Arizona Democrats’ sweep gives them room to govern — and reasons for caution

At the start of next year, Arizona Democrats will have the kind of power they haven’t seen in the Grand Canyon State since the Baby Boom. 

In the midterm election, Democrats won majorities in both chambers of the state legislature for the first time since 1966, and took the offices of governor, secretary of state, superintendent of public instruction, treasurer and mine inspector for the first time since 1948. 

Gov. Katie Hobbs, Attorney General Kris Mayes and Secretary of State Adrian Fontes all were easily reelected to the offices they first won in 2022, but now they won’t have to contend with a hostile legislature. 

For years, Republicans have chaired every legislative committee in both chambers, giving them the power to decline to even consider legislation proposed by Democratic legislators — and that’s precisely what they did. Out of the 125 pieces of legislation that Hobbs signed into law during this year’s legislative session, only five were sponsored by Democrats. 

The same Republicans continually attempted to pass legislation that they knew would get a veto from Hobbs, and intervened in numerous lawsuits challenging legislation that Mayes refused to defend. 

While there will inevitably be disagreements between Democratic legislators and statewide officials — a tension between branches of the government is, after all, a hallmark of America’s constitutional republic — now there’s little standing in the way of the Democratic Party’s agenda in Arizona after years of being blocked by controlling Republicans at every turn. 

“The upshot of everything is that we’re going to be able to do whatever we want,” Sam Richard, a Democratic lobbyist, told the Arizona Mirror. “The real question, I think, becomes what is prudent to do, and what is it that we’re really after?”

After spending years filing bills in a Republican-controlled legislature, only to see them die without even being considered, Republican political consultant Barrett Marson said Democrats are more than ready to make an impact. 

“There’s going to be a substantial realignment in policies, from over the last 30, 40 years,” he said. “Everything will be on the table, but some things will be very hard to do.”

Even with their newfound power, if Democrats want to raise taxes, they’ll face significant hurdles. The Arizona Constitution requires a two-thirds majority vote in both chambers to raise taxes. If lawmakers can’t reach that threshold, they would have to make a ballot referral, and ask voters to raise their own taxes. 

Democrats will have a two-thirds majority in the Senate, but not in the House, where any proposal to raise taxes is unlikely to get Republican support. 

So, even though Democrats have spent years criticizing the 2.5% flat income tax that Republicans implemented in 2023 for its impact on the state budget, there’s been no indication that Hobbs or Democratic lawmakers will attempt to repeal it. 

Although the offices of superintendent of public instruction and state treasurer are mostly bureaucratic, statewide Democrats over the past four years still had to contend with resistance from Republican Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne and Republican Treasurer, Kimberly Yee. 

When former teacher and college administrator Teresa Leyba Ruiz defeated Yee in the race to replace Republican Tom Horne as schools chief, she cleared the way for herself, Hobbs and legislative Democrats to increase oversight of Arizona’s school voucher program. 

One of the top priorities of Hobbs, Ruiz and Democratic legislative leaders is reigning in the Empowerment Scholarship Account program, perhaps Republicans’ singular crowning achievement of the past decade, and to increase funding for public schools. 

The ESA program was initially created to serve a small group of students, including those with disabilities. It was expanded in 2022 to apply to all K-12 students, and since then, the cost of the universal voucher program has far outpaced projections and now sits at more than $1 billion per year. Democrats and some Republicans have criticized the program for taking money from public schools to fund private- and home-schooling with scant oversight, with reports of parents using funds to buy expensive house appliances and lingerie. 

Specific plans are still in the works, but Democrats have floated doing away with automatic approval for voucher purchases of $2,000 or less — a policy that Horne implemented without legislative approval — and income caps. 

Horne largely resisted calls from Democrats for better oversight for the school voucher program, although not enough to appease other Republicans,  who turned against him for implementing limited checks on parent purchases. 

Hobbs and Mayes will now have an ally as the schools chief, instead of Horne who took them to court in an unsuccessful attempt to force public schools to use English-only instruction for English language learners instead of dual language models. 

Democrat Kathy Hoffman held the office from 2019 to 2022, but the Republican legislative majority meant significant, lasting changes were out of her reach. One of her biggest victories was allocating a portion of school safety funding to pay for school counselors, which Horne put on the backburner when he took office. 

“Without governing partners, none of the changes that you can make are durable,” Richard said. 

He told the Mirror last week that he’s excited to have a superintendent of public instruction and a treasurer who can work alongside partners in the legislature to give some staying power to their proposals.

But Richard also pointed out that not every policy change requires legislation. 

After Ruiz and Democratic Treasurer-elect Nick Mansour take office in January, Democrats could immediately begin work on enforcing reporting requirements for the ESA program. 

“We always talk about the lingerie and the grand piano and ski trips, right? Richard said. “But we don’t actually know the full depth and breadth of the problem. But now we have the wheel of the administrative state that we can drive to find out those answers.” 

Horne and Yee have refused to release some of the information that experts say they need to properly evaluate issues of fraud and misuse within the program. 

After Democrats have all the necessary information on the voucher program, they could craft legislation, or send referrals to the ballot, to try to make their policies stick, Richard said. 

Even with severely diminished power, Republicans promised to fight efforts to cut back the school voucher program. 

“House Republicans have worked hard to lower taxes, expand school choice, demand better results from our schools, and support law enforcement,” House Speaker Steve Montenegro said in a Nov. 6 statement. “Those accomplishments are worth defending, and we have no intention of standing by while they are dismantled.”

In the same statement, House Republicans announced that Montenegro would be their minority leader, come January. 

But realistically, there’s little Republicans can do to stand in Democrats’ way, besides slowing things down procedurally, by making objections and taking time to comment on every piece of legislation that they oppose, a strategy that Republicans have criticized Democrats for employing. 

Richard advised Democrats to wield their new power with caution to avoid all of their policy changes being wiped out by Republicans who could retake one or both legislative chambers in 2028, and to bolster their chances of keeping a Democrat in the Governor’s Office in 2030. 

“Republicans voted against the president that they do not like, and in many cases, loathe,” he said. “They did not vote for Democrats.”

That means Democrats do not have a durable majority — yet. Being in the majority gives them an opportunity to earn one by doing things like continuing to focus on affordability, increasing school funding and jumping into the state budget early and truly making it a moral document. 

Richard clarified that he isn’t advocating for a timid approach in policymaking, but for strategic boldness. 

“It doesn’t mean sending 500 bills that are like the revenge wish list up to the governor,” he said. 

But Marson said he expects Democrats will be just as petty toward the minority party as Republicans have been toward them. 

Over the past four years, each of Hobbs’ nominees to run state agencies have gone through contentious, grueling and sharply political confirmation hearings led by the head of the far-right Arizona Freedom Caucus, Sen. Jake Hoffman. Many of her nominees weren’t confirmed, or dropped out of the running before their hearings because they knew it would be a fruitless exercise. 

As the head of that committee, Hoffman wielded enormous power over Hobbs’ nominations — so much so that she attempted to sidestep him by appointing her picks to head agencies as deputy directors, who don’t have to be confirmed by the legislature. A court later said that was illegal, and ordered Hobbs to go through the normal nomination and confirmation process. 

Without him standing in the way, and with a friendly legislature, Hobbs will be free to build her administration without fear of being blocked. 

Richard advised Democrats to look forward and forget retribution toward their political opponents, like Hoffman.

“Jake Hoffman is a man who represents small ideas,” he said. “He just happens to have had a big microphone. Take the big microphone away and he remains a small man with small ideas.”

The new dynamics in the legislature and statewide offices will be a hard change for Republicans, who can’t remember a time when they had so little power. Marson, who spent years in the state House of Representatives as a spokesman for the Republican majority, told the Mirror that he expects to see resignations from several Republican lawmakers shortly after the next legislative session begins in January. 

“It’s going to be a serious wake up call for Republicans who never contemplated being in the minority and never had to deal with anything other than getting their way,” he said. 

So far, Democrats have shared a measured message, promising to focus on things like affordability, housing, schools and water rights. 

“We’re united in our commitment to earn your trust every day by delivering results you can feel in your daily life,” Senate President-elect Priya Sundareshan said in a Nov. 6 statement. “That means lowering costs for working families, keeping our communities safe, and giving every Arizonan a fair shot at getting ahead. Wherever you live and whoever you voted for, we’re here to work for you.”