John --

Welcome to our tenth weekly update from the state capitol! I hope you enjoy these updates every week as we navigate our legislative session.

This week is the final week for the Senate to hear House bills in committee, and for the House to hear Senate bills in committee, with the exception of Appropriations, which meets one more time next week.

That means several long committee hearings for me this week, especially Senate Commerce on Wednesday (more on that later). It also means lots of STRIKERS, which is something I covered a couple of weeks ago. With the deadline for bills to be heard in a committee hearing rapidly closing, advocates for certain bills are doing everything they can to get a bill through a committee so it can eventually make its way to the full Senate or House floor.

Let’s start with some very good and joyous news: the governor signed one of my bills into law last week, SB 1097. This bill clarifies that mental health days count as an excused absence in K-12 schools, and will be in effect for the start of the 2021-22 school year. This is the fifth bill I have introduced over the years that the governor has signed into law. Five bills over the last four years. Not too bad! 

I have another bill that is very close to the finish line and just waiting for a floor vote, and that is SB 1376, which would require mental health instruction in school health curriculums. Unfortunately, several of the great bills I passed out of the Senate that were assigned to the House Ways and Means committee will not receive hearings, because the committee chair decided not to hear them. These include SB 1040, which would have created a state Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and directly helped low income working families. I’m going to work to try to get the EITC idea into the state budget (more on that in a bit), but the bill for now is not advancing through the process.

Our floor sessions for the most part have been pretty short and drama free the last week or so, but I expect that to change later this week and certainly next week as more of the controversial bills make their way to the floor. Bad bills around voting rights are always on our radar, as are some gun bills, particularly one that would allow adults to bring loaded guns on school campuses.

Our Senate Commerce hearing tomorrow is slated to be a barn burner, chiefly because of two bills that have attracted a lot of attention, media coverage, and time spent in meetings over the last couple of weeks. The first is HB 2005, which is known by some as the “Apple bill.” It has to do with online app stores, and whether a company like Apple can require developers who use their store to only use them for processing things like in-app purchases. Apple also takes a cut from each transaction, sometimes as high as 30 percent. The bill would restrict companies like Apple from being able to require that developers use their store.

Some larger app companies, like the company who makes the video game Fortnite, are behind the bill. I’ve spent hours listening to pitches from these developers on one side and Apple on the other, and I see merit in both of their arguments. Does Apple have a monopoly on this space? I think so. But should a state government like ours be regulating this, when ideally it would be the federal government that handles interstate commerce issues like this? I don’t expect Congress to address this or really most major issues, so should the Arizona Legislature step in?

I have another set of meetings today on this bill, and haven’t decided yet which I side I will fall on Wednesday afternoon. Stay tuned!

The other bill we are considering on committee is HB 2773, which is referred to by many as the “liquor to go” bill. Long story short, during the pandemic, the governor issued an executive order allowing restaurants to serve “to go” cocktails, since business was down and restaurants needed help. Restaurants did not have the legal authority to do this before the pandemic, because that right was largely available only to bars, which have a different liquor license that is considerably more expensive to purchase.

The governor’s executive border was thrown out in the courts, and now restaurants want the ability to serve “to go” cocktails permanently. I am all for supporting our restaurants, especially during these difficult times, but my concern with this bill is the difference in cost that different establishments pay for their liquor licenses. A normal restaurant that doesn’t serve a lot of alcohol pays around $1,500 on average for their liquor license; a typical bar pays for a different liquor license that costs well over $100,000. I simply don’t think it’s fair for restaurants to be allowed to have the same privileges as a bar when it comes to liquor sales if there is such a large discrepancy when it comes to the price they have to pay for their license.

There is talk of a compromise amendment coming forward, which would be welcomed very much. But without that, we expect a very long committee debate that will be pitting struggling restaurants against struggling bars, and us caught in the middle.

Lastly, I am often asked: Sean, what’s going on with the state budget? All of the intel I’ve heard over the last week suggest that it is going to be a long session, and that serious budget talks have yet to start and gain any traction. Always a good sign!

Typically when there is a large surplus, budgets take longer to come together. Members fight over where the dollars should go, and hold out unless they get Priority X funded or Tax Cut Y gets included.

I’ve started having budget conversations with some of my Republican colleagues, and indicated what my top three priorities are: greater support for our K-12 schools, greater support for our community colleges and our state’s universities through the New Economy Initiative, and a restoration of our state Housing Trust Fund.

Once committee hearings end, what the heck are we doing all day? Well, other than voting on bills on the floor, it’s budget time. I think it’ll take a while, lastly at least into May, and even possibly into June.

So in other words, buckle up for another long legislative session. As always, I will continue to work with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle and try to find bipartisan agreement on the state budget and other key legislative issues.

Thanks for reading this week! As always, you can follow my social media feeds for more frequent updates!

Thank you,

Sean

http://www.seanbowieforaz.com/

Paid for by Sean Bowie for State Senate. Authorized by Sean Bowie.