A third of the House left Arizona. And this is bad?

A bipartisan group of 17 Arizona legislators left on Tuesday, smack in the middle of the legislative session, for an all-expenses-paid six-day excursion to Israel.

Naturally, they’ll continue to cash their per diem checks, the pay we taxpayers provide them to cover their expenses while at the state Capitol.

Or, as it turns out, at the Wailing Wall.

What with 17 members of the 60member House away on spring break — including House Speaker Ben Toma — work at the Capitol has slowed to a trickle, leaving me to wonder.

How can we get the rest of them to follow?

Consider the accomplishments of our present pack of lawmakers.

They’ve proposed bills that would make it harder to vote, harder to count ballots and easier to make mistakes. (Unless you’re one of those who thinks that hand counting an estimated 240 million filled-in bubbles is best left to humans rather than machines.)

And just before their trip, the House passed a bill that would end the state’s insanely popular early voting program — the one used by 80% of voters.

They’ve passed bills aimed at providing legal cover to ranchers who kill undocumented migrants crossing their land and parents whose kids run around with guns.

We face a labor shortage in this state, but our leaders’ answer to that is to pass bills making it as difficult as possible for undocumented immigrants – the ones who for years have built our houses and cooked our meals and picked our produce – to continue working here.

The state budget is about a billion dollars in the red, so naturally, our Legislature is busy passing bills to cannibalize Maricopa County and penalize pokey drivers. (Never mind that it’s already against state law to drive too slowly in the fast lane).

Empowerment Scholarship Account fraud exists, but don’t look for the Legislature to tighten controls on school vouchers to at least make sure the kids exist.

Instead, they’re busy passing bills to exempt themselves from the state’s Open Meetings Law and to allow citizens to sue any government agency that promotes “Marxist” ideas. You know, stuff like riding bikes or buses or eating less meat.

They even held a hearing on a bill that would have awarded Donald Trump our electoral votes, months before we even go to the polls. Fortunately, that was too much even for some of our leading lights.

But the fact that a bill like that even rated a hearing?

Yikes.

Then there is the bill to designate Pluto as the state’s official planet. Actually, that may represent some of their best work — though, really, wouldn’t Planet Goofy make more sense?

Consider Republican Sen. Justine Wadsack’s bill requiring real-estate agents to tell prospective homebuyers about an area’s political representation.

Can you imagine moving in and finding out the neighbors are ... gasp! ... Democrats?

I could go on. And on. Except now, for one blessed week, I don’t have to.

Our 17 traveling lawmakers have given us all a welcome spring break from the crazy.