Extinction to extension: Arizona Commerce Authority continued

The Arizona state legislative session has just ended, and some updates will impact business and Arizona’s economy. One of these updates includes keeping the Arizona Commerce Authority (ACA), chaired by Governor Katie Hobbs.

Danny Seiden, President and CEO of the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry, joined Arizona Horizon to provide updates on the decisions made in this recent legislative session.

“There’s a good, the bad and the ugly for this session,” Seiden said.

Seiden explained that the good thing that came out of this legislative session was the continuation of the ACA, which was granted a 5-year continuation, the longest they’ve ever been given since its inception. But it wasn’t easy getting there, so how did the ACA go from possible extinction to extension?

“There was a bill introduced that would have dismantled the agency and actually raised taxes on business too,” Seiden said. “So we used that opportunity to explain what the wins of the ACA have been. Over the last 12 years, they have diversified our economy, they have helped create over 250 thousand jobs and the total is now like $118 billion dollars coming into the community. So the ACA is invaluable for our state and I think legislators were receptive to that. We got to a point where we got a really good bipartisan vote, a lot of support for it and I think that should make Sandra Watson and her team feel a lot better about what they’re doing.”