“Oh YaH, JaKe, DoEs It SuCk WhEn SoMe DiPsHiTs DeLiBeRaTeLy SpReAd MiS/dIsInFoRmAtIoN?”

We took last week off to stuff our faces with stuffing. But Arizona’s politicians unfortunately kept on politicking through the break.

So we’ve all got a fair amount to catch up on.

But first — chime in on our 2025 year-end survey by telling us what you love, what you hate, and what you want to see us do more of in 2026.

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1. Getting their 15 minutes of fame

Democratic U.S. Sens. Mark Kelly and Ruben Gallego each became the main character on Twitter over the break — Kelly for telling the U.S. military that it’s OK to ignore orders they think are illegal, and Gallego for a leaked text thread where he degraded his fellow liberals.

Kelly is now facing a pair of investigations from the Pentagon and the FBI, and President Donald Trump says that Kelly’s “sedition” is “punishable by DEATH.”

But Kelly doesn’t seem too concerned about his potential death sentence — he’s using the whole episode as a fundraising tool and as fodder on Jimmy Kimmel’s show.

Meanwhile, Gallego says he’s “heartbroken” that a conservative friend sent a bunch of texts to reporters at a conservative outlet.

Gallego told ABC15 that the texts below are the kind of thing he says all the time publicly and that they reflect his belief that the Democratic party isn’t “as inclusive as it should be.”

2. The New American University

ASU President Michael Crow was mad that Trump didn’t invite ASU into his “compact” with universities, and he thinks Trump meant to offer it to ASU but got the school confused with UofA (which ultimately rejected the offer).

That’s probably the wildest detail in the Wall Street Journal’s dive into Crow’s attempts to cozy up to the president.

The whole story is worth a read, but for you skimmers, here are some highlights from the Journal:

• ASU officials also offered to help the State Department vet international students.

• ASU has hired the lobbying firm Continental Strategy, whose team includes former Trump administration and campaign officials, plus the daughter of Trump’s chief of staff.

• The school also joined a network of major Arizona businesses that are each committing $250,000 annually to an organization run by former Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, a Democrat-turned-independent. She is touting her relationship with members of the Trump administration and GOP-led Congress. Sinema is a professor at ASU and has donated millions of leftover campaign funds to the university.

3. Independents vs independents

The Arizona Citizens Clean Elections Commission voted to sue Secretary of State Adrian Fontes over the newly created Arizona Independent Party (formerly known as the short-lived No Labels Party), saying that using “Independent” in the party name will confuse voters.

About a third of Arizona voters are “independents,” which are officially known as “party not designated.”

Clean Elections fears that independents will unwittingly register as Independents because they don’t know the difference, per Capitol Scribe Howie Fischer.

Fontes says he has no authority to block the name change, and the Arizona Independent Party argues Clean Elections is doing the political bidding of the two major parties.

“This is lawfare by candidates and by parties who don’t want the 35% of the people who are independent to be able to participate,” Paul Johnson, chair of the party, told Fischer.

4. Fake electors, fake prosecution

Attorney General Kris Mayes is still trying to push forward with her case against the fake electors who tried to steal Arizona’s 2020 presidential election for Trump.

After a trial court found she failed to tell the grand jury that indicted the fake electors about the 1887 Electoral Count Act, which is central to the fake electors’ defense, the indictment was thrown out, and the case was sent back to square one.

But ahead of a do-or-let-die deadline, Mayes asked the conservative Arizona Supreme Court to overturn that trial court ruling, saying she didn’t have to tell the grand jury about the law, per the Arizona Mirror’s Gloria Rebecca Gomez.

A few weeks ago, Mayes had signaled she might just drop the case instead.

5. Keep your hands to yourselves

Glenn Hamer, the former CEO of the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry, stands accused of sexually harassing and assaulting a woman, then using his job as the leader of the Texas Association of Business to retaliate against her.

“Jane Doe” claims that Hamer became her mentor and groomed her before launching a series of unwanted advances and “begged, pleaded, harassed, and even cried” when she refused.

The harassment culminated with Hamer attempting to remove her pants, climbing on top of her and assaulting her while intoxicated, she says in the lawsuit.

Afterwards, he apologized and offered to go to the ATM and get cash so she could “forget about it.”

She’s suing Hamer and the Texas Association of Business for $10 million, and the association put Hamer on “administrative leave” while it investigates.

Meanwhile, Avondale City Council member and Turning Point USA staffer Jeannette Garcia stands accused of sexually harassing a subordinate Turning Point staffer, then kidnapping his 14-year-old daughter when he rebuffed her.

“John Doe” says in his lawsuit that Garcia propositioned him at a Turning Point dinner earlier this month, and when he left the party, he found his daughter missing, per ABC15’s Casey Torres

He said Garcia and other staffers were drunk when they took his daughter and “manipulated” her into coming with them by saying he may become violent after drinking that night. He called the police, and the daughter returned home after 12 hours, according to his lawsuit.

“I am aware of the outrageous and false accusations being made about me. Let me be very clear: these claims are untrue. I have never kidnapped anyone, never harmed anyone, and never solicited anything inappropriate, ever,” Garcia told ABC15 in a statement.

Bonus: The Hernandez saga continues

Phoenix Union High School District finally released the security camera video of that weird incident a few months back where Democratic Rep. Lydia Hernandez and someone else allegedly attempted to test the district’s security system by bringing a box cutter to a school board meeting right after a student got stabbed on campus.

But that “someone else” is not Hernandez’s daughter, Cartwright School Board Member Cassandra Hernandez, as Phoenix Union had alleged.

Phoenix Union apologized to Cassandra, who has faced harassment over the accusations, per ABC15.

Meanwhile, the district still can’t find the woman who was allegedly working with Lydia, who isn’t talking. So the district is asking for the public’s help to identify the coconspirator.

The district also issued a trespass warning against the lawmaker, meaning she now needs written permission to enter Phoenix Union campuses.

“This is a woefully inadequate apology, you know, it’s been two months now,” Cassandra told ABC15.

The Weirdest Story of Thanksgiving Week Award goes to Scottsdale Unified School Board member Matthew Pitinsky’s outrageous party.

Basically, Pittinsky hosted a birthday party for his son — and warned the neighbors that it may be loud, but that the family “hired private security to ensure the party remains limited to invited guests.”

In case you can’t guess where this is going, the party did not remain limited to invited guests.

It took off with the kids on Instagram, and by the time police arrived, around 500 kids were wandering the property, many of them wasted — including an underage girl who had to be taken to the hospital for possible alcohol poisoning.

It’s unclear who gave the booze to the kids.

Pittinsky says they brought it and passed it over walls, and his security was unable to kick them all out. Some of the kids told police the booze was already flowing when they got there.

But Republican Rep. Joseph Chaplik wants Pittinsky to resign.

And he says that Scottsdale Unified’s superintendent (who presumably was not at the party) should resign, too.

The Agenda team is taking the week off to work on a couple of big projects.

And we’re taking a minute to be thankful on this most grateful week of the year.

So each of our team members wrote you a little note to say thanks.

Today’s note comes from Alysa, the intern we wish we could keep forever. She’s going on to bigger and better things, including grad school and a life in the nation’s Capitol!

But first, she’s got some parting thoughts for you all.

And don’t forget, we’d love to hear from you on our annual survey, which will help guide our work next year.

Please take a moment to chime in!

Take it away, Alysa.

I am the Arizona Agenda’s first-ever editorial intern.

The group at the Agendaverse has spent years building up its audience and developing its daily newsletters. I saw this first from the outside as a fan of the Agenda, and now I get to witness it as part of the team doing the daily grind.

I still think back to the day I first approached Hank, Nicole and Joe at an Arizona Media Association Lunch. I was working the event, finishing my final year as a journalism undergrad, and convinced I sounded like a total fangirl. Thankfully, Joe found my enthusiasm endearing and encouraged me to reach out so I could interview for their summer internship.

Spoiler: I got it! And then I stayed an extra semester.

I’ve been the Agenda’s intern for nearly six months, and I still get nervous almost every day — in the best way.

To work with a team this spectacular at what they do is intimidating, but since the moment I joined, they’ve made me feel I have a place here.

It takes being in a job like this to realize all the things you don’t know. There were countless times I would be Googling names as the team discussed Capitol drama or pitched the next story. I felt behind. But as a long-time reader, I realized the deep level of knowledge is what makes this publication as good as it is.

Everyone has been so patient as I learn. From grammar edits to format to style to local political lore, there is so much that goes into a piece before it gets published. I have been shown so much patience and grace from both the Agenda team and its readers — you.

I started by writing the “In Other News” section of the email, and I’ve had the opportunity to try every part of the newsletter — and make things my own. I can’t think of another publication or its readers that would let an intern run a quiz themed around “Love Island.”

As my time at the Agenda comes to an end, it’s been such a pleasure to be trusted by you. As a young female journalist, it’s not hard to be overlooked. From the jump, our readers have made me feel like I belong in this field.

Your replies, your corrections, your encouragement and even your sometimes harsh criticisms have taught me how closely people pay attention to the work we put out. There’s something really special about writing for an audience that is smart, opinionated and genuinely invested in Arizona.

Thank you for pushing me to be better and for celebrating where I am at.

We’re giving the team the week off to work on a couple of big projects that we’ve got cooking here at the Agendaverse.

But because we’re compulsively nervous workaholics, we couldn’t just leave you alone this week.

Instead, we asked each of our team members to write a little thank-you note to our readers, talking about whatever it is they’re thankful for.

Today is Nicole’s turn.

Also, we’re still soliciting answers to our annual survey, which will help guide our work next year. Please take a moment to chime in!

As the second anniversary of my first day reporting at the Arizona Agenda passed earlier this month, I couldn’t help but think about how it all started.

Hank took me on a tour of the Capitol to get to know my new beat, but I had a broken ankle, so I was scootering through the hallways with my foot in a boot, trying to act like a very serious journalist while traveling at the speed of a Roomba.

We ran into former House Speaker Rusty Bowers, and Hank fell into an easy hallway conversation with him — the kind that’s full of context you only pick up by spending time in this building. I remember thinking: “This is how this place works.”

The Capitol runs on relationships and a thousand unwritten rules that make perfect sense once you’ve been around them, and almost no sense if you haven’t.

I think a lot of people feel that way — like they’re on the outside of the government’s inside joke.

Two years later, I’ve gained an intimate understanding of how state government shapes your taxes, your schools and your access to basic services. And I’ve come to more fully appreciate the Agenda’s mission is to be “a daily insider publication for political outsiders,” with the freedom to explain, contextualize and occasionally side-eye the process in ways a corporate-owned paper usually can’t.

It’s not the “this happened and you should know about it” coverage I was used to at my previous reporting gigs. The Agenda does more: a little mischief, yes, but we also take elaborate policy and make it readable. We center stories on the people living with lawmakers’ decisions, not press releases.

This year, that freedom has allowed me to turn the convoluted state budget process into an easy-to-follow recipe, explain legislators’ different roles with a high school cafeteria metaphor and map out who actually owns Arizona’s biggest news organizations.

I’ve been able to obsess over extremely consequential topics: why Arizona’s food-bank safety net can’t handle SNAP cuts; how an evangelical lawmaker ended up passing a strikingly “woke” compensation law for the wrongfully incarcerated; and why politicians walked back their promise to stop using tax money to fund a privately owned baseball team.

Here’s the thing: The future of journalism is looking about as steady as I did rolling through the Capitol on a knee scooter two years ago.

But I still believe an informed public is how anything gets better — how power gets checked, and how real change happens.

And because you’ve shown up for this kind of work, I get to keep doing it. Thank you for reading the Arizona Agenda, for caring about this state and for sticking with me along the way.

I’m very lucky to have you in this little club of political outsiders.

The Agenda team is taking the week off to work on a couple of big projects, including a redesign of basically everything we do.

One of our big goals for the year is moving off of Substack. And we’re pleased to announce we’ve found a new home. By next year, our emails will be coming to you through Beehiiv. This week, we’re working on that great migration.

So keep an eye out for the new Agenda!

(And we’re still soliciting answers to our annual survey, which will help guide our work next year. Please chime in!)

But because we’re compulsively nervous workaholics, we couldn’t just leave you alone this week.

Instead, we asked each of our team members to write a little thank-you note to our readers, talking about whatever it is they’re thankful for.

Hank will go first.

More than four years ago, I quit my gig at a corporate newsroom.

I was sure that I would be begging for that job again when the Agenda failed.

So first of all, I’m eternally grateful for you all keeping me from having to swallow my pride and take a real job at some godawful news corporation.

But I’ve said that before.

As I reflect on 2025, I’m most grateful for all the Agenda supporters who have reached out to offer advice about building the Agenda.

I’ve been a journalist my whole life. I don’t really know how to do anything else.

And when I decided in 2022 to build the Agenda beyond a tiny, two-person newsletter, I truly had no idea what I was doing.

I knew what I wanted to do with it. But I had no idea what the steps were between there and here.

And thank God I didn’t, because I would have never started if I knew how much work this was going to be.

But along the way, I got a lot of help.

Sometimes, I just cold-called people who are smarter than I am. So many people were incredibly generous with their time, their expertise and knowledge, teaching me the basics of how to run a tiny media empire — a business — that I couldn’t possibly name them all here.

Some of those critical helpers called me, saying they were impressed with what we do and that they wanted to help. I’ve tried to take every single one of them up on those offers. Some of them were probably a bit overwhelmed by my questions.

But that’s the joy in being a reporter — you have no shame in asking dumb questions that you don’t know the answer to.

We couldn’t have built the Agenda into what it is today without those members of our community who offered tips, tools and their time. So thank you!

I’ve weirdly found great joy in the act of building the Agenda.

As politics become more miserable and unbearable, what keeps me going is building a home for great journalists who want to practice the craft a little bit differently.

Of course, there would be nothing to build without you all.

So, to those of you who signed up, a huge thank you. To all of you who subscribed to one of our weekly policy newsletters this year, thank you. To you policy pros who have taken a tour of Skywolf, our legislation tracking service, thanks. To those who have seen what we’re doing and reached out to offer support, new ideas and new opportunities, thank you.

I’ve had a handful of readers, friends and acquaintances say we should just stay in our lane and focus on the newsletter. And I appreciate that perspective.

But it’s not what I want to do. I want to keep building. I want to keep trying new things. I want to keep evolving — both personally and at the Agenda.

I know that we can produce a darn good newsletter.

What I want now is to see if we can build a great media organization.

So thank you to everyone who has come along for the ride.

Happy Friday, readers!

We’re heading into that time of year where everything slows down a little, and we can do some introspection and planning for the election year ahead.

And we’ve got a lot brewing for 2026.

But before we settle those plans, we’d love to hear from you subscribers who keep the Agenda going.

So we put together a quick survey to gather some feedback. It’s just five questions, but it’ll help guide what we cover and how we cover it in 2026.

So please take a moment to share your thoughts!

Click here to take the survey!

As we reach the tail end of the year, we’ve got a few things in the works that we’re super excited to share with you, including the massive project currently on our plates: migrating away from Substack, our email publishing platform.

It’s a whole complicated, time-consuming undertaking, but we’re fully convinced it’ll be worth the effort.

A new email system means we get new formatting options — and, ultimately, new ways to tell stories. And a new website gives us a landing place for stuff that just doesn’t fit in a newsletter.

We’re growing, and we need a real home base beyond what Substack provides.

Before we go: Next week is Thanksgiving, so we’re giving the team a little time to slow down, hang out with their families and work on some longer-term stories and projects we have brewing.

So we won’t be publishing our regular editions — we’ve got something special planned for you instead.

In case you missed it: We publish three other weekly policy newsletters focused on education, artificial intelligence and water. Here’s what dropped this week.

Education Agenda

This week’s mash-up edition covers pre-session bill drops (yes, they’re already coming for libraries), an update on the Trump compacts for universities and the troubling data on teachers quitting and schools closing.

Plus: the big plans Arizona’s fifth- and sixth-graders have for their futures.

Read here 🍎

A.I. Agenda

Are we in an AI bubble? This week’s AI Agenda breaks down what that means, the red flags and how worried you should really be about an AI-fueled economic crash.

Plus: Self-driving cars on the move, jailbreaking Claude to hack the planet and mapping the genome.

Read here 🤖

Water Agenda

Hitting deadlines is not one of the strong suits for the multi-state gang of negotiators fighting it out over water rights along the Colorado River — this month’s deadline came and went with no real proposal for how to divvy up the scarce resource.

Upriver, they sound pretty confident that something will get done. But here in Arizona, Gov. Katie Hobbs wants the feds to step in and help.

Plus: How do actual farmers feel about negotiators’ failure to land a deal on Colorado River water? We sat down with Elston Grubaugh, the general manager of the Yuma-area Wellton-Mohawk Irrigation and Drainage district, to find out!

Read here 💧

Yesterday was Guinness World Records Day — a thing we only learned existed thanks to Axios’ Jeremy Duda, who wrote about four Arizona boys who teeter-tottered for 7.5 days straight in 1971.

Unfortunately, Guinness has a 16-year age limit for entries, and the boys were ages 12–15. Plus, two men bested them after seesawing for 10 days in 2021, Duda writes.

The story made us wonder, what kind of Arizona records has Guinness accepted?

We weren’t disappointed.

• A museum owner in Williams holds the world record for the largest collection of fossilized poop. George Frandsen has about 8,000 pieces of shit on display at the Poozeum. (Admission is free, if you’re interested.)

• Chuck Goad is the world’s oldest fitness instructor. The 86-year-old works at a Scottsdale LA Fitness.

• In 2014, Adam Winrich got the record for most candles extinguished by cracking a whip: 102. He also has the records for loudest whip crack and heaviest whip cracked, but Winrich didn’t achieve them in Arizona.

• The Arizona Science Center holds the record for the world’s largest pair of scissors, which it made specifically to cut the ribbon on its new Guinness World Records exhibit. A handful of local politicians showed up for the ceremony in 2023, but we’re not convinced the scissors actually worked. (Rep. Matt Gress’ video mysteriously cuts off after the big snip.)