Roughly three decades ago, then-state Rep. George Cunningham fought for revenue parity for his hometown of Tucson, pushing the idea that statewide revenues should be distributed equally across the entire state.
Tucsonans were essentially getting the short end of the stick, with more dollars going into the coffers of the Phoenix metropolitan area per capita than into the Old Pueblo. But Cunningham was outnumbered by Phoenix-based state legislators advocating for their constituents.
The Tucson lawmaker would make legislative compromises every session to make sure, for example, that the University of Arizona would get the same funding as Arizona State University. But Cunningham wanted a long-term solution.
An Arizona Daily Star article from 1996 details how George Cunningham campaigned to reset how the state distributed money collected statewide.
This Tucson-vs-Phoenix fight would culminate in a compromise that has largely set how the state distributes its state-shared sales tax revenues, highway user funds, state income taxes and vehicle license taxes. And those agreements are largely still in place, with a few tweaks tied to population size and whether you live in a city or town.
Now, 30 years later, Tucson City Councilman Paul Cunningham — George's son — is fighting a new front in this decades-old battle for resources.
Buried deep inside the council’s agenda on Wednesday was a look at five separate bills that could again curb revenues going into the City of Tucson coffers or, at the very least, curb local control on levying taxes and fees.
For Cunningham, it seems like every year, the Republican-controlled Legislature finds new ways to come after the Old Pueblo.
“This is not unexpected; it’s just getting old,” Cunningham told us. “This maneuver by the state Legislature is nothing new. It still amazes me that we are one of the only cities in the country whose state government actively works against our success.”
Cunningham says it isn’t simply a Democrat-versus-Republican fight. Or even a fight between those who are Sun Devil fans hating on the Arizona Wildcats. It is a fight based on Phoenix versus Tucson, he said.
“I guess my question is why? The Legislature is suppose to serve the state of Arizona, there is no such thing as the State of Maricopa,” Cunningham said.
We added these bills that affect Tucson to a public tracking list in our legislative intelligence service, Skywolf, so that you can follow along with the action.
The proposals chip away at the city being able to focus on services, and with a looming $40 million budget shortfall, a moratorium on increasing taxes for five years (HB4030, HCR2052) would force the City of Tucson to make some hard cuts.
Vice Mayor Lane Santa Cruz said these five bills are yet another example of Republicans attempting to override municipal authority.
“These in particular are out of touch with economic reality,” Santa Cruz told us. “Tucson is weathering a number of simultaneous budget challenges, including lower sales tax revenues, the consequences of less shared revenue from former Gov. Doug Ducey’s flat tax, tariff impacts, and a decline in tourism from the Trump Administration’s hostile attitude to our neighbors in Mexico.”
While Tucson has long been a target of the Legislature, these economic bills are just the tip of the iceberg.
The Tucson City Council gets a legislative update every two weeks, so we will be adding more bills impacting Tucson to our legislative watch list in the coming weeks.
We are not sure whether Republican Sen. Jake Hoffman’s strike-everything version of SB1570 is going to make it Gov. Katie Hobb’s desk. But we are sure it won’t become law.
The bill would require all 15 counties to sign agreements with the feds to allow ICE agents at the polls this year, and clearly, the idea is not going to be popular with a lot of Democrats, including Hobbs.
And you can add Pima County Recorder Gabriella Cázares Kelly to the list of critics. We caught up with Cázares Kelly during Tuesday’s Pima County Supervisors’ meeting, where she took questions on a mobile voting unit that will be used in the upcoming RTA Next election and fielded questions about moving to a one envelope system.
While she hadn’t read the striker Hoffman recently attached to the bill, Cázares Kelly called the proposed measure “bizarre.”
“I don't understand the intention behind that other than to create intimidation. We are individually reviewing voters, citizenship and residency requirements and are making that determination,” she said. “And if they don't have that and have not satisfied proof of citizenship, we then have conversations with them about what documentation that they would need to meet that requirement.”
Some see Hoffman’s bill as a precursor to a possible future executive order signed by President Donald Trump. Last Friday, Trump wrote on social media he would require voter ID requirements in the upcoming midterms, “whether approved by Congress or not.”
Legal scholars have noted that absent Congress passing legislation — likely the currently stalled-but-not-dead-yet SAVE America Act — it is the states that run elections, not the feds.
Bulldozing ahead: The Trump administration is trying to build a wall along the 62-mile border the Tohono O’odham Nation shares with Mexico, the Tucson Sentinel’s Paul Ingram reports. For years, tribal officials have forcefully rejected any plan to build a border wall, saying it would bisect their ancestral homelands. But federal officials are determined to build 222 miles of new barriers in Arizona.
He didn’t do it: The man who was detained and released by Pima County sheriff’s deputies during the investigation of Nancy Guthrie’s disappearance wants officials to clear his name, ABC15’s Ford Hatchett reports. Carlos Palazuelos says his life was upended by the arrest and now he wants officials to publicly say he had nothing to do with Guthrie.
"People taking pictures of us or following us. Like yesterday, we went out dashing and we got home and there was this red truck following us. This morning it was there too, so it's been kind of scary for me and for my wife, my kids and everybody," Palazuelos said.
Time to move on: Local officials have been using Twitter to update the public on Guthrie’s disappearance, just like local and state agencies have used the social media platform for years. But given how toxic Twitter has become since Elon Musk bought it, Arizona Daily Star columnist Tim Steller thinks it’s time for officials to ditch Twitter. He urged Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs to follow the lead of Pima County officials, who no longer use Twitter at all.
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Still shining: The new casino that’s being built on Grant Road has powerful symbolism and real-world benefits for the Pascua Yaqui Tribe, the Arizona Luminaria’s Becky Pallack reports. The revenue from the casino will help expand health care and education programs, tribal officials said, and the casino itself is a symbol of the tribe’s resilience.
“The light that is gonna be shown from the dome, it’s very symbolic of many things: of generations, of our people, of our strength, and really the perseverance to continue our culture and traditions,” council member Andrea Gonzales said in a speech.
An ounce of prevention: While Arizona deals with a spike in measles cases, the Mexican state of Sonora is trying to vaccinate as many people as possible, Nina Kravinsky reports for KJZZ. The state just south of Arizona has reported 166 cases and one death this year, but their neighboring state, Chihuahua, has more than 4,000 cases. Those cases are centered around a Mennonite community. The Mexican federal government is planning to vaccinate 2.5 million people every week.
Can someone loan us a micrometer?
Insert your own jokes here, but we’re still trying to measure exactly how small the font is on the signs that the Pima County Republican Party added to the landscape of political messaging packing every street ahead of next month’s RTA Next election.
While we will give them partial credit for putting disclosures on their signs, they seem to fall well short of the requirements that the disclosure must be “ten percent of the vertical height of the sign.”
