Nothing Left Unsaid on the Arizona State Legislature: 2026 highs and lows

• This week, we’re talking all things Arizona State Legislature. We’re putting legislators on blast for their wack priorities and talking about which bills the AZ GOP blocked instead of standing with working people. From data centers, to anti-gooner bills–you don’t want to miss this.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey everyone, it's Abigail and welcome back to another episode of Nothing Left Unsaid. I am your host. If you didn't know that by now, um, today we're going to be talking a little bit about the Arizona legislature, budget negotiations, and some of the some of the shit that Republicans have been wasting our time with all year as they've been blocking Democratic bills that could actually help working people. Stay tuned. So right now at the Capitol, Arizona legislators and Governor Katie Hobbs are in the midst of budget negotiations. Right now, Arizona is facing a historic budget shortfall thanks to tax cuts for the wealthy passed by or signed by Governor Doug Deucey, as well as the $1 billion universal voucher program that is bankrupting our state, also signed by Governor Doug Deucey. And instead of doing anything to help working families amidst a cost of living crisis, Republicans have unveiled their unserious budget proposal. It is essentially a massive giveaway to corporations and billionaires. It extends tax cuts for data centers. It kicks families off healthcare and food assistance. It's basically just one big pile of unserious bullshit. And it's a slap in the face to working families. And instead of doing, you know, anything else at the Capitol this year to, you know, I don't know, lower the cost of housing, try to lower utility costs, uh, gas prices are insane, food prices are rising up, you know, name your issue. Um they have wasted hours and hours and hours of our money and our time at the Capitol pushing a bunch of ridiculous bullshit. So we're going to kind of talk about some of it. We're going to unpack some of it. Um we've got a few highlighted legislators who really just apparently couldn't find anything better to do with their time than this. Um, I do want to start off with giving a special shout-out to Senator Jay Kaufman. This man drives around the Capitol in a wrapped blue cyber truck with a vanity license plate that reads, indicted. He is just an absolute ass clown and he's in it for the thrill of the game. Like at a certain point, I guess you have to respect it. We've also got Wendy Rogers back again this year. Uh, she's still obsessed with Donald Trump. She's also obsessed with Charlie Kirk. I think there was maybe more going on there that we don't know about, but she really wants to name highways after the two of them. She could be doing anything else that could help her district, but as she allegedly doesn't even live in her district, we understand that she may not actually know what the issues that her constituents want her to work on are. We've also got Alexander Colladin. Uh, he won our award last year for most likely to get a DUI on the way home from the golf course because he was pushing a bill to legalize BYOB at golf courses. Honestly, not the worst idea, but not also not a huge priority. Um, this man is writing for his AI corporate daddies with the bills that he's introduced this year. Uh kind of embarrassing but unsurprising. Uh, he's also been pushing an ivermectin bill. Uh I do not know why these idiots want to ingest horse dewormer so bad, but anything that Daddy Trump says, like, they'll eat it up. We've got Rachel Keschel. She is involved in literally it every anti-abortion bill introduced at the legislature this year. Clearly, she doesn't give a fuck what Arizona voters want. It's very ironic that she, you know, claims to be pro-life, which none of them really are, but she is essentially defending her running mate who is being accused of knowing about his kids being abused by his ex-wife. So Rachel Ketchel, uh big anti-abortion legislator, but will defend child abuse. We've got Selena Bliss and Janae Schamp. Um, these are some of the worst people. They are consistently attacking trans kids. They live in their rent, their heads rent-free. And it's really pathetic that bullying kids is their number one priority when Arizona kids need things like funding for education, mental health resources, um, healthcare access. The list goes on. We've got Nick Cupper, who apparently ran on a platform of being a big anti-gooner. He's released a lot of bills this year relating to banning depictions of sexual acts. So Nick Cupper for Puritan of the Year. Now on to Matt Gress. Uh, this man has wasted so much time at the legislature this year pushing numerous bills that would restrict access to services for unhoused folks. Um, this is the complete opposite of what we need to be doing. We need to be treating our unsheltered neighbors with kindness and compassion and fighting to make sure that they have access to housing, access to healthcare, access to food, access to all of the things that we need, especially as it's getting hot outside. Frank Carroll has pigeons on the brain. Uh he introduced a bill to classify pigeons as a public nuisance. And we have a personal issue with this. Um, we literally domesticated pigeons and then we abandoned them. It's really like, why is he so upset about it's just a it's it's just a regular bird? And they're actually really smart. Kevin Payne introduced another bill this year to bring back firing squads as a form of legal execution. So this seems like a good reminder, as any that we need to abolish the death penalty. This one's really interesting. Kyle Powell introduced HB 2767. This would allow sex offenders to be off the sex offender registry early. I would love to know who these man's friends are. Like who is asking him for this favor? Please, please let us know. That's just a small selection of some of the legislation that Arizona Republicans have been wasting time with at the Capitol this legislative session. On the other hand, Democrats have pushed plenty of amazing bills that would have really helped working families. And because they do not hold any control in either of the two chambers, none of these bills got a hearing. But some of the bills that they were pushing that would have been really amazing are things like HB 2036 that would have been same-day voter registration for Arizonans. Um, HB 2464, this would have repealed right to work, which would empower Arizona workers to bargain for better pay and better working conditions. HB 2467 would have repealed current tax incentives for data centers. Data centers are sucking the water out of our land. They are putting the cost on taxpayers, and there's so many issues with them. Um Arizonans are so against data centers. We've been fighting against them in various towns here. Um but Republicans would not give this a hearing. HB 2522 would have established a right for Arizonians to obtain contraceptives. Um, this is super important right now, especially as Republicans and the Supreme Court and everyone are doing everything that they can to attack reproductive rights and bodily autonomy. And then finally, we had HB 2490, which would have prevented uh greedy landlords from using AI price fixing algorithms to basically figure out how much they can make Arizona renters pay. So all these things would have been amazing, but unfortunately, we're stuck with Arizona Republicans in charge of the Capitol. Um, hopefully, Democrats and Katie Hobbes stand strong and continue to uh fight for a budget that actually prior prioritizes the needs of working families, that extends Prop 123, which is education funding that Arizona voters have already approved in the past, and that seeks to address some of the gaps that have been left by Trump and Congressional Republicans' attacks on regular people. Let us know if there's an insane piece of legislation that we did not cover today in the comments. Um, Republicans are really great at wasting our time and money at the Capitol, so I'm sure that we missed a few. Stay tuned for more updates on the budget talks that are ongoing, and let's hope that we can get some real priorities met for our state.