Political chaos erupts as Arizona Senate passes budget and ends session unilaterally

The Arizona Senate has officially ended its work for this legislative session after passing its budget bills in a marathon of amendments and votes on Thursday, just hours after a tentative agreement with Republicans in the House of Representatives fell apart and that chamber went home. 

The day was marked by long-winded speeches and fiery disagreements both between and within political parties. Just minutes after voting on the final budget bill a little before 2 a.m. Friday,  the Senate took a bipartisan vote to end the session — also known as sine die. That vote comes before the House has voted on the budget bills that just passed through the Senate, forcing the chamber to confront the June 30 deadline to pass the budget on its own. 

Several Senate Republicans harshly criticized Senate President Warren Petersen’s decision to close out the session without permission from the House. 

Sen. J.D. Mesnard, along with other Republicans, complained that the Senate’s work wasn’t done, as they were waiting for the House to return bills they had sponsored. Mesnard balked at the idea of ending the session before the House had voted on the budget, saying that it was unconstitutional and “antagonistic.” 

“With all due respect, it is entirely inappropriate for one chamber to do that to another chamber,” Mesnard said. 

A clearly frustrated Petersen answered that the House Republicans’ refusal to work collaboratively on a budget was the true example of disrespect, along with an insistence that senators and Gov. Katie Hobbs acquiesce to their demands to decide how all taxpayer money is spent. Petersen also claimed that he knew the House had the votes to pass the Senate budget Friday, but still adjourned until Monday. 

The Senate on Thursday spent all day and well into the night voting to approve its package of 16 budget bills, most of them with bipartisan votes of 17-13. Some of the Senate’s top Democrats voted against the plan, alongside some of the members of the far-right Arizona Freedom Caucus. 

Senate Republicans and Democrats spent weeks negotiating with Hobbs to create the budget plan, since it requires her signature to become law. 

The final version of the $17.6 billion Senate plan includes around $260 million more in Medicaid spending and nearly $100 million more in K-12 education funding than the House’s budget proposal. Democratic leader Priya Sundareshan told the Arizona Mirror that some members of the caucus voted for the budget because of some small, but hard fought wins in areas like K-12 funding, but that personally she didn’t vote in favor for several reasons. 

Those included Republicans’ refusal to discuss a change to the 2.5% flat income tax they implemented in 2023 that has taken $2 billion out of the state budget, as well as a lack of guardrails for the private school voucher program that Democrats and public school advocates have called a scam that lines the pockets of the wealthy. 

Phoenix Democrat Analise Ortiz said she opposed the budget because it puts funds toward immigration enforcement by local officers and doesn’t put enough toward affordable housing, including the discontinuation of the low-income housing tax credit. 

House Republicans left the collaborative budget negotiations several weeks ago to formulate their own $17.3 billion plan — without input from Hobbs or Senate Republicans.

Republicans in the House voted on their own plan last week. It was full of proposals that Hobbs said were “dead on arrival,” spurring Democrats to boycott the vote. The Senate’s plan has now been sent to the House, which has until June 30 to approve it to avoid a government shutdown. 

The Senate plan has received ample criticism from House Republicans for not being conservative enough.

Some provisions from House Republicans made it into the Senate budget via last-minute amendments, including a small property tax exemption for disabled military veterans and tax break on 4-inch wastewater pipes. 

Others include the creation of a Child and Family Representation Program within the Arizona courts system “to ensure uniform, high-quality legal representation by attorneys appointed to represent juveniles, parents and guardians during juvenile court proceedings.”

This amendment is in response to criticisms from Republican lawmakers, especially Rep. Rachel Keshel, R-Tucson, that the family courts treat parents unfairly. 

Sen. Jake Hoffman, who leads the Arizona Freedom Caucus, spent hours on Thursday introducing amendments copied from the House plan that he knew were destined for failure. 

The Queen Creek Republican attempted to tack onto the Senate budget a House measure that would bar Arizona’s public universities from using public or private money to give scholarships to students who lack legal immigration status. 

In 2022, Arizona voters approved Proposition 308, which guaranteed in-state tuition and access to state-funded financial aid for every Arizona student regardless of citizenship status as long as they attend a high-school in the state for at least two years and graduate. 

Hoffman didn’t mention that it was Arizona voters who approved Prop. 308 at the ballot box when he described the in-state tuition guarantee as “unamerican and un-Arizonan.” 

Democratic Sen. Sally Ann Gonzales told Hoffman that it was offensive to Arizona voters to disregard the will of the people. 

“If we are here and we want to do the people’s work, we also ought to be respectful of the people’s vote,” she said. 

All of Hoffman’s amendments were voted down by large majorities, with Republicans who would normally be supportive voting against them out of fear that their inclusion would elicit a veto from Hobbs. 

Petersen said there were some “great things” in Hoffman’s proposals but he voted against all of them because they were not part of the agreement the Senate negotiated with Hobbs. 

“If you blow up that agreement, you have nothing,” Petersen said. 

Later, Hoffman complained that Petersen wasn’t on the Senate floor to vote on his numerous sure-to-fail amendments. 

“This is the governor dictating to the legislature the power of the purse,” Hoffman said. “The power of the purse doesn’t belong to the governor. It belongs to us.” 

The chief negotiator of the Senate budget proposal. Sen. John Kavanagh later responded that, while the legislature has the power of the purse, it does not control Hobbs’ veto stamp. 

Hoffman replied that he “was sure” several of his proposals would not kill the budget deal, adding that he didn’t think Hobbs would actually veto a budget with his amendments in it as she promised. 

Hobbs has not been shy with her veto stamp, and most Senate Republicans seemed to take her seriously. Kavanagh said he looked forward to supporting Hoffman’s proposals after the state elects another Republican governor in 2026. 

As voting continued late into Thursday night, Hoffman berated Kavanagh for his lack of support in getting Hoffman’s so-called election integrity measures in the Senate budget. 

The Senate gave each lawmaker $5 million to allocate as they chose, as a way to get them on board with the budget plan. Hoffman said he dedicated his portion to things like giving more power and money to the Maricopa and Yuma county recorders, who the Arizona Freedom Caucus support in their battles with their respective boards of supervisors. 

Hoffman excoriated Kavanagh for “not going to bat for me” raising his voice to a yell numerous times to accuse the other senator of things like allowing Hobbs to “take a dump” on his election integrity budget provisions. 

“That’s called stabbing your fellow members in the back,” Hoffman said. 

Maricopa County Recorder Justin Heap is a former state representative and member of Hoffman’s Freedom Caucus, who has been battling the board of supervisors over election administration duties basically since he took office in January. 

Heap escalated the fight last week when he sued the board of supervisors, with whom his office shares election responsibilities. 

Thursday evening, lawmakers in the House gave up on the hope that they could finish their votes on the Senate budget before Sunday, when Vice Chairman of the Appropriations Committee Matt Gress leaves the country for his destination wedding in Italy. 

Petersen said that the session should have ended two months ago, and that it wasn’t the Senate’s fault that the House was lagging behind with its budget approval process.