February 23, 2026
Legislative halftime. Way too many ballot measures. The gutless wimp of the week.
It's Crossover Week! The Arizona Legislature was designed to be a 100-day "citizen body," and this week is what was once intended as its "halftime." Thanks to acrimonious, hyperpartisan lawmakers who routinely drive legislative sessions until June 30 and even beyond, that era is no more, but the structure of the 100-day legislature remains. This week, most committee hearings pause while lawmakers vote as many bills through as they can to the opposite chamber for consideration there. This means long days with long debate agendas. At this stage, in order to weigh in on most bills, we will have to contact our lawmakers directly, not with Request to Speak.
The first bill deadline. Bills that haven’t passed out of committee in their chamber of origin are now officially considered dead for the year. By our count, over 1,000 of the 2,118 bills introduced this session (both record-breaking numbers) quietly met this fate, never having gotten a hearing.
Trash can committees. Though the official bill deadline was this past Friday, this week will also see some limited committee action. The Appropriations committees traditionally get an extra week to discuss the fiscal impacts of various measures. Unfortunately, this is also a loophole that allows lawmakers to squeak random non-money-related bills past the deadline. This week, both the House and Senate are doing this via what we call "trash can Approps": hearings with catch-all agendas featuring bad ideas that deserve a trash can, not the legislative light of day.
Vetoes waiting to happen. Just as many good bills have died, many bad ones are speeding toward a brick wall. Every year of her tenure, Gov. Hobbs has demonstrated her willingness to act as a backstop for bad policy, setting a record for most bills ever vetoed in a single session and then breaking that same record two years later. In total, she's vetoed 390 bills so far, and her first term of office isn't over yet! Republican lawmakers are working hard to artificially inflate that count by reintroducing and voting through previously vetoed bills, many with no changes. (See the "Veto Watch" section below for the first handful that have reached her desk.) If you’ve been looking at agendas with us over these past few weeks, you’ll probably agree that it’s looking like she'll break her own record yet again this year.
A longer-than-ever ballot? For the fourth straight year, Republican lawmakers are also trying to circumvent Hobbs’ veto pen by sending measures directly to our November ballot. (Bills that go to voters require only a simple majority from each chamber and cannot be vetoed.) In all, we’re tracking a jaw-dropping 38 ballot measures that are still alive, the vast majority of them harmful. We must work to stop these now so we don’t have to go to the time, expense and frustration of trying to educate all the voters in Arizona on their dangers. (See "Spotlight" below for more on this.)
⏰ If you have 10 minutes: Use Request to Speak to weigh in on the 6 bills being heard in committees this week. Refer to the information, links and talking points in "Use RTS on These Bills" below to craft your own comments to lawmakers.
⏰⏰ If you have 15 minutes: Also contact your own lawmakers directly (your senator for SBs, your representatives for HBs) on one or more of the Spotlight bills. We recommend making phone calls; you'll get a polite assistant who will efficiently take your information. If you can't bring yourself to call, a bulk email is fine, though not nearly as effective.
⏰⏰⏰ If you have 20 minutes: Also contact our Worst of the Week lawmaker (see that section below) to tell him what you think.
⏰⏰⏰⏰ If you have 30 minutes: Also contact our Hall of Shame lawmakers (see that section below).
⏰⏰⏰⏰⏰ If you have 60 minutes: Join us on Zoom for our CEBV Happy Hour conversation, packed with political analysis, conversation and community. Happy Hour meets every Sunday at 4 PM through the end of legislative session. We're looking forward to seeing you!
We've warned you before about how many ballot measures our lawmakers are queueing up for November. This week, our eye is on the Rules Committees. These exist only to consider whether a bill is constitutional and in the proper form for passage. They don't take testimony and won’t read comments. They're also notably the last stop for a bill before it goes to caucus (separate, typically unremarkable partisan meetings of all Democrats and all Republicans) and then a full floor vote.
On Monday, the House and Senate Rules committees are throwing up a red flag for us: between them, the two committees will hear thirteen ballot referrals. On top of that, Monday's House and Senate floor will hear an additional eight, listed here:
- SCR1002, partially invalidating the Voters Right to Know Act by letting those who make political donations under $200 remain anonymous
- SCR1003, exempting environmentally destructive "virtual currency" (cryptocurrency) from property taxes
- SCR1006, an anti-LGBTQ+, anti-student "bathroom ban" and "pronoun ban"
- SCR1013, a Trump-connected model bill to ban "foreign" money and in-kind donations for election administration and ballot measures
- SCR1014, banning early ballot drop-offs after the Friday before Election Day
- HCR2003, banning trans kids from youth sports, school bathrooms and changing facilities, thus creating a toxic environment for all girls in sports
- HCR2004, banning photo radar and leading to more dangerous roads and more collisions
- HCR2016, banning voting centers, returning Arizona to precinct-based voting, and requiring ballots to be thrown out if voters go to the wrong polling place
This is scary, but we have tools to fight back. For instance:
AZ Democrats did exactly this back in 2020, before there was any sort of nexus with Epstein, and it stopped the GOP proposal dead in its tracks Pointing out the weird focus on kids' genitals is unsurprisingly effective at resonating with voters
— Jim Small (@jimsmall.bsky.social) 2026-02-17T18:32:13.005Z
We've put together a list of ballot referrals we're tracking, so you can weigh in and hopefully help pull the brakes on an ultra-long November ballot. We’ve marked the most dangerous referrals as "high" priority in the table of contents on the left. Click through for details on each referral and where it stands, then contact your senator for Senate bills and your representatives for House bills.
One of our tasks is to hold our allies accountable. This section calls out those who support harmful bills. We ask them to heed and do better.
This week, we're disappointed in:
👎 Consuelo Hernandez (D-21), 👎 Lydia Hernandez (D-24), 👎 Myron Tsosie (D-6) and 👎 Kevin Volk (D-17) for voting YES on HB2758 on the House floor. This bill would allow private water companies to drain groundwater from the area where Saudi company Fondomonte grows water-guzzling alfalfa for their cattle overseas, even as voters and local officials plead for more state regulation to protect groundwater. The bill would not have passed the House without their support. It now advances to the Senate for committee assignment. Contact them as follows:
▶️ Consuelo Hernandez • chernandez@azleg.gov • 602-926-3523
▶️ Lydia Hernandez • lhernandez@azleg.gov • 602-926-3553
▶️ Myron Tsosie • mtsosie@azleg.gov • 602-926-3157
▶️ Kevin Volk • kvolk@azleg.gov • 602-926-3498
👎 Brian Fernandez (D-23) for voting YES on SB1332 in the Senate Appropriations Committee. This bill would ban Arizona from participating in any light rail construction project, though voters have repeatedly approved and reaffirmed light rail. Contact him at bfernandez@azleg.gov or 602-926-3098.
👎 Alma Hernandez (D-20) for voting YES on HB2862 in the House Judiciary Committee. This bill would toughen penalties for someone who commits a crime while "wearing a mask with intent to conceal identity." This has potential First Amendment issues: it enhances punishment not based on what someone did, but what they were wearing while doing it. It also puts prosecutors in a tough spot: they could have to decide, for example, whether a woman's religious attire is really faith-based. Contact her at ahernandez@azleg.gov or 602-926-3136.
Speaking of awful, "Hall of Shame" just doesn’t feel shame-y enough for the situation we’re about to describe. The “worst lawmaker of the week” is quite a bar, but this guy deserves it:
👎 Quang Nguyen (R-1), for abruptly, spinelessly abandoning his own bill to stop the forced sale of murder weapons used to kill police.
Did you know that Arizona law requires police departments to sell the guns used to murder their own officers? Read that again and let it sink in. After law enforcement seizes a weapon that was used to murder a police officer, and they finish investigating the crime, they are required to resell the weapon. How would you feel knowing the gun used to kill your loved one was back out on the street? Or that the gun you bought at a police auction was used to commit a murder? It's unimaginable.
HB2861 would have changed that. Nguyen not only worked with the widow of a murdered officer to draft the measure, but volunteered to do so. The bill had broad support from law enforcement, multiple Republican state lawmakers, the Maricopa County Attorney, the original sponsor of the law being changed (who publicly apologized for that law after widespread public criticism), and even the Arizona Citizens Defense League, a pro-gun lobbying group that makes the NRA look tame. And yet, at the last moment, Nguyen chose to quietly kill his own bill by using it to advance a completely unrelated priority.
Alexis Dominguez
We don't know why Nguyen chose to back out. But it's clear that he spearheaded this issue — and took public praise for doing so — then abandoned it (along with his integrity) rather than do the right thing. Rumor has it that he's scared because someone is threatening to primary him from the extreme right. If that's true, the only thing he values is staying in power, and that's despicable.
Put aside for a moment the fact that, though Nguyen talks a big game about supporting police and public safety, he just hung law enforcement and victims' families out to dry. We must ask the larger question: what kind of people do we want representing us? Any politician who values the trappings of power over the chance that power offers them to do good is a gutless wimp who doesn't deserve to be in office.
It's clear the only thing people like this respond to is public pressure. Contact Nguyen at qnguyen@azleg.gov or 602-926-3258 and let him know what you think of his gutless choice.
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Vetoes: Friday, Feb. 20
The veto machine is starting up again! This past week, Gov. Hobbs exercised her power to protect Arizonans from the following harmful, CEBV-opposed legislation. Read her veto letters here.
If you see this little fish next to a bill, it indicates a previously vetoed idea — something intended as "bait" to artificially drive up the governor's veto count and bolster stinky talking points.
"Any man who puts his intelligence up against a fish and loses had it coming." — John Steinbeck
🐟 SB1002 (Kavanagh, R-3) would have created a host of unnecessary, red-tape checks on SNAP eligibility with no funding to pay for the changes. This harms the vulnerable families (including 1 of every 4 children) who rely on SNAP's meager benefits.
🐟 SB1036 (Finchem, R-1) and 🐟 SB1331 (Kavanagh, R-3) would have imposed work requirements on “able-bodied” people who use SNAP. These programs are expensive, create barriers for rural applicants and those without internet, and haven’t been shown to increase employment or wages.
🐟 SB1051 (Rogers, R-7) would have required Arizona hospitals to ask if patients are legally in the country, turning hospitals into border checkpoints and doctors into immigration police, and demonizing anyone who "looks like an immigrant" (i.e., has brown skin).
🐟 SB1056 (Finchem, R-1) would have eliminated any state job that stays vacant for more than 150 days, regardless of whether it's an essential or specialized role. Just because a position is vacant doesn't mean it's unneeded or you can just pick a random person off the street to fill it.
🐟 SB1334 (Kavanagh, R-3) would have banned "able-bodied" adults on SNAP from getting an exemption from a work requirement, for example, if an area doesn’t have enough jobs to allow people to meet that requirement. This would literally force people to look for jobs that don't exist, then when they couldn't find work, yank away their food assistance.
HB2206 (Kupper, R-25) would have required Arizona to reduce its payment error rate for SNAP (food stamps) lower than any state has reported or be punished with funding cuts. This would hit kids hard.
🐟 HB2396 (Biasiucci, R-30) would have banned sugary drinks, candy and all "snack foods of minimal nutritional value" from SNAP. National studies show access to the SNAP program — just as it is — improves recipients' health and lowers the cost of health care.
🐟 HB2796 (Carbone, R-25) would have required the staff of Arizona's Medicaid program, AHCCCS, to regularly check to see if recipients had recent lottery or gambling winnings (without any funding to enable them to do so) and would make it more difficult for recent hospital patients to qualify for the program. Arizona's AHCCCS eligibility process already has stringent income checks.
A strict calendar dictates that bills must be heard in committee in their originating chamber by the end of this week. RTS will end entirely on April 2, when regularly scheduled committees stop meeting.
Affordability
SB1050, sponsored by Wendy Rogers (R-7), would require Arizona State Parks to give free lifetime state park passes to veterans. The state currently offers a 50% discount for active-duty and retired military, free admission for disabled veterans, and free admission for veterans on Veterans Day. The cost to the parks system for mandating this much more expansive discount is unknown at present, but last year, the legislature cut the State Parks budget by $1.6 million, roughly 10% of the agency's budget. Also last year, State Parks raised their fees; the cost of the cheapest annual pass jumped from $75 to $200. Free year-round admission for some is nice, but our state parks system should remain accessible for everyone. As the parks have already been forced to raise admissions due to lack of funds, giving preferential freebies to any group will penalize us all. Scheduled for Senate Appropriations, Transportation & Technology Committee, Tuesday. OPPOSE.
🌟 SB1602, sponsored by Lela Alston (D-5), would gradually raise the monthly stipend for kinship foster care parents (those related to the child) to the same $600 per month that every other foster parent gets. Kinship foster parents are often grandparents raising grandkids; the bill sponsor, who has been working for parity for these families since 2019, says some families must send the children back to the state because they cannot afford to take care of them. Scheduled for Senate Appropriations, Transportation & Technology Committee, Tuesday. SUPPORT.
Ballot Referrals
HCR2007, sponsored by Matt Gress (R-4), would defund public schools by asking voters to force public district (but not charter or private ESA voucher-funded) schools to spend at least 60% of their funds on “direct instructional expenses.” Schools that can’t would have the difference withheld from their state funding. Arizona schools are spending less on classroom instruction because of persistent legislative underfunding, spiraling costs, minuscule annual "inflation" increases, and the $1 billion drained every year into ESA vouchers. Many schools are being forced to close. Republican lawmakers should look elsewhere for waste and fraud; the average charter school spends 22% on administration, double what district schools do, and 20% of ESA voucher purchases are for disallowed items. Scheduled for House Appropriations Committee, Monday. OPPOSE.
Discrimination
HB2229, sponsored by Walt Blackman (R-7), would allocate $3 million in state money to controversial "pregnancy resource centers." These facilities often portray themselves as medical clinics, but most are not licensed and don’t provide comprehensive reproductive care. Their goal is ideological: to discourage people from seeking abortions. In 2024, Attorney General Kris Mayes issued a consumer alert warning patients about the centers. Making its intent clear, the bill would also ban health care providers that offer abortions from receiving any of these funds. Scheduled for House Appropriations Committee, Monday. OPPOSE.
Energy, Water & Climate
HB2389, sponsored by Teresa Martinez (R-16), would let a power company replace or add to a power plant without examining the environmental impact of their plans. Scheduled for House Appropriations Committee, Monday. OPPOSE.
Public Safety
🌟 SB1523, sponsored by Theresa Hatathlie (D-6), would appropriate $340,000 from the state general fund to the Navajo Nation for a pipeline to bring water to the Ganado area. This amount of money is a comparative pittance — just 0.002% of Arizona's yearly $17.6 billion budget — but it would make a huge difference to families on the Navajo reservation who have no running water or infrastructure. Residents have been asking for help for years; the state has a moral obligation to fulfill it. Scheduled for Senate Appropriations, Transportation & Technology Committee, Tuesday. SUPPORT.
2026 Session Timeline
Monday 2/23: Crossover Week begins (most committee hearings are suspended)
Friday 3/27: Last day for a bill to get out of committees in its crossover house
(and the last day to use RTS until a budget drops)
Tuesday 4/21: 100th Day of Session (the stated end goal; can be changed)
Tuesday 6/30: Last day to pass a constitutionally mandated state budget
Committees & Contacts
Here's a handy list of lawmaker contact info, committee chairs and assignments.
CEBV Action Linktree
Want other ways to take action? Need to stay informed? Looking for our social media, inspiration, or self-care tips? Look no further than our Linktree.
Congratulations, you made it to the end! 🎉 Please take a moment to enjoy a laugh at the expense of some folks who really, really deserve it.
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