A changing of the guard at the AZ legislature: New majority leadership in both chambers

Tuesday's Democratic landslide gave Ds a majority in both chamber of the legislature, something that hasn't happened since the 1960s.

One of the practical effects of that is election of new leadership in both chambers.

From the press release from House Democrats -

[snip]

Arizona's anticipated 37-member House Democratic Caucus has elected Representative Oscar De Los Santos of Phoenix to be Speaker of the House. De Los Santos, who has led the Caucus for the past two years and co-chaired the successful campaign effort to flip control of the chamber, will be Arizona's first Democratic Speaker of the House since 1966. 

The Caucus elected Representative Nancy Gutierrez of Tucson as Majority Leader. Whips will be Representatives Brian Garcia of Tempe and Kevin Volk of Tucson. Representative Quantá Crews of Phoenix will serve as Speaker Pro Tempore.

From the Senate Democrats -

  •    Senate President-elect Priya Sundareshan (D-18) was first elected to the Senate in 2022 and led Senate Democrats during the 57th Legislature. A mother of two, she has championed voting rights and worked to protect Arizona’s natural resources for future generations.

    •    Senate Majority Leader-elect Christine Marsh (D-5) is a public school teacher who previously served in the Senate from 2021 to 2025. She fought for public school funding and helped pass legislation to legalize fentanyl test strips.

    •    Senate Majority Whip-elect Analise Ortiz (D-24) began her legislative service in the Arizona House in 2023 and joined the Senate in 2025. She helped pass protections for workers facing extreme heat and has strongly advocated for childcare and homeless services.

As her first order of business, President-elect Sundareshan appointed Alma Hernandez (D-20) and Edgar Soto (D-17) as Senate President Pro Tempore and Rosanna Gabaldón (D-21) and Aaron Lieberman (D-4) as Senate Democratic Majority Chairs.

Congratulations to all.

Enjoy the moment, because after it's over, (and it will end quickly), the hard work starts.

Raul Grijalva has been laid to rest. Now starts the horse race to replace him

This past week, the funeral was held for late Congressman Raul Grijalva.

Most serious candidates waited until afterward to drop the gloves/make an announcement.

So far, there have been no real surprises among the entrants.  In fact, the biggest surprises have been those who have announced that they are *not* running -

Tucson Mayor Regina Romero is out.

Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes is out.

The biggest name who has announced entry into the race is Daniel Hernandez (biggest so far, because others may/will enter the race), a former state legislator and staffer for former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords, and he was credited with saving her life when she was shot.

The most interesting name, so far, may be that of Samantha Severson.  Only she and Hernandez have formed committees with the FEC.  In spite of that, I don't believe she's a serious candidate - she's acting as the treasurer for the campaign committee.

In 2022, someone by that name ran for state Attorney General as a Libertarian write-in candidate.

The fix was in...

...to pass something that will just make things worse instead or fixing things.

At the state legislature, the Senate's Elections Committee and the House's Municipal Oversight and Elections Committee held a joint meeting to consider two Republican-proposed bills at 9 a.m.*

* = they have a verrryyyyy flexible concept of time at the legislature

They were meeting to consider SB1733 (introduced by Sen. Wendy Rogers) and HB2785 (Rep. Alexander Kolodin), identical bills that are supposed to address the state's elections calendar, which threatens to disenfranchise Arizona voters,

I spent 2 1/2+ hours watching it online.  I recommend doing so, unless you have something better to do.  Like taking out the trash.  Or washing your hair.  Or amputating one of your legs.

Primary takeaway: Both bills passed committee on party-line votes.  

Other takes on the meeting:

- The lege does have a rather flexible concept of time - the meeting was slated to start at 9 a.m. but wasn't gaveled in until 9:21 a.m..

Shortly after that,  one of the chairs (Sen. Wendy Rogers) noted that the meeting was going to take an hour.

Rogers observed at 10:17 that her hour had ended 15 minutes before.

Rogers and the other chair, Rep. Jaqueline Parker, recessed the meeting at 10:50, for "five" minutes.

The meeting reconvened 11:03.

It ended at 11:39.

...Apparently, both Rogers and Parker believe that "committee chair" is another way of saying "absolute dictator".

They had a dissenter ejected from the hearing.  He's ruffled tender legislative sensibilities before.

They tried to suppress dissent by limiting public testimony to four speakers.

...Rep Alexander Kolodin, sponsor of HB2785 and an attorney, like to hear himself talk.  One of the things that he said that he wasn't involved with litigation related to signature verification in Yavapai County.  That seemed to be a really specific denial, so I did a little research.  Turns out, that was true in a lawyer's sort of way.  Is there another case he's involved with?  Yup, in Mohave County.

He (and others) stated that they've been working on this for months.  So they sat on this until the situation became urgent and think that they can force their propaganda on the rest of the people of Arizona.

...There was a lot of lying and dissembling going on.  Mostly by the Republican members.  They all thought (and opined) that the extraneous signature verification clauses in the bill(s) were essential to changing election dates.

...Don't hire these folks to do your taxes.  They're without ability to do basic math.  They added two speakers and the Rep. Parker said that meant there were three in favor of the bill and three opposed.

I counted five in favor and one opposed.  They could only get to three and three by counting the last two speakers as "opposed" - they wanted the bill amended to make the signature verification portion harsher.

...Sen. Sonny Borrelli may not be the brightest light in the nighttime sky.  He tried to plant words in the mouth of the one speaker who was actually opposed to the measure(s), and when that speaker didn't go for it, Borrelli tried to do so again.

[Edited on 2/7 to add]:

...Certain members of the state legislature are still ticked off by the Red for Ed movement of a few years ago.  At least, they used the bills to get their "petty and vindictive" on -

[/End edit]

Pics from the video feed -

House members showed up before Senate members.

 

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse confer before the meeting (Center of the pic, L-R) -

Sens Rogers and Bennett, and Reps Parker and Kolodin.

In honor of the upcoming Super Bowl, it might be appropriate to refer to them as the Fearsome Foursome.

But that would be overrating them.

Sen. Sundareshan making a point

Sen. Hernandez making a point

Rep. Terech making a point

Rep. Kolodin with his mouth open.  Not an unusual occurrence

Quick!  Some lobbyist needs to give Sen, Kavanagh a comb!