Arizona budget bills found illegal
High court says lumped-in multiple issues unconstitutional
PHOENIX — The Arizona Supreme Court on Tuesday unanimously upheld a lower-court judgment that found that the Republican-controlled Legislature violated the state constitution by including new laws banning school mask mandates and a series of other measures in unrelated budget bills.
The swift ruling from the state’s high court came less than two hours after the seven justices heard arguments in the state’s appeal of a trial court judge’s ruling. The justices had hammered Solicitor General Beau Roysden with questions about the Legislature’s inclusion of policy as different as dog racing and secure ballot paper in one of the budget bills.
The Arizona Constitution says each bill must cover a single subject, with each item properly connected to others. Also, the titles of each bill must reflect the contents and give lawmakers and the public adequate notice of the contents.
The decision will have far-reaching ramifications for the Legislature. Republicans, who control the Senate and House, have worked around that requirement for years, slipping policy items into budget bills. This year, the Legislature was particularly aggressive and packed the 11 bills that make up the budget with a hodgepodge of conservative policy items, some of which had failed as standalone bills.
The court upheld a September ruling from Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Katherine Cooper that blocked the school mask ban and a host of other provisions in the state budget package from taking effect Sept. 29. Cooper found that provisions in three budget bills — including the ban on school mask mandates — violated the title rule. She blocked those provisions while allowing the rest of the bills funding education, universities and criminal justice to take effect.
She entirely struck down another budget bill because it violated the single-subject rule. The Legislature had packed it with a conservative wish list of unrelated policy including a ban on local governments imposing covid-19 restrictions, requiring special security paper to be used on ballots, allowing the Game and Fish Department to register voters and requiring an investigation of social media companies.
Other provisions included a special committee to review the 2020 election, stripping Democratic Secretary of State Katie Hobbs of her duty to defend election laws and handing it to Republican Attorney General Mark Brnovich and converting dog racing permits to harness racing licenses.
“Can you tell me, and this is a serious question, how dog and harness racing relates to anti-fraud ballot paper in order for us to find a single subject within SB1819,” Justice Bill Montgomery asked Roysden.
“Here’s what I would say to that,” Roysden responded. “I would say the court should not start down that path 110 years in the statehood.”
Chief Justice Robert Brutinel asked why not, and Roysden said it’s not the place of the judiciary to enforce the single-subject rule.
“So, the single-subject rule is just a suggestion?” Brutinel asked.
Montgomery and other justices also questioned Roysden on the mask mandate ban, asking what it had to do with school funding. The constitution says appropriations are to be contained in legislation known as the feed bill, while directions on how to spend the money are contained in separate bills for items such as K-12 schools and health.
“So how does … the face covering mandate and the vaccination mandate or precluding a mandate, how does that relate to the appropriations?” Montgomery asked.
Roysden said the Legislature believed mask mandates would cut attendance, but Montgomery and Chief Justice Brutinel were not persuaded and pressed him on how a ban on mask mandates specifically related to the spending in the feed bill.
“What I’m hearing is it doesn’t have to relate to spending,” Brutinel asked.
“It doesn’t,” Roysden said. “Because it’s the Legislature …”
He warned of “chaos” if the high court upheld the trial court ruling.
Cooper and now the Supreme Court sided with education groups, including the Arizona School Boards Association, that had argued the bills were packed with policy items unrelated to the budget.
Cooper’s ruling cleared the way for K-12 public schools to continue requiring students to wear masks to help slow the spread of the coronavirus. At least 29 of the state’s public school districts issued mask mandates before the laws were set to take effect, and some immediately extended them after Cooper’s ruling.
Arizona cities and counties were also able to enact mask requirements and other covid-19 rules that would have been blocked by the budget bills.