Maricopa County Election Fiasco: Was it an exercise in "Two Birds, One Stone" or was it an exercise in "All Politics Is Local"?

...Or maybe it was an exercise in "it's not what you know, it's *who* you know"...

Ya know, maybe Maricopa County Elections, in the persons of Helen Purcell (County Recorder) and Karen Osborne (Purcell's Director of Elections) didn't deliberately set out to disenfranchise minority and lower-income voters last week (something that they are still claiming they didn't do).

They have claimed that they determined the geographic distribution of the county's 60 polling places based on cost.

However, looking at some other data suggests that at least one factor, aside from cost, may have been part of the considerations involved.

This analysis from Phoenix' channel 5 points out the one that most people have already noted - the areas with the most polling sites tended to be whiter and more affluent than those areas with a dearth of polling sites.

Having said that, I'm not going to go there.

Well, not *too* much :)

Turns out that in addition to having the money to buy bigger houses and whiter neighbors, the residents of the areas looked upon with favor by Purcell et. al. have the money to buy themselves some neighbors that hold elected office.

To whit:

Of the 13 county-level elected officials*, both county-wide and board of supervisors (who are elected to represent districts), only three live more than four miles (by road, not "as the crow flies").

Don Covey, county school superintendent

Andy Kunasek, District 3 on the Board of Supervisors

Michael Jeanes, county clerk of courts

* = In Maricopa County, justices of the peace and constables are elected from 26 districts; for the sake of brevity, they aren't included here. They are "county-level elected officials" but there are too many of them.  Plus, as important as they are to general public in terms of day-to-day life, in terms of Maricopa County politics, the local PTB don't give them much more regard than the PTB give to the general public.


Of those three, two (Covey and Kunasek) are retiring.  Jeanes may be an elected official, but he is as low profile as low profile gets here.  For most people, *not* being able to name the clerk of courts is a good thing (I can, but I'm a political geek; you make the call about whether or not that's a "good" thing :) ).

Of the rest...

...County Sheriff Joe Arpaio lives less than three miles from not one, but two (2!) polling places (Fountain Hills and Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation)

...County Supervisor Denny Barney (District 1) lives just over two miles from his nearest polling place in Gilbert (as a bonus, Senate President Andy Biggs lives just over a mile from the same polling place; not a "county" official, but one with some influence nonetheless)

...County Attorney Bill Montgomery lives just two miles from his nearest polling place, also in Gilbert

...County Supervisor Clint Hickman (District 4) resides 3.3 miles from the nearest polling site in Goodyear

...County Assessor Paul Petersen resides less than a mile from the nearest polling place in Mesa (as a bonus, his predecessor Keith Russell, now a justice of the peace, lives even closer to the same polling place)

...the previously mentioned Andy Kunasek lives a little less than 4.5 miles from his closest polling place in Paradise Valley.  He's retiring, though.  On the other hand, County Supervisor Steve Chucri (District 2) resides a little more than a mile from the same polling place.  And he's not retiring.

...The soon-to be-retired Charles "Hos" Hoskins, Maricopa County Treasurer, resides a little less than 3.5 miles from his nearest polling place in Peoria

...County School Superintendent Don Covey, himself soon to be retired, "wins" this round (not that this is really a competition that anyone wants to win), living in far north Phoenix over 8 miles from the nearest polling place

...County Supervisor Steve Gallardo (District 5), the lone Democrat on this list, lives a shade under three miles from the nearest polling place

...County Clerk of Courts Michael Jeanes resides just over 4 miles from the nearest polling place in north Phoenix (not as far north as Covey, though)

...County Recorder Helen Purcell, the center of the uproar surrounding last week's fiasco (ya didn't think I was going to forget her, didja? ) lives all of 1.4 miles from the closest polling place to her in Phoenix


...Bonus time: Michele Reagan, Arizona's Secretary of State (and chief elections officer), lives 6.3 miles from the polling site in Phoenix nearest to her home in Scottsdale, which doesn't sound too bad.

Except for the fact that her father Michael, an elected official in his own right (justice of the peace) resides all of 1.6 miles from the closest polling place in north Scottsdale.


Now, I expect that most, if not all of the "dignitaries" listed above are on the Permanent Early Voters List (PEVL) and voted by mail in last week's election.

However, all but one of them live in mostly white and relatively affluent areas, and have mostly white and relatively affluent neighbors.

Meaning that not only do their neighbors get special treatment because of their skin color and the size of their bank accounts, they are accorded special treatment because of who they live near.

It's a bit of a "chicken or egg" question - do those folks live near elected officials because they (and the electeds) are affluent, or do the affluent like living near electeds?

Either way, the average Maricopa County resident ends up with the short end of the stick on Election Day...and every other day of the year.



My nominees for the two most questionably placed polling stations:

Pinnacle Peak Public Safety Substation, 23100 N. Lake Pleasant Road in Peoria and Cross of Glory Evangelical Lutheran Church, 10111 W. Jomax Road, also in Peoria.

Why?

Both sites are located in the same precinct, Lake Pleasant.*.

If the "cost" excuse was the truth, why waste money by having two polling locations in such proximity?

* - Actually, the recorder's website's district locator function indicates that the police substation is in the Zuni Hills precinct and that the church's address doesn't exist, but maps published by the recorder indicate that both are located in the Lake Pleasant Precinct (which is immediately north of Zuni Hills).


Notes:

All distances above are based on Googling the addresses.

All addresses are based on public record filed by the electeds in question.

Maricopa County has election problems: It must a day ending in "y"

Monday morning, the state legislature (in the form of its House Elections Committee) will hold a hearing to look into the fiasco that was the in-person voting process in Arizona's Presidential Preference Election (presidential primary) last Tuesday.

On Tuesday, some voters stood in line for hours (literally!) to cast their ballots.  The delays were so long that many national (read: based on the East Coast) MSM operations were literally calling the races here right after showing video of the still-long lines at some of Maricopa County's polling places.

The chief elections officer in Maricopa County, County Recorder Helen Purcell, responded the way that she usually does whenever there are problems with voting in Maricopa County -

She blamed the voters.

Of course, her statement only served to increase the torrent of criticism already being directed her way.   By Wednesday, she had backed away from her statement, but the damage had already been done.

While the state legislative hearing is almost certainly going to be a "pro-forma" exercise (lots of talk, little or no substantive action), there is already a call for a federal investigation.


Purcell and her apologists have been trying to spin the mess that she (and they) created as something caused by their quest to save money.  They had cut the number of polling places in Maricopa County from 200 to 60 and the larger-than-expected voter turnout then caught them unaware.

Something like this actually happens every couple of years here in Maricopa County, just more isolated (2012, 2010, the pushing of easily disenfranchised voters toward provisional ballots during every election. etc.)

Every couple of years, there are reports of long lines and ballot shortages at one or another polling place (or places).

Which doesn't actually sound too bad, until you remember two things:

1.  Election problems may only occur here every couple of years, but elections only take place every couple of years.  In other words, there are issues with every election here, and those problems are always blamed on the voters (the one exception that I can think of:  In 2012, her office was caught giving out Spanish-language election information pamphlets that listed the wrong election date (English language versions had the correct date).

For that one, she just minimized the impact of her office's "mistake", saying that it didn't matter because it affected few voters.

2.  The areas affected by the problems are usually (OK, seemingly "always") heavily minority populated or otherwise Democratic-leaning.


In a bit of a twist, that second point where she may find some real push-back this time - while the areas most negatively affected by her placement of polling stations this year tended toward being mostly populated by minority populations, some of the polling stations with inordinately long lines were in Republican-leaning, Anglo-populated, areas.

Because of that, many of the state's Republican elected officials are already throwing her under the proverbial PR bus.  People like Governor Doug Ducey and Secretary of State Michelle Reagan, persons heretofore known for their anti-voter sentiments and actions, have soundly criticized Purcell.

They are outraged (OUTRAGED!) that people who might ever support them were inconvenienced by Purcell et. al.

Of course, there was nothing but the sound of crickets emanating from these distinguished personages over Purcell's regular disenfranchisement of ethnic and racial minority voters.

Still, to go along with the general ugliness, there were some intriguing selections for polling places -

- Phoenix, with a population in excess of 1.5 million people had 12 polling places, or one for every 158K residents.

- Fountain Hills, with a population of just over 23K people, had 1 polling place, or one for just over 23K people.

Can you guess which one is home to nativist stalwarts like Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio and State Senator John Kavanagh, and which one is the ethnically and culturally diverse largest city in Arizona?

Oh, and apparently just to ensure that the friends and neighbors of Arpaio and Kavanagh weren't too inconvenienced by having to travel too far to a polling place, there was another one less than 4 miles away at the Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation.


And these weren't the only "curious" choices.

- Avondale, a city with nearly 80K residents, had zero! polling places.  Of course the city population is a little more than 50% Hispanic.

- Scottsdale, a city with approximately 230K residents had five polling places, or one for every 46K residents.

Which doesn't sound too bad...until you look at the fact that of the five polling stations, four were in north Scottsdale (north of Shea Boulevard, the high-influence, deep-pockets area of the city) while the one station located in south Scottsdale was actually located in the community center of the Salt River Pima/Maricopa Indian Community.  A place that has a Scottsdale mailing address, but isn't physically located *in* Scottsdale.

And approximately 45% of Scottsdale's population lives in the southern 12% of the land area of the city (aka -south of Shea Boulevard).

- Gila Bend, with a population of 1922, had three polling places, which sounds great...until you realize that Gila Bend is in the freakin' middle of nowhere.  People standing in long lines at other polling places would have had to drive more than an hour to get there.

For example, the distance from the Mountain View Lutheran Church (the southernmost polling place in Phoenix) to the Gila Bend Town Hall (one of the three polling places in Gila Bend) -

Historically, there have been more than a few observers who have opined that when faced with a ****up as big as this, one should not presume that there was malicious intent at work when the situation can be chalked up to simple bad judgement or stupidity.

I try to follow that guideline, but when it comes to sustained "stupidity" from people who aren't stupid (and make no mistake, while I think that Purcell is a very bad elections officer, she isn't stupid, not by a long shot), I tend to be very judgemental -


It's time for Helen Purcell and her hangers-on/enablers to go away.  The people of Maricopa County deserve and need someone in that office who will work for all of the people of the county, not just the ones in preferred areas.



Some of the sources of information for this post:

US Census data

List of polling places in Maricopa County, from the website of the Maricopa County Recorder

Voter registration figures, by city, in Maricopa County, from the website of the Maricopa County Recorder

Don't bother staying up late to see the results of the Arizona presidential primary

The Presidential Preference Election in Arizona (what we folks here call our presidential primary) is over.  At least it will be after some stragglers in Maricopa County vote.

(The consistent ineptitude/malice of Maricopa County's chief elections officer, Helen Purcell, can and will be the subject of a separate post in the near future.)

The MSM pundits will soon declare one or the other candidate to be the "winner", even though most of them know full well that pledged Democratic delegates in Arizona are awarded proportionally, with candidates needing to reach 15% of the vote to earn any delegates.

Given that there are two main candidates (Sen. Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton) running fairly evenly (with Clinton ahead) nationwide, both should attain that 15% threshold easily.

Based on that, the "winner" will be expected to earn more than half of Arizona's pledged delegates, but nowhere near all of them.

Except that it's not quite that simple.


The Arizona Democratic Party does, in fact, award its pledged delegates proportionally, and 15% is the minimum vote threshold needed by any candidate to receive some.

Where it gets complicated is in the fact that delegates are awarded based on *Congressional District* and the 15% threshold applies to each district's votes.

From the Delegate Selection Plan crafted by the Arizona Democratic Party -

To sum up, mathematically, a candidate could "lose" statewide, but still end up with more pledged delegates than the "winner" if he or she wins in a couple of districts by a large enough margin to shut out the other candidate while finishing far behind the other candidate in the other districts, but still earning enough of the vote in those places to break the 15% threshold.

Or to sum up the "sum up", don't go to bed thinking you know how the Arizona primary turned out.

It won't be "over" until all of the district level results are tallied.

Arizona Legislature: The coming week

One takeaway from this week's planned agendas at the Capitol:

There's now proof that when a legislator tells you that one of the schemes to take authority away from the federal government is all about their love of "local control", they're lying about that "love".

According to the latest update from State Senator Steve Farley, we should start hearing rumblings about a state budget soon.  He noted that there may be some recalcitrant Republicans who "feel they got rolled last year on the budget and are determined not to make that mistake again."

My prediction:

Though some of the Rs mentioned above may try to gum up the works as they hold out for some earmarks in the budget, it's an even-numbered year (aka - an election year).  They all want to get out of the Capitol and start campaigning for reelection.  Plus, the leaders of each chamber are running for Congress this year (Senate president Andy Biggs: CD5; House speaker David Gowan: CD1).  In other words, there will be a flurry of activity behind the scenes, the budget will be revealed "suddenly", railroaded through the lege in three days with a minimum of public input, and "sine die" will take place shortly thereafter (not much of a prediction there; that's the way the lege has operated for years).

Let this be the first public sine die date prediction:  Thursday, April 14.


We've reached the part of the legislative session where the committee process is over - except for the chambers' respective Appropriations committees.

So far, this week's meeting of House Appropriations looks harmless ("so far" is a big caveat - at the Capitol, things can change quickly), but Senate Appropriations?

Not so much.

Among the measures up for consideration this week:

- A proposed striker to HB2163, overruling any local ordinances regarding pet stores and puppy mills

- HB2501, a scheme to move any and all health-related boards and commissions under the purview of the state Department of Health Services and giving the director of DHS veto power over any regulations proposed by those entities

- A proposed striker to HCR2014, a proposed amendment to the state's constitution to have the voters renounce their vote in 2006 establishing a minimum wage that is higher than the federal minimum wage and further, bar municipalities from establishing local minimum wage levels

- HB2690, a proposal to remove the licensing and oversight of pawnbrokers from county sheriffs and local agencies and give that responsibility to the Arizona Department of Public Safety


The rest -

Notes:

All committees meetings and agendas are subject to change without notice, and frequently do.  If you plan to travel to the Capitol to observe or weigh in on the consideration of a particular measure, check with the lege ahead of time to confirm that the meeting that you are interested in is still on schedule and your item(s) of interest is still on the agenda for that meeting.

Meeting rooms designated "HHR" are in the House of Representatives building. Meeting rooms designated "SHR" are in the Senate building.

All House committee agendas can be found here. All Senate committee agendas can be found here.

Committee schedule (mostly just copied and pasted from the lege's website.  The agenda links work, as of this writing, but may not later in the week if an agenda is modified in some way):

Agenda Date	Committee	Time	Room	HTML Document
03/24/16	Government and Higher Education	9:00 A.M.	HHR 1	Click Here
03/23/16	Appropriations	2:00 P.M.	HHR 1	Click Here
Agenda Date	Committee	Time	Room	HTML Document
03/24/16	Education	9:00 A.M.	SHR 1	Click Here
03/23/16	Finance	9:00 A.M.	SHR 3	Click Here
03/22/16	Appropriations	2:00 P.M.	SHR 109	Click Here

Floor Calendars:
The House has COW (Committee of the Whole) calendars (here and here) scheduled for Monday.

The Senate has a COW calendar posted for Monday.

There will be floor calendars later in the week, but those are generally posted the day before, or even the day of, consideration.

The lege's Capitol Events calendar is here.

It's "Demonize The 'Other' Time" at the Arizona legislature

...Not that it's ever *not* "Demonize The 'Other'' Time" down at the state capitol...

In this week's schedule post, I warned that strikers (strike everything amendments) could pop up at any time.

Turns out, I was being prescient - many committee agendas were updated on Monday...and the week is still young.

What may be the most nativist measure proposed by this bunch (and that's saying something) is a striker now added to Wednesday's agenda for the House Judiciary Committee.

That meeting was already scheduled to start at the painfully early (by legislative standards, anyway; for normal people, it's early, but not outrageously so) of 8 a.m. because of the long and ugly agenda.

And with Monday's changes to the agenda, it is now longer and uglier.

Committee chairman Eddie Farnsworth has agendized a striker proposal to SB1452 -

A proposal to demonize refugees and organizations that aid them.

The text of the proposal -

A.  For five years after RESETTLING a refugee, A refugee resettlement agency is liable for both of the following:

1.  The indemnification of this state or any political subdivision of this state for the cost of prosecuting a refugee received by the refugee resettlement agency for resettlement in this state.

2.  Damages or injuries suffered by a victim that are proximately caused by any criminal act committed by a refugee received by the refugee resettlement agency for resettlement in this state.

B.  This state, a political subdivision of this STATE or a victim of a criminal act committed by a refugee may commence a civil action against a refugee resettlement agency for any damages or injuries that are proximately caused by the refugee's criminal act.

C.  On or before July 1 of each year, a refugee resettlement agency shall report to the department of insurance on a form prescribed by the department its financial capacity to meet any obligations imposed under this section in an amount up to twenty-five million dollars. 

D.  If a refugee resettlement agency fails to make the report prescribed in subsection C of this section, the department of insurance shall impose a civil penalty of not more than one thousand dollars per refugee relocated in this state by the refugee resettlement agency in the previous five years.  Each day after July 1 that a REFUGEE RESETTLEMENT agency fails to comply with subsection C of this section is a separate violation.

E.  For the purposes of this section:

1.  "HIGH-RISK COUNTRY" MEANS ANY COUNTRY OR TERRITORY THAT IS either of the following: 

(a)  DESIGNATED AS A STATE SPONSOR OF TERRORISM BY THE UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF STATE.

(b)  IDENTIFIED AS HIGH RISK BY A UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT AGENCY, INCLUDING THE UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY, THE UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY, THE FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION or THE OFFICE OF THE DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE.

2.  "Refugee" means any person who is a citizen of a high-risk country and who has been granted either of the following:

(a)  refugee status pursuant to 8 United states code section 1157.

(b)  ASYLUM pursuant to 8 United states code section 1158. 

3.  "refugee resettlement agency" means any nongovernmental agency that RECEIVES refugees for resettlement in this state. 

Sec. 2.  Emergency

This act is an emergency measure that is necessary to preserve the public peace, health or safety and is operative immediately as provided by law."

I don't know which is worse - Farnsworth et. al. trying to use their positions to turn their private hatreds into public policy, or their unmitigated gall in adding a declaration that their hatred (and yes, fear) constitutes an emergency.

Oh, and I think that we have the front-runner for the award for most shameless two-step of the legislative session -

In a lege notorious for it anti-federal government sentiments and actions, Farnsworth uses sections of federal law to define which groups of people will be affected by his hate missive.

Arizona Legislature: The coming week

This is the last week when bill proposals can be heard in committee (there are a few ways around that rule, but the ways involve some serious sucking up to legislative leadership and/or the chairs of the respective chambers' Appropriations Committees).

In short, there's a *lot* of ugly on committee agendas this week.

This is also a very good week to pay attention to agenda changes - bills will be added to or removed from agendas with nearly no notice, strikers will be proposed out of nowhere, and meeting times will be changed.

Some examples, meaning that as long as this list may be, it's not even close to being comprehensive:

- A striker to HB2113, seeking to overturn any and all municipal bans on "puppy mills" (Senate Natural Resources, Monday)

- HB2579, barring municipalities from regulating "nonwage compensation", such as requiring sick pay (Senate Commerce and Workforce Development, Monday)

- HB2652, removing any labor protections for people like Uber and Lyft drivers by inserting language into state law that makes them "independent contractors" (Senate Commerce and Workforce Development, Monday)

- HB2445, allowing motor vehicle insurance providers to "non-renew" insurance policies for almost any reason (Senate Transportation, Tuesday)

- HB2300, barring the state or its political subdivisions (counties, municipalities, etc.) from enforcing or assisting with the enforcement of any federal law, rule, policy, etc. that they deem as infringing on the 2nd Amendment

- HCR2043, a proposed amendment to the Arizona Constitution to allow the legislature to override the Voter Protection Act; more on this one from AZBlueMeanie at Blog for Arizona here (Senate Federalism, Mandates, and Fiscal Responsibility, Tuesday)

- HB2517, barring counties, municipalities, etc., from enacting or enforcing rules, regulations, ordinances, policies, etc. that may restrict or inhibit the formation and operation of businesses, except under limited conditions (Senate Government, Wednesday)

- HB2537, Doug Ducey's scheme to pack the Supreme Court with pliable judges (Senate Government, Wednesday)

- HCR2023, another proposed amendment to the Arizona Constitution to allow the legislature to override the Voter Protection Act (Senate Government, Wednesday)

- HCR2035, a proposed amendment to the Arizona Constitution to hamstring the authority of the Citizens Clean Elections Commission (Senate Government, Wednesday)

- HB2043, exempting profits from speculation in gold and silver coins (calling those things "specie legal tender") from taxation, but making financial losses from such speculation tax-deductible (Senate Financial Institutions, Wednesday)

- HB2480, limiting the amount of "additional state aid" for education that the state can appropriate for education (Senate Finance, Wednesday)

- HB2115, attacking public employees by barring them from receiving a pension or severance pay if they are found to have "misappropriated" public funds.  The bill does not require that such an allegation be proven in court before the penalties are imposed (Senate Judiciary, Thursday)

- HB2123, gutting conflict of interest rules applied to members of the Arizona Corporation Commission (aiding their former colleague, Andy Tobin, a former House Speaker and current member of the ACC) (Senate Judiciary, Thursday)

- SB1516,  well, their title for this nugget of ugly is "campaign finance amendments" but it should be titled the "dark money protection act" (House Elections, Monday)

- SB1266, creating penalties for political subdivisions that enact, and for officials that enforce, any law, ordinance, rule, etc. that restricts firearms any more than state law does (House Judiciary, Wednesday)
- SB1474, barring scientific research on fetal tissue or embryos from abortions (House Judiciary, Wednesday)
- SB1485, barring state employees from making donations to Planned Parenthood through payroll deductions (House Judiciary, Wednesday)

- SB1324, imposing restrictions on medication-induced abortions (House Judiciary, Wednesday)

- SB1437, nullifying part of the National Defense Authorization Act (House Federalism and States' Rights, Wednesday)


The rest -

Notes:

All committees meetings and agendas are subject to change without notice, and frequently do.  If you plan to travel to the Capitol to observe or weigh in on the consideration of a particular measure, check with the lege ahead of time to confirm that the meeting that you are interested in is still on schedule and your item(s) of interest is still on the agenda for that meeting.

Meeting rooms designated "HHR" are in the House of Representatives building. Meeting rooms designated "SHR" are in the Senate building.

All House committee agendas can be found here. All Senate committee agendas can be found here.

Committee schedule (mostly just copied and pasted from the lege's website.  The agenda links work, as of this writing, but may not later in the week if an agenda is modified in some way):

Agenda Date	Committee	Time	Room	HTML Document
03/17/16	Agriculture, Water and Lands	10:00 A.M.	HHR 3	Click Here
03/17/16	Government and Higher Education	9:00 A.M.	HHR 1	Click Here
03/17/16	Military Affairs and Public Safety	9:00 A.M.	HHR 5	Click Here
03/16/16	Appropriations	2:00 P.M.	HHR 1	Click Here
03/16/16	Commerce	9:30 A.M. NOTE TIME CHANGE	HHR 1	Click Here
03/16/16	Education	2:00 P.M.	HHR 4	Click Here
03/16/16	Federalism and States' Rights	9:00 A.M.	HHR 5	Click Here
03/16/16	Insurance	10:00 A.M. NOTE TIME CHANGE	HHR 4	Click Here
03/16/16	Judiciary	8:00 A.M. NOTE TIME CHANGE	HHR 3	Click Here
03/15/16	Banking and Financial Services	2:00 P.M.	HHR 3	Click Here
03/15/16	Health	2:00 P.M.	HHR 4	Click Here
03/15/16	Rural and Economic Development	2:00 P.M.	HHR 5	Click Here
03/15/16	Transportation and Infrastructure	2:00 P.M.	HHR 1	Click Here
03/14/16	Children and Family Affairs	2:00 P.M.	HHR 5	Click Here
03/14/16	County and Municipal Affairs	2:00 P.M.	HHR 4	Click Here
03/14/16	Elections	9:30 A.M. NOTE TIME CHANGE	HHR 4	Click Here
03/14/16	Energy, Environment and Natural Resources	2:00 P.M.	HHR 1	Click Here
03/14/16	Rules	1:00 P.M.	HHR 4	Click Here
03/14/16	Ways and Means	2:00 P.M.	HHR 3	Click Here
Agenda Date	Committee	Time	Room	HTML Document
03/17/16	Education	9:00 A.M.	SHR 1	Click Here
03/17/16	Judiciary	9:30 A.M.	SHR 109	Click Here
03/16/16	Finance	9:00 A.M.	SHR 3	Click Here
03/16/16	Financial Institutions	2:00 P.M.	SHR 109	Click Here
03/16/16	Government	2:00 P.M.	SHR 3	Click Here
03/16/16	Health and Human Services	2:00 P.M.	SHR 1	Click Here
03/16/16	Public Safety, Military and Technology	9:00 A.M.	SHR 1	Click Here
03/15/16	Appropriations	2:00 P.M.	SHR 109	Click Here
03/15/16	Federalism, Mandates and Fiscal Responsibility	9:00 A.M.	SHR 3	Click Here
03/15/16	Transportation	2:00 P.M.	SHR 1	Click Here
03/14/16	Commerce and Workforce Development	1:45 P.M. OR UPON ADJ OF FLOOR (NOTE TIME CHANGE)	SHR 1	Click Here
03/14/16	Natural Resources	9:00 A.M.	SHR 109	Click Here
03/14/16	State Debt and Budget Reform	10:00 A.M.	SHR 3	Click Here
03/14/16	Water and Energy	2:00 P.M.	SHR 3	Click Here

Floor Calendars:

The House has a Final Read (approving changes to House bills that were amended in the Senate) calendar scheduled for Monday.

The Senate has a COW (Committee of the Whole) calendar posted for Monday.

There will be floor calendars later in the week, but those are generally posted the day before, or even the day of, consideration.

The lege's Capitol Events calendar is here.

Arizona legislature: The coming week

Lots of baying at the moon on tap this week at the Capitol -

- HB2201, Treason Act 2016 (barring the state and its subdivisions from cooperating with any federal action that is considered to be "commandeering", be it a law, executive order, regulation, court decision, etc.) (Senate Federalism, Mandates, and Fiscal Responsibility, Tuesday)

- HCR2031, a proposed amendment to the state constitution increasing the exemption from taxation on business personal property from $50K to $2.4 million (Senate Finance, Wednesday)

- HB2481, imposing limits on the property taxes that may be levied by counties for use by their school district (Senate Education, Thursday)

- SB1141, making gold and silver acceptable forms of payment for debts, and exempting from taxation profits from speculation involving that (House Federalism and States' Rights, Wednesday)

- SB1282, John Kavanagh's move to limit the public's access to public records by giving legal protection to the denial of access to those records if the keeper of the records deems a request to access those records as "unduly burdensome" or "harassing" (House Government and Higher Education, Thursday)

- SB1266, Barring the state's political subdivisions from enacting any ordinance, rule, policy, etc. that restricts firearms any more than state law already does, and creating heavy fines as penalties for doing so (House Judiciary, Wednesday)

- SB1474, Barring scientific research on fetal tissue or embryos from abortions (House Judiciary, Wednesday)

- SB1485, barring state employees from making donations to Planned Parenthood through payroll deductions (House Judiciary, Wednesday)

- HB2081, barring background checks for private firearms transfers (Senate Commerce and Workforce Development, Monday)


The rest -

Notes:

All committees meetings and agendas are subject to change without notice, and frequently do.  If you plan to travel to the Capitol to observe or weigh in on the consideration of a particular measure, check with the lege ahead of time to confirm that the meeting that you are interested in is still on schedule and your item(s) of interest is still on the agenda for that meeting.

Meeting rooms designated "HHR" are in the House of Representatives building.
Meeting rooms designated "SHR" are in the Senate building.
All House committee agendas can be found here.
All Senate committee agendas can be found here.
Committee schedule (mostly just copied and pasted from the lege's website.  The agenda links work, as of this writing, but may not later in the week if an agenda is modified in some way):

Agenda Date	Committee	Time	Room	Agenda
House side of the Capitol
03/10/16	Agriculture, Water and Lands	10:00 A.M.	HHR 3	Click Here
03/10/16	Government and Higher Education	9:00 A.M.	HHR 1	Click Here
03/10/16	Military Affairs and Public Safety	9:00 A.M.	HHR 5	Click Here
03/09/16	Appropriations	NOT MEETING	HHR 1	Click Here
03/09/16	Commerce	9:30 A.M. NOTE TIME CHANGE	HHR 1	Click Here
03/09/16	Education	2:00 P.M.	HHR 4	Click Here
03/09/16	Federalism and States' Rights	9:00 A.M.	HHR 5	Click Here
03/09/16	Insurance	10:00 A.M.	HHR 4	Click Here
03/09/16	Judiciary	9:00 A.M.	HHR 3	Click Here
03/08/16	Banking and Financial Services	2:00 P.M.	HHR 3	Click Here
03/08/16	Health	2:00 P.M.	HHR 4	Click Here
03/08/16	Rural and Economic Development	2:00 P.M.	HHR 5	Click Here
03/08/16	Transportation and Infrastructure	2:00 P.M.	HHR 1	Click Here
03/07/16	Children and Family Affairs	NOT MEETING	HHR 5	Click Here
03/07/16	County and Municipal Affairs	2:00 P.M.	HHR 4	Click Here
03/07/16	Elections	NOT MEETING	HHR 4	Click Here
03/07/16	Energy, Environment and Natural Resources	2:00 P.M.	HHR 1	Click Here
03/07/16	Rules	1:00 P.M.	HHR 4	Click Here
03/07/16	Ways and Means	2:00 P.M.	HHR 3	Click Here
Senate side of the Capitol
03/10/16	Education	9:00 A.M.	SHR 1	Click Here
03/10/16	Judiciary	9:30 A.M.	SHR 109	Click Here
03/09/16	Finance	9:00 A.M.	SHR 3	Click Here
03/09/16	Financial Institutions	2:00 P.M.	SHR 109	Click Here
03/09/16	Government	2:00 P.M.	SHR 3	Click Here
03/09/16	Health and Human Services	2:00 P.M.	SHR 1	Click Here
03/09/16	Public Safety, Military and Technology	9:00 A.M.	SHR 1	Click Here
03/08/16	Appropriations	2:00 P.M.	SHR 109	Click Here
03/08/16	Federalism, Mandates and Fiscal Responsibility	9:00 A.M.	SHR 3	Click Here
03/08/16	Transportation	2:00 P.M.	SHR 1	Click Here
03/07/16	Commerce and Workforce Development	1:45 P.M. OR UPON ADJ OF FLOOR (NOTE TIME CHANGE)	SHR 1	Click Here
03/07/16	Natural Resources	NOT MEETING*	SHR 109	Click Here
03/07/16	Rules	1:00 P.M.	Caucus Room 1	Click Here
03/07/16	State Debt and Budget Reform	10:00 A.M.	SHR 3	Click Here
03/07/16	Water and Energy	2:00 P.M.	SHR 3	Click Here
03/10/16	Education	9:00 A.M.	SHR 1	Click Here

Floor Calendars:

The House has a COW (Committee of the Whole) calendar scheduled for Monday.

The Senate has both a COW calendar and a Third Read (final approval) calendar posted for Monday.

There will be floor calendars later in the week, but those are generally posted the day before, or even the day of, consideration.
The lege's Capitol Events calendar is here.