Looking back on the 2026 legislative session, Democratic Senate and House Leaders Priya Sundareshan and Oscar De Los Santos were pleased to have made some progress in advancing an affordability agenda.
But a lot more needs to be done.
Senator Sundareshan and Representative De Los Santos both graciously interviewed with Blog for Arizona and discussed the progress made in the 2026 legislative session and what goals they would pursue in 2027, especially if Democrats take the majority in the Legislature.
The questions and their responses are below.
Looking back at the agenda you and the Democratic Caucus articulated in December, to what extent are you happy with the last legislative session?
Senator Sundareshan: “Well, we came into this session with an agenda for the Democratic Caucus, both Senate Democrats and House Democrats together, united on our focus on affordability and trying to help lower costs for working families in Arizona. I’m happy we continued to fight for those throughout this session. I will say that the vast majority of our bills that we’d introduced at the beginning of the session, surprise, surprise, did not get hearings, did not go anywhere. The Republican majority, as is their usual practice, did not allow any of those bills to move forward in any way. I will also say that we were mostly able to achieve that in the budget process, and so that’s where I think we were able to secure a number of wins and gains as our Democratic Caucuses to ensure that we were investing in public education, investing in those services that people need, making sure there were not agency cuts unnecessarily to services that everyone needs. We protected health care for Arizonans; we protected food services, SNAP, and food banks; invested in those and made sure that food services, shelter, all of those things that are really going to be critical were invested in.”
“The other big things we were focused on at the beginning of the session were protecting people from rising utility costs and energy bills, especially as we’ve been seeing large loads and data centers coming online. And we’ve seen this across the country where people’s electricity bills have been skyrocketing. And we’ve been seeing it here too, with all of these rate increases that the utilities have been asking for at the Corporation Commission. So our big win in that regard was in the budget; we were able to secure a three-year moratorium on new data center tax exemptions. And so, you know, we basically, for the next three years, data centers trying to come online will not get that exemption from sales tax that the rest of us have to pay. So it’s a big win in terms of making sure that big corporations who can afford it can certainly be profitable on their own and are paying the same things that all of us are.”
Representative De Los Santos: “When we started the legislative session, we had a very clear goal, which was fighting for an Arizona we can afford. And I think in many ways we delivered. We said we would take on corporate greed. We ended tax handouts for data centers for three years. It’s the strongest moratorium on tax giveaways in the nation. We said we would fight for people’s health care. The Republicans tried to strip 40,000 Arizonans of their medical doctors. We saved that health care. We said we would fight for education. And the Republicans tried to take the Protect Education Act from the ballot, and it will be on the ballot, and we’re confident it’s going to pass. We exposed the Republicans for wanting to cut taxes for billionaires and corporations, and I think the people of Arizona know where both parties stand now.”
What are some of the things that you and the others were not happy with from this legislative session?
Senator Sundareshan: “I did highlight that so many of those bills that we’ve introduced, trying to address affordability issues, trying to lower costs when it comes to healthcare and pharmaceutical, prescription drug pricing, housing, and a lot of our priority bills, just never got hearings. That remains a complete disappointment toward the Republican majority for not trying to recognize what the people are feeling, what we have been talking about, which is affordability and lowering costs for Arizonans. Just disappointed that Republicans weren’t interested in helping figure those things out with us.”
Thoughts on cuts to universities and colleges.
Senator Sundareshan: “Republicans had put forward a budget before we finally got to that negotiated budget that the Governor was willing to sign. And what we saw in that Republican budget were cuts, significant cuts to every agency in Arizona, and very significant cuts to the universities. Democrats pushed back significantly on all of that. Unfortunately, Republicans are still in the majority, and they were so incredibly committed to cutting universities. It’s inexplicable. We as Democrats are fighting to fund our universities. We want to make sure that the crown jewels of our education system are continuing into the future and are affordable for students, because cutting the universities makes it harder for our universities to freeze tuition and do those things that are, again, along with the affordability agenda that we’re talking about.”
“Our engagement in that budget process was essentially to help minimize the cuts that the Republicans were just committed to making in the university space. So, I am proud of what Democrats were able to do in the budget by minimizing those cuts to the universities. I think it is still terrible that Republicans even made that a priority.”
“And so certainly, if we are driving the bus, and hopefully we are next year, that won’t be the case. I will say that the cuts were completely unfortunate, but we were critical to minimizing those university cuts. Additional investments in universities or community colleges will be possible when Democrats are in the majority.”
Representative De Los Santos: “There’s a lot more work to be done. You know, as Democrats in the House and Senate, we introduced hundreds, literally hundreds of bills that would lower the cost of living and increase affordability for Arizonans. And nearly every single one of those bills was killed by the Republicans without even a hearing. So, if you look at our paid family and medical leave bill, killed without a single hearing; our bill to expand childcare and make sure that every working family has affordable and accessible childcare, killed by every single Arizonan. Our bills to take on big pharma, these big, greedy corporations that are price gouging everyday Arizonans, killed by Republicans without a single hearing. I’m proud of the work we’ve done, but there’s so much, so much more work to do. And to do it, we’re going to need to flip the legislature and elect a Democratic majority.”
Moving forward, what are three or four outstanding public policy issues you will champion for the remainder of 2026 and push forward in 2027?
Senator Sundareshan: “As I said, so many of our Democratic priority bills, especially in that affordability space- lowering costs on healthcare, lowering costs on energy, utility bills, keeping our electricity prices lower by protecting ratepayers from those large loads. Those are two important ones.”
“I’ll also say education. We did not get any agreement on Prop 123, which has been a significant protected source of funding for education over the past decade. That expired last year. And there has been no agreement with Republicans to actually move that kind of funding to the ballot. And so that remains outstanding, as well as in continued increased investment in education at the K-12 level, at the pre-K level, and at the university level. The entire spectrum continues to be underfunded from what we would need to be to raise Arizona from the lowest of the states for per capita funding.”
“Finally, of course, water. We can’t forget that the Colorado River negotiations are continuing or remain at a standstill. Whichever way we’re trying to look at it, optimistically or pessimistically. I think that continues to be a threat that the Colorado River is drying up, and we need to figure out internally as a state how we are going to be protecting our own groundwater resources given the Colorado River is also diminishing. I think there’s a lot that remains to do on water that the Republican majority was just unwilling to do.”
Representative De Los Santos: “I think for the remainder of 2026, when it comes to policy, our focus is going to be on defeating all of the terrible ballot referrals that Republicans are going to send to the people of Arizona. Some of these things are awful, but they’re very sneaky. So we’re going to be focused on defeating HCR 2001, which kills vote by mail in the state of Arizona. We’re going to be focused on killing HCR 2048, which uses military families as a pawn to protect the waste, fraud, and abuse in the ESA voucher program. We’re going to be focused on killing HCR 2040, which kills the teacher’s union and the police and fire unions in the state of Arizona. So, we’ve got a lot of education to do around those ballot referrals that the Republicans put on the ballot as well, of course, as passing the Protect Education Act so we can put some guardrails, transparency, and accountability in the ESA program.”
It was recently reported that the water levels of Lake Powell are dangerously low. What are these two measures you will call for in the coming months to improve Arizona’s water security?
Senator Sundareshan: “Well, I think that what I mentioned is our groundwater resources, whereas the Colorado River remains in flux, and our allocation from that as a state remains in flux and in doubt. We need to be much more protective of our groundwater resources. And I have been trying for the last four years to be more protective of our rural groundwater, which has no protections at all. And we’ve seen that in different news stories as we’ve seen how people’s wells are running dry and out-of-state companies coming in and, and in some cases, growing alfalfa to ship to other countries. Like we’ve seen what happens when you don’t treat a precious resource with the respect and protections they deserve. Similarly, I think even our groundwater in our urban areas needs a lot of strengthening. I think the groundwater, especially because that is something that the state has full power and authority over, especially given how the Colorado River is going to be kind of that federal and interstate negotiation topic.”
“I think another thing that we’ll continue to see pushed is investment. If we have funds, we need to be investing and helping us transition into more different sectors around the state, transition to more water-efficient uses. That’s another angle that we should be looking at next year.”
Representative De Los Santos: “This is definitely Leader Sundareshan’s area of expertise, but I will say two things. One of these is actually that it’s quite complicated because the Colorado River situation is a multi-state deal where the feds and the seven Colorado River states need to come together on a deal. And the interesting thing is Arizona is the only one of those seven states that requires the legislature to ratify the deal. And so that is going to be an incredibly important piece of work assessing whatever deal comes out, if any, and voting it up or down. So that’s going to be where a lot of our focus is in the coming months on water.”
“The second thing again is the Groundwater Management Act. We have got to update it.
It has not been updated for nearly 50 years, and it was a landmark piece of legislation in the 1980s that Governor Babbitt enacted and has allowed Arizona to grow and thrive and prosper. And also, it is time to update it. You have got these Saudi mega corporations that are pumping Arizona’s wells dry. You have got land subsidence where the land is literally caving in. And Representative Chris Mathis, who is a ranking member of our Natural Resources, Energy and Water Committee, worked with Leader Sundareshan and actually a ton of local elected officials who are Republicans, conservative MAGA Republicans in rural Arizona, who actually endorsed this legislation. Governor Hobbs is behind it and there are rumors and whispers that a good chunk of legislative Republicans are behind it, but the leadership is not. And so we have got to change that. We have got to elect a Democratic majority to the House and Senate so that we can update the Groundwater Management Act and protect Arizona’s water.”
A recent report by Arizona Children’s Action Alliance shows that poverty and uninsured rates for children in the state are still high. What are these two measures you will call for in the coming months to improve the lives of Arizona’s children?
Senator Sundareshan: “We have not been investing in our kids and in the way that we should. And I would probably defer to some of my colleagues who have been much more engaged on some of those issues like Stephanie Stahl Hamilton. I know she’s been very focused on the kids care program, which talks about making sure that our children are insured. What we need to be doing is more investment in our safety net programs to make sure that every child, every family has access to the health care that they need. So that will mean investment in AHCCCS, which is our Medicaid program, to make sure that people are not getting kicked off the program when they will need that health insurance coverage.”
“With that additional poverty angle, we need a lot more investment in the other safety net programs, where, for example, as a result of Trump and Republicans at the federal level, that at H.R. 1 impacts are being felt. And in the last few months, we’ve seen that our SNAP- food assistance has really dramatically dropped in Arizona as a result of all of the H.R. 1 changes. That means there’s a large number of children in Arizona, unfortunately, who are dependent on the SNAP program for food security. I think is very concerning, and we need to be addressing it. It’ll be very difficult. The federal government’s shoving all of that responsibility to the states, which makes it difficult for the states to come in when the federal government’s the one that has the resources to be able to do it. We’re going to have to scramble and try to figure out how we can cover children especially and make sure that they have food to eat and the health insurance that they’ll need.”
Representative De Los Santos: “Absolutely. Look, this is an issue that is very near and dear to my heart for two reasons. One, I used to be a public school teacher. I taught sixth grade in a low-income school where a lot of the kids had free and reduced price meals. The second thing, the second reason is I used to head up public policy for the Arizona food banks. And so I have worked on this issue for a decade plus now at Children’s Hunger. I myself was a recipient of the free and reduced price lunch program. I know how important it is. One of the things I’m very proud of this year’s budget is that we were able to secure funding- millions of dollars to get free and free school lunches and breakfasts for hundreds of thousands of kids statewide. I think one of the things that we need to do is to make that program permanent. Right now, that funding is basically on a year-to-year basis. This year we were able to get it for the next two years, which is fantastic, but Arizona’s children don’t deserve, they deserve better. They shouldn’t be on a year-to-year basis wondering if they’re going to go hungry come next fiscal year. So we’ve got to make that funding permanent. That’s going to be a huge, huge thing that we’ve got to do.”
“We also secured funding for Sunbucks. This is a program that provides low-income children with food assistance during the summer. So for a lot of kids, the meals they really get throughout the day are at school, but when summer comes, and school’s let out, those families struggle and it’s a big strain on family grocery budgets. I mean, if you have two kids and they eat two meals a day, five days a week at school, that’s 20 meals that you are going to have to buy and prepare. That’s very expensive under Trump’s economy, and so I think we also need to make the Sunbucks program permanent, which it is currently not.”
Did you want to say anything about renewal of Prop 123 as it relates to children?
Representative De Los Santos: “Absolutely. I think it’s a shame that Republicans have failed to renew Prop 123. This is hundreds of millions of dollars that goes directly to our public schools, to our teachers, to our students. And we know that Arizona is at or near the bottom of per-pupil funding.
This is critical. We are already being sued. The state just lost a very, very big lawsuit for having basically decrepit buildings in schools that are falling down and crumbling. I don’t know what more evidence the Republicans need than school buildings literally falling apart in order to get more funding for education.”
Is there anything not covered in the first five questions that you like to tell the readers about the 2026 legislative session and your hopes for the 2027 one?
Senator Sundareshan: “My hopes for the 2027 session are that we have a very successful campaign year, and it’s looking pretty good. It’s looking hopeful that we can flip the legislature and come into 2027 with the Democratic majority and Democratic trifecta, with Governor Hobbs reelected as well, and finally be able to move those ideas, get those bills heard, and invest in Arizonans and the education and all the services that we truly deserve so that working families can succeed.”
Representative De Los Santos: “I think the huge takeaway is that things could be so, so, so different, a complete 180 with the tiniest of changes. If we just had four more people in the House who were Democrats, just four, we would not be seeing all of these terrible attacks on education and voting and immigrant families. And we would not see the state government siding with corporations over working people.”
“We could turn all that around this November. So vote, vote, vote, vote at the state legislative level. Tell your family, tell your friends.”
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