Kevin Volk’s Message to LD17
Arizona's 57th Legislature, 1st Session - The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly
The dust has settled, and the regular legislative session of 2025 has adjourned. I survived!
It's difficult to summarize a session as a legislator, with over 770 bills voted on, and twists and turns throughout a tumultuous five-and-a-half-month period, but I'll attempt to do so with the classic categories of “the Good,” “the Bad,” and “the Ugly.”
Part II - The Bad and the Ugly
Extreme Partisanship
The Republican leadership in the House scheduled over 870 bills to be heard. Only 40 of those were bills sponsored by Democrats - which comes out to about 4.5%. Out of the 265 bills sent to and signed by the Governor, only 10 were Democrat-sponsored - about 3.7%. In comparison, Democratic members were elected to 44% of the seats in the Arizona State Legislature.
Believe it or not, the share of Democratic bills heard is a slight increase from past years. And while any increase is welcome, it's hard to see this as anything other than a structural abuse of power that disenfranchises the hundreds of thousands of Arizonans who voted for Democratic representatives.
But broader than that, Arizonans were disenfranchised by the decisions to not even hear commonsense legislation on securing our water future, improving children's mental health resources, implementing basic gun safety measures, reforming our healthcare system, and so many other issues - because although these shouldn't be partisan issues, Republican legislative leadership did not platform those bills.
Putting a bill on a committee or to a vote on the floor does not guarantee its passage. It simply gives it a chance to be debated. But that basic opportunity for discussion was denied to almost every bill that was introduced by a Democratic representative.
Whether you're a Democrat, or an independent, or a Republican, I believe it's deeply disheartening to see political power wielded in such a hyperpartisan way.
Political Theater
Time and time again, political theater stopped progress on critical tasks in a way that worried observers, confused Arizona organizations and families, and had no discernible impact on the end result.
Delay and dysfunction - intentional or otherwise - were a hallmark of House Republican leadership style. House Republican leaders were absent from or purposely delayed negotiations on funding for the Division of the Developmentally Disabled, renewing Proposition 123 for much-needed school funding, and crafting and passing our state budget.This had the result of causing desperation amongst Arizonans as they watched the process and lost confidence that the legislature could come to a responsible result.
At the end of the day, the negotiations happened and we got to an end result on DDD funding (after about a 2-month delay) and the state budget (after about a 2-month delay and with only three days before the deadline). Some say that negotiations in politics can only happen if there is a looming deadline that forces legislators to act, or else. I don't think that is the case, and I know it shouldn't be the case.
I believe that if Republican leadership had been fully engaged, good faith partners in negotiation, we could have gotten to results that were better for Arizonans, more quickly, and without the embarrassment and real consequences of a chaotic process.
There used to be plenty of examples of competent Republican leadership in Arizona. While there may have been policy disagreements, it was clear that there were responsible people focused on keeping the lights on and getting things done. But we are not in that age anymore. Instead, various factions of the Republican membership - sometimes even individual members - demand to be catered to in the form of spending time on extreme bills or going through measures that are destined to fail. And they were catered to this session.
Wasted Time and Taxpayer Dollars
The political theater did not come without a cost.
House Republican leadership authorized three separate recess periods for the State House. While at first it looked like we would have less total recess than the Senate Republican leadership, by our third recess, we had scheduled over a month of work days without meeting in the Capitol.
Remember - Republicans unilaterally declared recess of more than a month while hundreds of Democratic-sponsored bills lay stalled, without any discussion.
While there were conversations and negotiations happening among some quarters, House Republicans were largely absent. And meanwhile, Arizona taxpayers were footing the bill, paying salary and per diem to lawmakers who were at home. Many of us use that time to work and connect with constituents in our districts, but not all. Not working is not what we're paid to do.
Low legislative base pay and uneven reimbursements exclude working- and middle-class Arizonans from pursuing office, and I support changing that. But I don't want Arizona taxpayers to pay a dime for people to not show up to work. Especially when that prolongs the session and increases the uncertainty about whether Arizona will face a self-inflicted government shutdown.
Failure to Act on Major Arizona Issues
Incompetence, especially driven by hyperpartisanship, always comes at a price. This year, it was an utter failure to make real progress on some of the biggest challenges facing Arizona.
Water Security
Water is a major issue that Arizonans care about across party lines. While the Tucson metro area is in a relatively good position to the rest of the state, our fortunes are tied to the rest of the state, and our state fortunes are tied to the rest of the parties in the Colorado River Compact, which includes 6 other states and Mexico.
Foreign and out-of-state entities are pumping groundwater without management to grow extremely water-intensive crops. Arizona families and small farms are having their properties pumped dry, meaning massive investments in new wells, or declining property values, or even fissures in the ground.
This session, there was absolutely no major legislation heard to manage Arizona groundwater in the areas where it is currently completely unregulated.
Governor Hobbs convened a Water Policy Council of 29 people across the political spectrum and across the state, representing a variety of interests. After much research and consideration, they crafted the Rural Groundwater Management Act.
It was never even heard in a committee. According to Republican legislative leadership, comprehensive rural groundwater management is not worth discussing.
Education Funding - Prop 123
Our public education system is where over 90% of Arizona parents choose to send their children to school. Every Arizonan has a vested interest in their success.
I’m thankful that I helped block $6 million in Republican-designed cuts to District 17 schools. Nonetheless, there was still a complete failure to pass legislation that would keep hundreds of millions of dollars coming to education in a tax-free way: Proposition 123.
Prop 123 was a policy to increase the withdrawal rate to take more money out of the State Land Trust, which is designed to support public education. The policy worked well for the past 10 years, bringing in about $300 million per year to keep schools steady.
Legislators always knew this program would expire. So did Republican leadership put forth a clean renewal, either this year, or last year, or the year before?
No. Then they refused to hear a bill to renew Prop 123, then waited months, then said they would introduce a version of the bill that would make it unacceptable to large groups of Arizonans, then said at the last minute they weren't introducing a bill at all, then said they would later, and then didn't.
The state has been forced to put in other money as a backstop for now, which pits education funding against other crucial priorities - all while we struggle to recruit and retain teachers.
On Prop 123, the Republican legislative leadership ended up spending more time talking to the news and radio hosts than they did on working on a bipartisan proposal to keep funding going to our schools.
Education Funding - ESA Private School Vouchers
The ESA private school voucher system was originally designed for disabled students, students coming from failing schools, or students of military families to address those rare cases where public schools were not the best fit.
Then Republican legislative leadership expanded the program to an unlimited one, with no priority for those populations, and with almost zero protections against waste, fraud, and abuse. Recently NBC 12 News has been leading investigations. Unlike with public schools, financial information for ESA recipients is not public and transparent, but here's what they were able to find:
$440 million given to recipients for K-12 education, but instead sitting unused in bank accounts
$124 million sent out the door with zero review of whether the expenses were education-related
This session, no effort was made by Republican legislative leadership to even talk about, much less address, any reforms to this program, which has ballooned to be a net new cost to Arizona taxpayers of $450 million per year.
No reforms for financial transparency, no reforms to ensure academic achievement, no reforms to strengthen auditing, and no reforms to protect children.
The Ugly
There were strong wins in the Arizona state-level budget, passed on a broad, bipartisan basis. And there was plenty of bad in the mismanagement and dysfunction of the Republican-led legislative session.
The ugly comes from the continual uncertainty coming out of the federal administration, and especially the "One, Big, Beautiful Bill Act" passed by Republicans in Congress at the request of President Trump.
Needless to say, many of the provisions of the bill are far from beautiful. It represents a massive reduction in funding support from the federal government to Arizona. Meanwhile, it will add at least $3 trillion to the federal deficit, according to revised estimates, due to the historically large tax redistribution.
Over the next few years, states will see cuts to federal funding of food stamps, new mandatory state fees for Obamacare recipients, and far fewer federal matching dollars for Medicaid funding.
Unfortunately for Arizonans, our state will be hit especially hard. Wallethub ranked Arizona as #3 for federal funding as a share of state revenue – in fact, while Arizona’s state budget is typically around $17 billion, we receive $30 billion annually from the federal government.
What that means is when federal safety net programs get cut, Arizona will have to slash services. There is absolutely no way to be creative enough or move enough money around to avoid cutting the most basic services that Arizonans need most - food support and health care.
State analysts are evaluating the state budget impact, and will continue to do so. They recently released an analysis showing a potential $381 million drop in revenue for the state - and that's before accounting for the major funding cut categories.
Looking Ahead
As we look forward to a difficult, uncertain time ahead, I am committed to doing my best to share information with you about the issues.
That's because this country was designed to make you, the people, the source of power of this country. An active, educated citizenry is critical to a functioning democratic republic. So please remember - your voice and input are crucial to the process.
I'm grateful for your engagement.
Sincerely,
Kevin Volk
Arizona State Representative, District 17