Arizona House finds key vote needed to allow private border walls

PHOENIX — Calling it a matter of property rights and security, the Arizona House voted Thursday to let people living along the border construct walls without first getting local permission or building permits.

The 31-29 party-line vote came a week after it fell one vote short when Rep. Tony Rivero, R-Peoria, refused to go along with the Republican majority. Rivero, who has led trade missions to Mexico and elsewhere, said at the time that he was “not sure this was the right way to go.”

On Thursday, Rivero did not explain his change of heart.

But Democrats, in opposing the measure, said House Bill 2084 sends the wrong message as Arizona seeks to build ties with its southern neighbor.

Rep. Diego Rodriguez, D-Phoenix, specifically mentioned a trip by state legislators to Guanajuato that Rivero recently organized.

“We were welcomed with open arms,” he said. “We were treated with respect. We were treated with friendship.”

This legislation, he said, does the exact opposite, sending the message “that we prefer a wall to friendship.”

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Rep. Gail Griffin, R-Hereford, had a different take. “We respect our neighbors to the south,” she said. “This is not about race.”

If there’s someone these walls are aimed at, she said, it is the drug cartels that operate along the border.

Griffin also said it has nothing to do with the wall being built by the federal government along stretches of the border, construction that already can take place without state or federal permission. What’s at issue, Griffin said, is what landowners living along the border build on their own property.

“This is an issue of private property and private money to move forward with safety of your property, of your and your family’s ability to keep people out,” she said.

Rep. Mitzi Epstein, D-Tempe, said she has “a firm conviction” to protect private property rights.

“I also have a firm belief that building permits help us to keep buildings safe, help us to make sure that a plan for a building is a safe building,” she said.

Facing questions about safety, bill sponsor Rep. Warren Petersen, R-Gilbert, did agree to language requiring that the property owner must provide the local government with a statement by a professional engineer that the wall “was built according to the plan and safety requirements.” That filing, however, would not need to come until two months after completion.