Journalists’ Roundtable: Expectations for legislative session, ICE agents and more

It’s Friday, which means it is time for another edition of Journalists’ Roundtable, where we discuss Arizona politics. This week, “Arizona Horizon” host Ted Simons was joined by Mark Brodie of KJZZ, Jessica Boehm of AXIOS Phoenix, and Jim Small of the “Arizona Mirror.”

This week’s topics included:

• Expectations for legislative session
• ICE agency’s next focus
• Arizona officials react to Minnesota ICE killing
• DOJ sues over Arizona data access
• President Trump endorses another CD1 candidate
• Lake buys a condo in Iowa
• Former legislator Austin Smith sentenced for signature fraud

Expectations for legislative session:

Mark Brodie: “There’s a lot of big issues that have to be dealt with, I mean the budget is gonna be a big one, the state is not in a tremendous financial situation. There’s the Colorado River water situation that they have to deal with, there’s the extension of Prop 123, and there’s tax conforming. There’s a lot of big issues out there that they have to deal with, and for a lot of them, there’s not a ton of consensus between GOP leaders, legislators, and the governor.

Jessica Boehm: “I think with this both being a year of difficult budget, and an election year, especially with the governor making her campaign message that she’s willing to negotiate, and be bipartisan…I think Republicans are gonna want to take advantage of that, or not give her any easy wins to campaign upon, that she was very eager to be bipartisan.”

Jim Small: “We are three years into her (Hobbs) term, and she still has not had a stable crew of cabinet members, of agency heads, because Republicans in the legislature will not let her.”

Mark Kelly vs Pete Hegseth:

Jim Small: “…it was aimed at Donald Trump and his administration, and the prospect of the commander-in-chief sending orders directly to the troops telling them to do something that is, if not blatantly illegal, is questionable…and just reminding them that they have a duty to the constitution, and not to the President, and they need to be mindful of that.”

Mark Brodie: “These are things…that are factually, and legally true, that are in the sort of the defense department manual, and that the defense secretary himself has said at least once, if not more, without incident. That’s sort of Mark Kelly’s defense, and so he keeps saying I’m gonna fight this…it’ll be interesting to see what his response to this looks like, and what happens after that.”