Arizona legislature: The coming week

This week sees the opening of the 2015 session of the Arizona legislature.

Each week, I will list the coming week's committee and floor schedules posted as of the time of writing, with an overview of bills to watch.

The schedule this week, as with all weeks, is subject to change without notice (and as the session progresses, schedule volatility increases).

Having said that, this is going to be an easy week, schedule-wise.

Note:  "SHR" indicates that a meeting room is located in the Senate building; "HHR" indicates that a meeting room is in the House building.


Monday -

The session convenes, with the members of both chambers of the legislature being sworn in, at approximately noon.

At 2:00 p.m., the governor will give his State of the State address to a joint session of the legislature.

After that, there will be a "First Read" session in each chamber where proposed bills are formally introduced and assigned to committees.


Tuesday -

Senate Rural Affairs and Environment will meet at 9 a.m. in SHR109.  On the agenda: committee organizational activities and a presentation from the American Lands Council, an (ALEC-backed?) organization that is pushing for the transfer of federal lands to the control of state governments (which will almost certainly then transfer such lands to the control of corporate interests, hence ALEC's interest in the subject).  Background info on the American Lands Council from the Center for American Progress here.

House Health will meet at 2 p.m. in HHR4.  On the agenda: committee organizational activities, a couple of presentations, and a couple of bills that look to be harmless.

Wednesday -

Senate Financial Institutions will meet at 2 p.m. in SHR109.  On the agenda: committee organizational activities.

Thursday -

House Government and Higher Education will meet at 9 a.m. in HHR1.  On the agenda: committee organizational activities.

House Agriculture, Water, and Lands will meet at 9 a.m. in HHR3.  On the agenda: committee organizational activities.

Senate Education will meet at 9 a.m. in SHR1.  On the agenda: committee organizational activities, a presentation, and one bill: SB1029, a proposal to change graduation requirements for Arizona high school students.  Under the proposal, students would be required to correctly answer 60 out of the 100 questions on the civics portion of the US' naturalization test in order to earn a high school diploma.  This proposal is being fast-tracked (as evidenced by its committee consideration during the first week of the session) and has a matching bill on the House side - HB2064.


Friday -

The governor releases his proposed budget for the next fiscal year.  Expect further cuts to the state's education system and remaining public safety net.  The state faces a large deficit, but the new governor, Doug Ducey, has already promised that no taxes will be raised to close the gap.


There are no floor calendars posted as of this writing.

The lege's calendar of registered events at the Capitol is here.