PHOENIX β The end of the 2016 legislative session Saturday could be marked as much by what did not happen as by what did.
As lawmakers pushed to end the 117-day session, some things just fell off the table. Perhaps the most notable was a House-passed proposal that could have resulted in 80,000 adults losing food stamps; no final vote was taken on it.
Also failing to make it to the finish line was a proposal passed by the Senate early Saturday to ask voters to defund the Citizens Clean Elections Commission.
Legislators did approve changes in campaign-finance laws, voted to end dog racing in Arizona and agreed to block local governments from enacting rules dealing with private employers, among other bills making it to Gov. Doug Duceyβs desk.
FOOD STAMPS
The food-stamps measure was a last-minute proposal by Rep. Justin Olson, R-Mesa, who tacked it on to unrelated legislation. His target was able-bodied adults without dependents.
Such federal benefits are generally available to able-bodied adults without dependents for only three months. But federal law allows the state to seek extensions in areas of high unemployment or where jobs are not plentiful.
That is currently a decision made by the state Department of Economic Security. Olson, a candidate for Congress, proposed requiring DES to first get permission from a special legislative panel as well as the governor.
He got preliminary approval for the measure last week on a voice vote. But with no savings to the state from the move, he ran into opposition as he tried to line up the necessary support for a roll-call vote, with foes criticizing him for cutting off help to people who may be hungry and unable to find work, solely to make a political point.
CLEAN ELECTIONS
The Citizens Clean Elections Commission oversees a voluntary system that allows candidates for statewide and legislative office to get a set amount of public money for their campaigns if they agree not to take donations from private sources and special interests.
The system is financed through a 10 percent surcharge on civil, traffic and criminal fines. Last year it raised nearly $8.2 million.
Sen. Jeff Dial, R-Chandler, said he wanted to give voters the chance to divert those funds to education. But Dial, who has run with private dollars, conceded a fringe benefit to him would be to wipe out the whole public financing concept.
The House, however, went home for the year without taking it up.
CAMPAIGN FINANCE
The House voted 31-25 to give final approval to a bill that would curb the ability of the Secretary of Stateβs Office and the Citizens Clean Elections Commission to demand that certain βsocial welfareβ groups disclose information on their donors. (See full story coming in Mondayβs Star.)
CHILD PROTECTION
Lawmakers also agreed early Saturday to allow some calls to the child-abuse hot line at the Department of Child Safety to not have to result in formal reports and investigations. Standards include that the suspected conduct occurred at least three years earlier and that there is no indication a child is currently being abused or neglected.
PUBLIC SCHOOLS
The Senate refused to provide the necessary votes Saturday for a House-passed measure that would have allowed public schools to require anyone entering the property during school hours to sign in at the office, show a government- or company-issued identification and receive approval to enter.
SCHOOL GARDENS, POLITICAL RALLIES
Other things did make it to the governorβs desk, but not all were bold changes.
In the last hours of the session, lawmakers voted to establish procedures for members of homeownersβ associations to remove a member of the board.
They also authorized a monument near the Capitol in memory of Assyrian Christians who were killed as a result of genocide by the Ottoman army.
There also were measures to conform state tax laws to the Internal Revenue Code, changes in statutes dealing with licensing of motor vehicle dealers, and to set standards for publication and preservation of electronic materials.
There also was a debate over whether school children should be able to grow and eat their own food.
Sounds simple enough.
But hereβs the thing: Existing law requires the Department of Health Services to adopt regulations to ensure all food or drink sold at retail and provided for human consumption is free from unwholesome, poisonous or other foreign matter, including dirt, insects and disease-causing organisms.
HB 2518 would exempt fruits and vegetables grown in a public school garden that are washed and cut on site for immediate consumption.
That did not please some rural lawmakers like Rep. Lisa Otondo, D-Yuma. She worried openly that if someone got sick from eating something from Arizona that was not properly handled, it could undermine the whole stateβs agriculture industry. And she said that could happen easily, what with javelinas running through a garden and perhaps leaving a little something behind.
But that claim drew derision from House Minority Leader Eric Meyer, D-Paradise Valley, who said he fed his children vegetables that came from a garden through which javelinas have run and they turned out OK.
In the end, the measure was approved and sent to the governor.
Lawmakers also are asking Ducey to sign legislation to allow judges to sentence those who block traffic headed to political rallies to up to six months in jail.
HB 2548 originally started as a free-speech measure aimed at ensuring that state universities and community colleges could not interfere with the rights of students to speak and protest on campuses. It even allows the attorney general to sue on a studentβs behalf.
But the scope of the measure was expanded after protesters blocked a major Phoenix-area street in a bid to block Donald Trump from getting to a rally in Fountain Hills and to keep people from attending the event.
Sen. John Kavanagh, R-Fountain Hills, said the current penalty of 30 days in jail and a $500 fine is not enough of a penalty for those who seek to interfere with the First Amendment rights of others to speak or assemble.
