Journalists’ Roundtable: Updates on Arizona politics and legislation

March 28

This week’s topics:

Secretary of State Fontes not running for Congress
Election order impact on Arizona
Legislative Immunity survives
Hoffman vs. lobbyists
Stolen Valor bill

Why is Fontes not running for Congress?

Howie Fischer: “The question is, do you go from being the number two person in Arizona, maybe number three after he becomes lieutenant governor, to being one out of 435 sitting in the House in the minority party? It’s not a good position to be in.”

Mary Jo Pitzl: “President Trump issued an executive order that dealt with elections, and that’s the reason that Fontes has given publicly for why he has changed his mind because he believes he can do more as a state’s top elected official on that matter.”

How will President Donald Trump’s election order impact Arizona?

Pitzl: “One of the impacts on Arizona, you’re right, Arizona’s had the requirement for documentary proof of citizenship for anybody that wants to vote in a state election or local election. We had this category called ‘federal-only voters,’ and they don’t have to provide proof. This would require that, and it also narrows the documents somebody can provide to prove citizenship.”

Pitzl: “You can’t use your birth certificate under this to prove that you are a citizen, and you can’t use your tribal ID, so you got to find other documents.”

Fischer: “If you re-register, if I move from Lavine, let’s say, to Mesa, normally I could just do that procedurally. Under what I understand the Trump proposal would be, I’d have to start over again, dig up my proof of citizenship and everything else, and again, it’s throwing more hurdles.”

Pitzl: “One other thing I wanted to point out that’s in the executive order that could affect all of the military and overseas voters from Arizona or any state, it requires they have to provide proof that they live in the state in which they are registered. Well, if you’re on a military assignment in the Middle East or in Germany, you’re not living in Arizona, but the UACAVA law is intended to provide that cover.”

Hoffman vs. lobbyists

Pitzl: “This is a last-minute striker amendment on a ballot referral from Senator Jake Hoffman. His argument is that if you’ve served as a lobbyist, you should not be eligible to run for state-wide office for at least two years after having left your lobbying gig.”

Jim Small: “The whole idea is that you’re not going to leave the Capital, go get a high paying job and then turn right around and leverage all the relationships that you had built within the House, within the Senate, within the Governor’s office.”

Stolen Valor bill

Pitzl: “Blackman introduces this bill to expand on what the federal stolen valor law says, and Rogers objects and says, ‘Well, wait a minute.’ She asked for some changes, like just make it comport with federal law, and he disagreed, and the bill never even, though it got out of the House, never came up for a hearing.”

Small: “This actually makes it a crime, but it’s not just claiming that you were a Vietnam Veteran, it’s if you use that to gain state benefits.”