After collecting 26,000 signatures, Scottsdale voters may lose the right to vote on Axon’s HQ campus

After a GOP effort to make it impossible for Arizonans to let local voters challenge development projects at the ballot box failed to gain traction, lawmakers are instead attempting to strip that right away from just Scottsdale voters so Axon can build a massive new headquarters and housing project without opposition. 

Earlier this month, Republican lawmakers, flanked by Axon executives and employees, launched a full-court press for a proposal that would have stripped voters across the Grand Canyon State of their right to mobilize to overturn zoning changes their city councils approve. 

But the legislation faced an uphill battle, with opposition from both neighborhood advocates and other GOP lawmakers, and it soon became clear the effort wouldn’t be successful.

So, on Wednesday, Axon’s allies pivoted and reworked the legislation to apply only to Axon. The House International Trade Committee heard one bill approved a strike-everything amendment that would bar Scottsdale voters from heading to the polls to decide the fate of the Axon’s sprawling 74-acre campus near Hayden Road and the Loop 101. 

The Arizona Constitution gives residents the right to refer matters to the ballot.

Local activists, backed by a signature-gathering effort linked to a labor union, gathered signatures to send the rezoning decision made by a lame-duck city council — the votes for the project came from councilors who had been voted out of office — to the ballot in a voter referendum, which must happen by November 2026. 

The measure that lawmakers advanced on Wednesday would cancel that election. It says that any municipality with between 200,000 and 500,000 residents — Scottsdale had 241,000 residents in the 2020 census — must “allow hotel use and multifamily residential housing” for land zoned like the Axon parcel “without requiring any type of application that will require a public hearing” if certain criteria is met. 

It also would disallow the municipality from withholding a building permit and applies to companies that are building an “international headquarters,” like Axon plans. 

“My inspiration here is to support that commitment to these companies that are coming here to establish themselves,” Sen. Frank Carroll, R-Sun City, said. Carroll sponsored the underlying bill, and approved of the amendment, which was formally introduced by Rep. Tony Rivero, R-Peoria, the committee’s chairman. 

Rivero and other proponents of the bill said it wasn’t really about Axon, but unnamed “groups” who are using the referendum process to “halt” economic development in the state. 

Business groups like Greater Phoenix Leadership, which represents the largest business interests in the state, and the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry came out in support of the bill. Even though the language is tailored to apply specifically to Axon, they denied the measure was about the company, which makes equipment for law enforcement. 

“What other companies in Arizona would qualify for this?” Rep. Stacey Travers, D-Phoenix, asked Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry President and CEO Danny Seiden. 

Seiden was unable to come up with a single other company that would also benefit from the bill, instead saying it would “provide a vehicle” for other companies. 

“So, basically, this just benefits Axon?” Travers asked. 

Seiden said “right now it does,” but said it would also aid future companies looking to build similar projects in Arizona.

Peoria Mayor Jason Beck, who also runs the ballistic vest company Tyr Tactical, said the bill is about making sure Arizona stays competitive as a state for business. 

“I don’t compete with other companies, I compete with other states,” Beck said, adding that he often meets with governors of other states to figure out how Arizona can stay competitive. 

But local activists and current members of the Scottsdale City Council said the measure was horrible public policy. 

“This is a bill designed to obliterate Scottsdale residents’ rights,” former Republican lawmaker Michelle Ugenti-Rita told the committee. She was representing a Scottsdale group called Taxpayers Against Awful Apartment Zoning Exemptions, or TAAAZE for short. 

That group gathered more than 26,000 signatures from Scottsdale residents in order to get a referendum on the 2026 ballot to ask Scottsdale voters if Axon can build its campus with the proposed 1,900 apartment units it was rezoned for. 

“This isn’t about taking care of jobs and economic growth. This is about one man who wants to avoid an election,” Ugenti-Rita said, referring to Axon CEO Patrick Smith. “Now, we have a bill in the last committee hearing, a striker that is going to rig an election… If we want to have this fight, it should happen within the boundaries of Scottsdale.”

Ugenti-Rita told the committee that she and other opponents of the project are willing to negotiate with Axon on their proposal. But rather than do that, Axon has instead set out to change state law to protect its interests. 

Smith acknowledged as much when he spoke before the committee. 

“You gotta get this solved in this legislative session or you are directed to sell this land,” Smith said his board of directors told him, adding that they would make a profit off selling the land. 

Scottsdale Councilman Barry Graham said the legislature had no business letting Axon avoid the will of the voters. 

“They have told us overwhelmingly that they want to vote on this project,” Graham said of Scottsdale voters. “This striker bill would deny them that right — a constitutional right.” 

Both Vice-Mayor Jan Dubauskas and Graham said they support Axon as a company and do not want it to leave, but question why the company needs 1,900 apartment units in an area where city leaders have already approved 5,000 multi-family units. 

“Why is the maker of Taser becoming an apartment complex developer?” Dubauskas asked. “Why is the legislature even getting involved in all that?”

Smith told the committee that Axon wants to stay in Scottsdale, but “we are just nowhere close” to getting a deal done. He has said the firm has no interest in going before voters and will leave Arizona before the election if the law isn’t changed to protect the development project.

Smith sat next to the attorney for his development deal, Charles Huellmantel, during the hearing. Huellmantel has faced controversy and criticism in the past for his development deals. The room was also full of Axon employees in yellow and black shirts, the colors of Axon’s premiere product, its “non-lethal” taser. 

“I’m not going to stand in the way of this and tell a company to get out,” Rep. Justin Wilmeth, R-Phoenix, told his colleagues. 

The bill passed out of the committee unanimously and will head next to the full House for consideration. If it passes the chamber, it will return to the Senate for a final vote before going to Gov. Katie Hobbs.