The City of Tucson spends almost a quarter-million dollars per year on hired-gun lobbyists to protect its interests at the Arizona Capitol.
And that’s not including its staff lobbyist (another roughly $92,000 per year). Or its dues to the Arizona League of Cities and Towns, which lobbies on behalf of all cities ($122,000 per year). Or its federal lobbyist (about $250,000 per year).1
So what are these well-paid lobbyists doing on behalf of the people of Tucson?
We’ve been nerding out on lobbyist filings and legislative data for the City of Tucson and surrounding municipalities to answer that question.
A sample of the bills Tucson is supporting and opposing at the state Capitol.
It’s no surprise that the city keeps a close eye on the bills moving through the halls of the Capitol building in Phoenix.
Tucson has long been a target of Republican state lawmakers in Phoenix — from bills targeting Tucson Unified School District’s Mexican American Studies program, to bills attacking gun buybacks to bills trying to force Tucson to change the way it holds city elections.
And at the state level, we can see exactly what bills a lobbyist for Tucson (or anyone, really) supports or opposes through Skywolf, our legislative intelligence service.
This year, Tucson’s lobbyists have signed up to support a grand total of seven bills at the Capitol. They’ve opposed another 27 bills.
There’s no one theme unifying the bills Tucson has opposed at the state Legislature, except that they all come from Republican lawmakers.
But a few of the bills Tucson is fighting for and against caught our eye.
Public records
We never thought we’d side with Freedom Caucus leader and Republican Sen. Jake Hoffman over the Old Pueblo.
But when it comes to public records, our loyalties go to those fighting for access.
Hoffman’s SB1437 would require government bodies to provide public records in an electronic format (rather than providing huge stacks of paper, as some do) and in the “least expensive manner possible.” The bill would limit the fees for public records for the members of the press and public to the cost of the material only (rather than including the cost of staff time to compile and redact the records, as some governments do.)
Tucson’s lobbyist opposed the bill on the city’s behalf. The Arizona Media Association, which represents journalists, supported it.
It has already passed the Senate. Every Democrat voted against it without explaining why.
Similarly, we noticed that the lobbyist for neighboring Oro Valley opposed Republican Rep. Michael Way’s HB2139, which would require governments to respond to public records requests within 15 days. Currently, the law requires governments to respond “promptly,” which is so vague that it’s basically meaningless.
Tucson’s food trucks
Tucson’s lobbying team also fought, unsuccessfully, to stop Republican Rep. Neal Carter’s HB2118, which would prohibit cities from requiring food trucks to get a separate local license, or imposing background checks or fingerprints of owners. (Food trucks are also licensed by the state Department of Health Services, though it doesn’t require background checks or fingerprints.)
Democrats opposed the bill, saying there have been instances of unregulated mobile food vendors kidnapping children. But Tucson-area Democratic Rep. Betty Villegas argued that the law would take away valuable licensing fees from cities.
“The cities are opposed to it because of revenue. Cities need revenue because we have taken a lot from them. So they have to make it up somewhere,” she said during debate.
Homeless funding audit
Republican Rep. Matt Gress wants to audit government spending on programs and services for people experiencing homelessness in Arizona, including cities that have homeless populations “higher than the per capita average of this state.” Though it’s not clear how that figure would be calculated, it probably includes Tucson.
Gress’ HB2532 would take $1.25 million from the Housing Trust Fund, which supports low-income housing, and give it to the Auditor General’s Office to conduct the homelessness audit.
Republicans argued that programs intended to address homelessness are failing. Democrats and cities, including Tucson, argued stealing money from the Housing Trust Fund is a terrible way to address that alleged problem.
“The City of Tucson is opposed, and they have innovative programs right now that are affecting in a positive way the end of homelessness and actually serving our community,” Tucson Democratic Rep. Nancy Gutierrez said during debate. “I don’t understand how spending money out of a Housing Trust Fund that’s meant to house people is helpful.”
Supporting first responders
While the job of a Tucson lobbyist is mostly about trying to kill legislation, there are a handful of bills that the city supports — including some from Republican lawmakers.
Tucson’s lobbyists backed Republican Sen. Kevin Payne’s SB1216, which would expand eligibility for employer-paid “traumatic event counseling” to include crime scene technicians and digital forensics technicians as public safety employees.
Although the bill would cost cities more money, Tucson backed it.
The City of Tucson also supported Democratic Rep. Sarah Liguori’s HB2641, which prohibits firefighting departments from using firefighting foam including PFAS chemicals, which have been linked to cancer and other diseases, and can seep into groundwater.
Both of those bills passed through their assigned committees with unanimous support.
Hard choices: In front of a packed house, the Tucson Unified School District governing board approved budget cuts meant to deal with a $27 million deficit, KVOA’s Vanessa Gongora reports. So far, the cuts are being spread across various administrative offices and staff positions, with an eye on consolidating schools for the 2027-2028 school year.
“You're not going to tackle a $27, $28 million dollar budget in one year because of the shock and the trauma to the organization, right? So you've got to phase it in,” Superintendent Dr. Gabriel Trujillo said.
Guthrie news: Twenty-five days after Nancy Guthrie disappeared, investigators returned to her home in Catalina Foothills, including a half-dozen FBI agents, KVOA’s Alex Medina reports. Meanwhile, the Guthrie family has upped the reward for helping find her to $1 million, and irresponsible podcasters picked on a man who played drums with her son-in-law, ginning up a crowd outside his home and forcing the man and his family to hide in a bedroom with the lights off, the New York Times reports.
The next Minnesota: Tucson-area Democratic Sen. Priya Sundareshan pointed out an obvious flaw in SB1055, the bill the Arizona Senate passed this week that would force police to immediately contact ICE after an arrest, per Capitol scribe Howie Fischer.
“So there has been no evidence provided, jury trial provided, or anything that proves that anyone that might have been arrested is, in fact, guilty,” Sundareshan said.
Shocking: Tucson Electric Power came out with a study detailing how expensive it would be if the City of Tucson took over its electric grid: Bills could increase by $5.8 billion over 20 years, Paul Ingram reports for the Tucson Sentinel. The report was a rebuttal to a study city officials released last year that called a publicly owned electric power utility “financially feasible.”
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Flock off: Sierra Vista’s City Council plans to withdraw from its contract with Flock Safety for license plate reader cameras after public criticism overwhelmed much of a two-hour meeting, the Herald/Review’s Mark Hays reports. The city now plans to repurpose the grant funding it originally intended to spend on Flock cameras.
Today’s edition of “What we’re laughing at” is more adorable than a sharp-edged critique of local politics.
The Star ran the list of young authors who will be recognized at the Tucson Festival of Books next month and the titles of their stories had us chuckling.
We’re dying to know what happened in “Adventure of the Chickens” or “My Strange Date.”
But there’s one title that truly jumped out at us, which we can probably all relate to: “The Armchair Critic in my Head.”
1 Those figures come from a public records request an activist filed and shared with us.