We've got some big news to share today, readers!
This year, the Agenda team is working with the Arizona Citizens Clean Elections Commission to reimagine and moderate their legislative debates.
It's the biggest civic project in the Agenda's history, and we want to take a minute to tell you about it directly — what it is, why we're doing it and what it means for our work.
First, a word about Clean Elections.
If you don’t know, Clean Elections is the independent commission created by Arizona voters in 1998 to promote participation in the political process.
It is Arizona's only non-partisan voter education entity, and it hosts the state's official debates program. Clean Elections also produces the Voter Education Guide, runs an optional clean funding program for candidates and enforces the Clean Elections Act.
We’ve moderated their debates for years because we have enormous respect for Clean Elections and its team.
They are fiercely independent and nonpartisan, and their whole reason for existing is to give voters more power in Arizona's political system.
That mission squarely aligns with our own.
Clean Elections came to the Agenda because it knows we have spent years delivering Arizona politics, policy and government in a way that makes people actually want to pay attention.
It's an honor we don't take lightly.
We'll have more details as debate season approaches.
But broadly, the goal is to redesign the debate experience from the ground up — a more dynamic format that actually reveals who these candidates are, and distribution that reaches voters where they are.
We'll be promoting, moderating and writing about the debates, and building tools to help voters connect what they see on stage to the decisions they make in the voting booth.
As we put it in a joint statement with Clean Elections:
“Clean Elections is the gold standard for fair, nonpartisan debates. When they approached us about reimagining their legislative program, we saw a chance to match that with what the Agenda does best: make people want to pay attention to local politics. We're building a format that puts more candidates at the table and gets more voters tuning in.”
We are embarking on this project as journalists and partners of Clean Elections, and that means we will hold ourselves to Clean Elections’ nonpartisan standards in debates.
As always, every candidate who steps onto that debate stage will be treated fairly, regardless of party or ideology.
And our coverage of candidates in the Agenda won’t change.
We cover all sides of Arizona's political landscape — we write tough stories about both Democrats and Republicans, and we've got the hate mail from both sides to prove it.
Arizona's legislative races decide the fate of our state, and we’re proud to have a greater role in informing voters of their options.
We hope you’ll tune in!
When the Tucson City Council passed an ordinance to bar U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents from using city property for potential immigration raids several weeks ago, no one could have conceived of a reality where the federal agency would be sent to airports.
The irony of the situation is not lost on us: Trump sent ICE agents to airports to back up Transportation Security Administration agents who haven’t been paid in a month because of a partial government shutdown — primarily because Senate Democrats won’t support additional funding for ICE.
ICE isn’t at Tucson International Airport — at least not yet — but that city ordinance cannot stop them from posting up at TIA.1
The hiccup isn’t a city versus the federal government issue — it’s contract law.
The city has a long-term lease agreement with the Tucson International Airport Authority for the day-to-day operations of the property, which means that the TIA — not the city — can decide which federal agencies get to operate there. It is probably extra tricky because TSA and ICE both operate under the authority of the Department of Homeland Security.
The same issue is playing out at Reid Park Zoo. The city can't bar ICE from entering that city-owned property because the Reid Park Zoological Society has a similar lease. (Although it seems unlikely that ICE will be raiding the meerkat habitat. But then again, a month ago, it seemed unlikely that ICE would be manning airports.)
It’s more clear where the ordinance falls when it comes to the city-owned Tucson Convention Center, as the city has hired a management company to run the TCC on its behalf. But city officials note they have more direct control of the property since it isn’t a lease situation.
Sorting it all out: A complicated legal battle is brewing in Marana, where a subsidiary of Beale Infrastructure (the company behind Project Blue) is suing the town, Katya Mendoza reports for Arizona Public Media. It’s a tangled web, but basically the subsidiary, Fremont Peak Properties, is trying to build a data center and they want the Town of Marana to put the kibosh on a petition to block it. But town officials say they legally can’t do that yet, which Fremont Peak says led the town to become “mired in weeks of unnecessary litigation.”
A different look: A City of Tucson survey is shining a light on all the property crimes that go unreported, Arizona Daily Star columnist Tim Steller writes. It’s a break from the city’s current focus on social issues like homelessness, and it could provide some data that “is neither like online catastrophizing nor burying the crime problem under layers of social-service discussion.”
Dr. Feel Good tries to say goodbye: Arivaca is facing a problem that plagues many rural towns: What do you do when the town’s only doctor tries to retire? Dr. Donald Smith has been the only doctor in Arivaca, an unincorporated community about 10 miles north of the Arizona-Mexico border, since 1995 and he’s ready to retire, Abigail Beck reports for Cronkite News. But he agreed to stay on for a few more months because United Community Health Center, the organization that owns the clinic where Smith works, can’t find a replacement.
“You know, I always say, I’m not the only one like me. There’s lots of docs like me. I’m just an example of what’s happening with this aging boomer doctor population,” he said, referring to the growing trend of aging physicians that are ready to retire, but can’t.
Hitting the streets: The next large-scale “No Kings” protest is scheduled for this Saturday, with more than a dozen planned demonstration sites across Southern Arizona. You can visit the website to find an event near you.
If you’re looking for ways to get more civically involved, supporting local journalism is a great option.
Picking up the pieces: The LGBTQ community in Tucson is trying to fill the void left when Tucson Pride folded in January due to financial troubles, the Tucson Sentinel’s Mia Kortright reports. At a gathering at Bumsted’s this week, they talked about ways to get youth involved and organize at the grassroots level, like Tucson Pride did when it was founded.
Maybe we’re thrifty, but we think $50 is a lot to spend for an evening of watching the University of Arizona men’s basketball team play in the NCAA tournament and eating wings.
The Arizona Democratic Party is holding a fundraiser at an undisclosed sports bar tonight, and it’s asking those who aren’t already giving to the state party on a monthly basis to donate $50 ($25 if you are a student) to ADP to eat hot wings with the Arizona Democratic Party Chair Charlene Fernandez.
Then again, with Trump-flation, a night out watching the Wildcats play at the bar could easily set you back 30 bucks.
Sadly, neither route is tax-deductible.
Go Cats!
1 Fun fact: TIA was the first municipally owned airport in the U.S. And, yes, we know the airport moved from the Rodeo Grounds to its current location decades ago. But "Fly Tucson” must have been its informal motto for almost 100 years.