And the first ones out of the gate are...

The 2025 legislative session has started; sitting legislators are "pre-filing" before the session starts (there are limits on the number of measures that any legislator can introduce *during* the session.  Before the session?  No limits.

Anyway, I digress.

Next year's HB2001 was introduced by Republican Rep. Matt Gress and is about the temporary licensing of college graduates in behavioral health.  I'm not going to take a position on this one (there may be a problematic clause or two in it) but this is the sort of topic our legislators should be discussing.

Om the other hand, next year's SB1001, introduced by Republican Sen J.D. Mesnard is a bunch of proposed restrictions on voters, particularly on early voters.  Its clauses amend 17 pages of AZ law, and most of the clauses are garbage.

IMO, a couple of the sections stand out in terms of  his express of hatred of voters -

From the bill (the blue text indicates Mesnard's proposed changes):

As is, this section would encourage county recorders and/or elections directors to decline to do their jobs and to impose restrictions on others (early voters) if they don't do their jobs.

Maybe this clause would be more palatable if it was amended to include a provision where county recorders and election directors who did such a thing (or, more to the point, *failed* to do such a thing) were deemed to have committed malfeasance in office and were removed from that office and permanently barred from any sort of public employment.

Of course, that wouldn't make another part more palatable.

Also from the bill:

With this language, Mesnard proposes to end both dropping off an early ballot at a voting location other than in the voter's own precinct and that early ballots that were dropped off per Mesnard's language would have to be delivered to the county recorder by 7 p.m. on election day.

As polling place don't close until 7 p.m., that could be a problem.

Well, at least Mesnard has demonstrated his giving spirit, perhaps in commemoration of Thanksgiving.

Of course, he's demonstrating that spirit by delivering a turkey to the people of Arizona.

Arizona leading the way, but not in a good way

Pointed at this by the Election Law Blog.

From the Brennan Center for Justice -

Arizona Is the Epicenter of the Fight for Voting Rights Today

One of the worst voter suppression laws in the nation, fueled by conspiracy theories, has pushed Arizona to the forefront of the fight for voting rights.

In a brazen repu­di­ation of federal law and recent Supreme Court preced­ent, Arizona recently enacted a law requir­ing docu­ment­ary proof of citizen­ship to vote by mail or in pres­id­en­tial elec­tions. In 2021, Arizona was one of the 17 states nation­wide to enact new restrict­ive voting laws. Now it’s trying to break away from the rest of the voter suppres­sion pack.

After a year and a half of conspir­acy theor­ies, a partisan postelec­tion “audit,” anti­demo­cratic legis­la­tion, elec­tion sabot­age rhet­oric from polit­ical candid­ates, and a Supreme Court ruling further weak­en­ing the Voting Rights Act, Arizona has become a key battle­ground in the fight for voting rights.

[snip]

Further, H.B. 2492 could be an attempt to push the Supreme Court to further erode voting rights. The Court recently held that Arizon­a’s previ­ous attempt to require docu­ment­ary proof of citizen­ship for federal voter regis­tra­tion viol­ated the National Voter Regis­tra­tion Act. This new law seems designed as an invit­a­tion to the Court to recon­sider that ruling. 

Since the 2020 elec­tion, Arizona lawmakers have shown a consist­ent interest in using false claims about voter fraud as the raw mater­ial for justi­fy­ing new restrict­ive voting laws.

HB2492 has been signed into law by Doug Ducey, Arizona's Governor; his letter to Katie Hobbs, Arizona's Secretary of State, is a shining example of self-serving doublespeak.

Ummm...

Maybe someone should tweet that the Earth is flat and that the universe revolves around it.  Maybe she'll retweet/endorse that idea too.

From Twitter -