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State Rep. Tony Rivero thinks the Arizona Legislature doesn’t have enough power to arrest people who don’t show up when lawmakers demand.
The Peoria Republican wants to change that by giving the Arizona Senate president, the speaker of the Arizona House of Representatives or any committee chairman in either chamber the power to unilaterally issue an order of contempt for anyone who ignores legislative subpoenas.
And that would mean they could be arrested and hauled in to testify.
Right now, either chamber can issue an order of contempt for a person who ignores a subpoena only if they get approval from the majority of their legislative body. Rivero’s House Bill 2745 would instead put that power in the hands of individual lawmakers.
“One person, whether it’s the chair or the presiding officer of either body in the legislature, should not have the power to arrest someone for failing to comply with the legislative subpoena,” Sen. Lauren Kuby, D-Tempe, said before voting against the bill on Thursday. “This is far too much power to put in the hands of… one single person in a political body, and it needs to remain with the full Senate and the House to make such a serious decision.”
The Senate president, House speaker and committee chairmen already have the power to issue subpoenas to compel people to testify in front of them. If the subpoenaed person refuses, the 60-member House or 30-member Senate can hold them in contempt, but only following a vote. If that contempt resolution is approved, the body’s sergeant-at-arms can arrest the person and bring them to the legislature to testify.
Republicans control the House and Senate now, and have done so nearly uninterrupted for 60 years.
Beyond allowing individual legislators to issue orders to physically force someone to come to the Capitol to testify, Rivero’s bill would also allow sheriff’s deputies to arrest those who ignore legislative subpoenas.
His proposal would also allow those accused of contempt to supply evidence to refute the allegations.
Kevin Hurley
Repeating history
HB2745 is a near-copy of a bill that Rivero sponsored last year that passed the legislature on party lines and was vetoed by Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs.
“This bill weaponizes the power of the legislature in a way that could be used to intimidate Arizonans,” she wrote in her veto letter. “Holding someone in contempt is a very serious matter and is best left to be determined by the entire body, rather than one legislator.”
If Rivero’s proposal had been the law in 2021, the Senate president alone could have held the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors in contempt for refusing to comply with wide-ranging subpoenas for election equipment and materials to be used in the Senate’s partisan “audit” of the 2020 presidential election results.
Instead, Republicans in the Senate failed to find the board in contempt after one Republican joined with Democrats, who voted against the resolution.
During a House Government Committee hearing on Feb. 18, Rivero said that since he started his political career in the Peoria City Council, his goal was always to increase the power of the body he served in. He claimed the proposal will give the legislature teeth to force the executive branch to supply information without having to wait for a vote from the full chamber.
Rivero’s proposal would hand a lot of power to some of the Arizona Legislature’s lawmakers with extreme far-right views.
Sen. Wendy Rogers, R-Flagstaff, who is the chairman of the Senate Judiciary and Elections Committee, was censured by her own Republican-controlled chamber in 2022 for comments calling for people she perceived as enemies to be hanged from gallows, and for social media postings Rogers made threatening to “personally destroy” fellow Republicans who sought to punish her.
Rep. John Gillette, R-Kingman, the chairman of the House Federalism Military Affairs and Elections Committee, last year made a series of social media posts that were laced with profanity, calling Muslim immigrants “savages” and accusing them of pushing “Sharia law” onto Americans.
Only three people officially registered in support of Rivero’s proposal, while 337 registered against it.
It passed the House on Feb. 26 by a vote of 32-20 and the Senate on Thursday by a vote of 17-10, both along party lines. It is almost certainly headed for a veto from Hobbs.
This story was first published by Arizona Mirror, which is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.