The Arizona Agenda

1 week ago | arizonaagenda.com | Hank Stephenson

Within three minutes of starting last week’s Cartwright Elementary School District Governing Board meeting, the school board members were screaming at each other and slamming the gavel. The item that had them at each other’s throats? The adoption of the consent agenda. School board meetings are often heated affairs. But since last year’s election, the West Valley’s Cartwright school board has devolved into near-total dysfunction.

1 week ago | arizonaagenda.com | Nicole Ludden

Congratulations! You made it through tax season. No one enjoys the annual exercise of figuring out how much you owe the government. And we’re not sure any lawmakers enjoy the annual exercise of figuring out where our tax dollars should go. Like most years, legislators don’t seem to be in a hurry to pass the state’s annual budget as funding for children with disabilities runs out and the future of a program that provides hundreds of millions of dollars to public schools remains undecided.

1 week ago | arizonaagenda.com | Hank Stephenson

Yesterday was Mental Health Day at the Arizona Capitol. No, they didn’t send the politicians home and disconnect their internet access — though that’s what we recommended.

2 weeks ago | arizonaagenda.com | Nicole Ludden

Some of Calli Jones’ daily tasks involve handling press inquiries, working on talking points for lawmakers and running social media for the 13 members of the Senate Democratic caucus. She’s the director of communications for Arizona’s Senate Democrats, but she’s also mastered the art of left-wing messaging to her more than 14,000 TikTok followers. Jones posts on her TikTok account nearly every day.

2 weeks ago | arizonaagenda.com | Nicole Ludden |Hank Stephenson

When she was campaigning to be the state’s top law enforcement officer, Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes liked to play off the right-wing narrative against her: that she is a radical. One of her campaign ads, for example, includes audio of right-wingers calling her a member of the “deranged radical left” — juxtaposed against clips of her dropping her kid off at school, joining a Zoom call wearing pajama pants and buttering toast.