Final Opinion: AZ Supreme Court Upholds Mask and Vaccine Mandates

Back in early November, the Arizona Supreme Court wasted little time after the ridiculous oral arguments from Republican state legislators that the legislature has the ultimate power to decide that it can do whatever it wants to do, however it wants to do it, without judicial review from the third branch of government. It was the ultimate distillation of GQP authoritarianism and the rejection of constitutional separation of powers.

Within hours of the hearing, the court issued its order upholding Suprerior Court Judge Katherine Cooper’s ruling.

The Arizona Supreme Court ruled that state lawmakers could not include a ban on school mask mandates and other issues – everything from voter registration to dog-racing permits – that were rolled together into budget bills. Arizona Supreme Court upholds ruling that allows school mask mandates:

The one-line order from the court upholds a September Superior Court ruling that said the Legislature violated the single-subject requirement of the Arizona Constitution by “log-rolling” unrelated measures in budget reconciliation bills, or BRBs.

That ruling meant parts of four BRBs were invalid, including a section in one that would have denied state funding to schools that imposed mask mandates.

[B]ut the COVID-19 restrictions were not the only policy directives inserted into the BRBs. The bills would prohibit the teaching of critical race theory in state schools, open access to voter registration databases for federal elections, ban local pandemic-related curfews, set rules for terminating condo agreements and dog-race permits, and affect practices of social media platforms relating to political contributions.

The state argued that all of those subjects were connected to the budget bills they were included in, but Maricopa Superior Court Judge Katherine Cooper disagreed in a Sept. 22 ruling that overturned those policies for violating the single-subject rule.

“No matter how liberally one construes the concept of ‘subject’ for the single subject rule, the array of provisions are in no way related to nor connected with each other or to an identifiable ‘budget procedure,’” Cooper wrote. “The bill is classic logrolling – a medley of special interests cobbled together to force a vote for all or none.”

The Arizona Supreme Court has now issued its full opinion in the case, and it will change forever how Republicans have been abusing power in the state budget process for decades. The Arizona Mirror reports, Supreme Court to lawmakers: Non-budget laws can’t be in the budget:

As lawmakers and Gov. Doug Ducey prepare for the start of the 2022 legislative session, the Arizona Supreme Court provided a simple blueprint for how not to craft their budgets.

The lesson is simple: Don’t include laws in the state budget that don’t actually have anything to do with the funding in the state budget.

On Thursday, the court issued its full opinion on its unanimous ruling from November that struck down substantial portions of last year’s state budget on the grounds that the bills violated a provision of the Arizona Constitution known as the single-subject rule. That provision requires the bills that the legislature passes to encompass a single subject, and for the bill’s title to provide adequate notice about what subjects it pertains to. The provision is intended to prevent a practice known as “logrolling,” in which lawmakers are forced to vote for something they oppose in order to pass another law they support.

Four budget bills were struck down in whole or in part, which scrapped dozens of new laws covering a wide variety of disparate subjects, including banning public schools from requiring face masks or vaccinations to combat COVID-19, prohibiting the teaching of “critical race theory” in K-12 schools, imposing new requirements for security measures in ballots, changing to dog racing and harness racing permitting requirements, stripping the secretary of state of authority over the state Capitol museum and of her ability to defend the state election laws in court, and changing the state’s definition of what constitutes a newspaper so more publications can publish public notices.

Three of the budget bills that the Arizona School Boards Association challenged will stand, sans the provisions that failed to comply with the title requirement in the single-subject rule. One of the bills, described only as a budget reconciliation bill for “budget procedures,” was struck down in its entirety.

Justice John Lopez noted in the court’s opinion that the bill, Senate Bill 1819, contains 52 sections that cover 30 distinct subjects. Despite the state’s claim that “budget procedures” is a broad concept that covers a wide variety of topics, Lopez wrote that the challenged laws have no relation to the state budget and that they’re “devoid of any reference or significant to budget procedure.”

“Our conclusion is inescapable: SB 1819 contains an array of discordant subjects that are not reasonably connected to one general idea, and certainly not to budget procedures,” Lopez wrote.

The ruling will force lawmakers and governors to dramatically change the way they craft state budgets. For nearly 20 years, budgets have consisted of a primary funding bill, known as a feed bill, and 10-12 budget reconciliation bills. The intent of those bills, known by the acronym BRBs, is to create laws needed to implement the funding that’s included in the feed bill.

But the provisions that the court struck down have absolutely no relation to any of the funding from the 2021 feed bill, wrote Lopez, who noted that none of the funding from that bill is affected by the laws the justices rejected.

The disputed laws don’t involve the setting aside of public monies or establish how state funding will be used, Lopez wrote. In fact, he said, the bills “have no expression of fiscal significance and fail to even identify a funding source.”

“Instead, the challenged sections are more aptly described as various substantive legislative enactments concerning COVID-19-related directives; an expansion of Attorney General authority; election-related requirements; and the formation of a Senate election committee,” Lopez said.

The ruling is likely to create new challenges in crafting and passing the state’s budget.

Since the inception of BRBs following a 2003 Supreme Court opinion that questioned the use of broader “omnibus reconciliation” budget bills, legislative leadership and governors have relied increasingly on the reconciliation bills to garner support for the budget by including new laws sought by the legislators whose votes they need. Those laws sometimes include provisions that failed to pass earlier in the session or that might not have enough votes to pass if they were introduced.

Prediction: This ruling will not result in a return to “regular order” in which bills receive a committee hearing at which the public can testify before the committee votes. Budget bills should go through this same process in the appropriations and ways and means committees, not be negotiated in secret with the governor, GQP legislative leaders (to the exclusion of Democratic leaders), and sprecial interest groups like the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry, only to have a secretly negotiated budget sprung on the legislature in the last week of the session.

Republican leaders are never going to return to regular order and give up their leverage to ram through whatever GQP leadership and a Republican governor wants. If you want a return to regular order – you know, the democratic process – you are going to have to elect enough Democrats to put Democrats in charge of the the state legisalture and the governor’s office.