Cutting food costs
Cutting utility costs
Cutting prescription drug prices.
Reducing housing and rental costs.
Reforming the ESA Private School Voucher Welfare/Scam for the Wealthy Program.
Protecting Arizona’s groundwater supply and ensuring water security.
Expanding Medicaid.
Increase funding for public schools and community colleges.
Providing increased childcare and early education for Pre-K children.
Making sure working and middle-class children are well fed.
Taking care of people in need.
Those are the legislative agenda items for Arizona Senate and House Democrats when they start the 2026 session in January.
Senate and House Democratic Leaders Priya Sundareshan and Oscar De Los Santos both graciously interviewed with Blog for Arizona to discuss their legislative agenda and goals for 2026.
The questions and their responses are below.
Moving into 2026, what are three ways the Democrats in the State Legislature will work to build on last session’s achievements and advance an affordability agenda in the areas of housing, childcare, Universal Pre-K, full-day kindergarten, utilities, and Medicaid expansion?
Senator Sundareshan: “I am happy to say that Arizona Democrats are united in wanting to work together to lower the cost of living for all Arizonans. We’re going to do that by ending corporate greed. We also want to make Health Care affordable, protect public education, and so we have a lot of legislation that we are working on that will be directly impact in lowering the cost of living, especially in all of these areas. We want to put some restrictions and rein in corporations’ ability to purchase single-family residences. We’re seeing a lot of corporations doing business in the rental space, both ownership and rental. We’re seeing excessive corporate unfettered activity that is really driving up the cost of living for everyone in Arizona. We want to lower utility costs, and in the process, address what we anticipate as the impact of data centers and large loads that are coming onto the grid, while making sure that residents are protected. Residential rate payers will not see additional utility costs as a result, and it’s at a time when we’re already seeing a lot of rising utility bills and multiple rate increases coming through. We want to end price gouging on groceries. We want to reform the universal ESA voucher program, which we know is directly related to our public education funding, and what resources are available to support most Arizonans in public schools. We want to provide students with free meals. That’s been a consistent priority, and we will continue to work to support students and reduce cuts to their budgets. We want to cut prescription prices as well. We’re looking at penalizing health insurance companies for denying valid claims. I know, I’ve experienced that, and I know so many across the state have as well. Going back to public education Investments, we want to increase access to high-quality preschool programs. We want to reinstate full-day kindergarten. As someone with a kindergartener, I can say I’m living that right now. I would love for my child to have full-day kindergarten. We’d want to establish a funding weight for tribal students, and we will continue the fight for making sure that there’s ongoing funding in the budget for the district, additional assistance, and opportunity weight funds. They only funded it for this year thanks to the fight from legislative Democrats.”
Representative De Los Santos: “House and Senate Democrats are going to be laser-focused on affordability and lowering costs for Arizona Working and Middle-Class families, and we’re going to take on a range of issues. We’re going to make sure that the big utilities are not passing off costs from Data Centers and AI onto everyday working families. We’re going to take on Big Pharma and the Corporate Insurance Giants that are price-gouging you, and we’re going to fight to lower the cost of medication and lower the cost of health insurance. When it comes to housing, we’re going to take on those out-of-state corporations that are coming in here, buying up homes, driving up the cost of housing, and making life unaffordable for everyday Arizonans. I have a couple of pieces of legislation on that. One of them limits the number of homes that corporate giants can buy in Arizona. A second one is Arizona Homes for Arizona Families. What happens is that once a home in Arizona goes on the market, Arizona families get first dibs. For 60 days a corporation would be banned from buying that home, so it gives Arizonans two months of the first chance to get that home instead of it being purchased by a corporate giant that’s from out of state.”
Please comment on Childcare and Early Childhood Education
Senator Sundareshan: “We absolutely want to be supporting childcare through high-quality preschool as well.”
Representative De Los Santos: “Childcare is a huge cost-of-living issue, and we have a bunch of solutions that we are going to put on the table, but I’ll just take us back to this past session very briefly. We made the biggest investment in childcare in more than 15 years. This was a historic $45 million investment to bring down the cost of childcare for working families. The budget is going to be tight next year, and it’s unclear whether we’re going to be able to make that same kind of investment, but we’re going to be looking for creative solutions. One of the things that was interesting that didn’t get to the finish line last year was the Governor’s Tricare Model where it would cut child care costs for working families by two-thirds because what it would do is the family pays a third, but then their employer pays a third, and the state pays a third, because everybody from business to families to society has a stake in making sure that children get a high-quality early-childhood education. That’s an Innovative model. Unfortunately, the Republicans shot it down, but I think we’re going to keep pressing there. It’s a shame that in the wealthiest nation on Earth and in the history of humanity, we don’t have Universal Pre-K, so that’s that is always and will continue to be a top Democratic priority.”
Medicaid Expansion
Senator Sundareshan: “I think Medicaid expansion is part and parcel of where we know affordability issues are key. All these areas where our Healthcare costs are going up. It’s critical that we, as Democrats, continue the fight to make sure that Healthcare is affordable.”
To what extent will the Democrats advance legislation designed to increase funding for K-12 schools and the state’s community colleges and public universities?
Senator Sundareshan: “As I said, Democrats are fully in support of fully funding K-12 public education as well as our community colleges and universities. We will continue to fight for those Investments because we know that when we invest in education, we’re investing in the future of our state. We will continue to introduce some of the bills that we’ve previously introduced that would increase funding, and we’re going to reference some of this past year’s bills, like SB1650, that would increase access to high-quality preschool programs. SB1662 would have established tribal student weight. SB1647 would increase funding for public schools to decrease classroom sizes. Specifically, SB1648 would reinstate full-day kindergarten. SB1676 would have increased dual enrollment funding for community colleges. SB1574 would increase funding for media education for tribal colleges. So those are just examples of bills that we introduced last session to support public education funding for Pre-K 12, and University and Community colleges. We must invest our money, time, and resources into the next generation. When we educate our children, we improve our state, and these students go on to stay in our workforce, being the future nurses, doctors, and first responders. We will make sure that all of our citizens are taken care of, and that our state can grow into an economic hub where companies are looking to set up headquarters here and where our workforce is well educated and everyone is supported.”
Representative De Los Santos: “A couple of months ago, courts ruled that Arizona is unconstitutionally underfunding our public schools. That is horrific. I have met with the lawyers who litigated that case on behalf of the public schools on behalf of the students, and I have seen photographs of buildings that are literally falling apart, literally crippling children who don’t have access to running water in their own schools because Republicans have failed them. Protecting our public education system and our public education students is going to be a top priority right up there with making life more affordable. I think the number one step here is passing Prop 123. As we saw last year, the Republicans blocked the passage of Prop 123 and cut off hundreds of millions of dollars in funding for public schools when they did that. I think that’s shameful. I think they should be embarrassed by that, and we’re going to continue to fight for a clean Prop 123 extension. What they tried to do was put vouchers in the State Constitution in exchange. Of course, Democrats said hell no, and I want to touch on why they did that. Because they are too chicken-shit to put the ESA question on the ballot by itself, because they know it’ll lose. The ESA Private School Voucher Scam was voted down by the voters by a massive margin just a couple of election cycles ago, and they know that if they go to the ballot again and ask voters to put these private school voucher scam on the ballot. It is going to fail, and so they’re trying to deceive and trick the voters into tacking it on with public education funding, which is something that voters do support. We’re not going to let that happen, and we’re going to continue to fight to make sure that our public schools get the resources that they deserve because it is an embarrassment. We’re setting up our students and state up for failure when we’re ranking at the dead last in the country for funding for public schools. We’re going to continue to fight there when it comes to the community colleges, and we’re also going to keep up the fight. You’ll remember when the Great Recession hit, what did Republicans do instead of cutting giveaways for the corporations and their donor friends? What they did instead was cut funding for community colleges and so now. Maricopa and Pima Community Colleges are literally getting zero dollars from the state to operate the community college, which is ridiculous at a time when career and technical education couldn’t be more important. Last session, I was very proud that House Democrats fought for millions to fund Career and Technical education for adult education at the community colleges, and we won for the first time funding for the Community College Promise Program, which are scholarships that make Community College free tuition free for working-class students, the first time it’s ever happened in the state of Arizona. And we’re going to continue the fight again, both for public school students and for our community colleges.”
To what extent will the Democrats advance legislation designed to reform the ESA private school voucher program?
Senator Sundareshan: “We are very firmly committed to advancing legislation to reform the ESA voucher private school program. It is badly in need of reform. It is over a billion dollars annually and is completely unaccountable. We have seen all of the examples of the waste and even fraud that Attorney General Kris Mayes has prosecuted. Some examples of some of the bills that we will continue to introduce are similar to the ones that we introduced last year, like SB1137, which would make sure that the ESA program has the same performance review requirements as any other state agency commission board, and program we have. We had SB1139, which establishes competency requirements for school personnel providing academic instruction at schools receiving ESA monies. This is a key accountability component. SB1417 would require the ESA program contracts to close after one year of non-renewal rather than three years. SB1451 would remove the ability for ESA monies to be spent on post-secondary education. This is directly in response to what we’re currently seeing, where some of these dollars are staying in accounts, and people are just able to use them for non-K-12 purposes and roll them over to use them for higher ed, which is not the intended purpose. There is SB1639 that requires evaluations for disabilities to be paid for by monies from the ESA, unless the ESA doesn’t have sufficient funding. We have bills for the ESA fingerprinting requirements. There are now other bills that prohibit ESA monies from being spent on luxury goods that we know are currently being spent on. There are also bills to require auditing requirements, and to notify the parents ESA parents of the legal rights that they are waiving by enrolling in the program. As we know, parents and public schools have rights that ESA parents are waiving by exiting the public school system.”
Representative De Los Santos: “I’ll start with why it’s necessary, which is that the ESA private vouchers are a complete and total scam that has zero accountability and zero transparency, and hundreds of millions of dollars are being siphoned away. Taxpayer dollars are being siphoned away with zero oversight, and I know that every Arizonan on the left, right, and center thinks that is wrong. It is wrong when somebody can take an ESA and buy lingerie, diamond rings, and whole kitchen remodels with taxpayer dollars. That’s wrong and we’re going to continue the fight for accountability and transparency to make sure we are tracking every single dollar because taxpayers deserve that oversight. There’s also a safety component here because there are no safety guardrails for the ESA program right now. Our taxpayer dollars could be funding a pedophile to be around children because there are zero requirements that an adult who is around children and getting paid with ESA money has to go through a background check or even get fingerprinted. I think our top priority when it comes to ESA reform is those safety guardrails, and then those accountability and transparency guardrails to make sure that we know how our taxpayer dollars are being spent. Republicans also want to expand this voucher scam, and what they want to do is allow these ESA students to go on sports teams at public schools. So, at the local public school, the public-school kids are going to have their spots taken by these ESA kids who know who they don’t go to school with, and their parents or whoever’s just going to drop them off at the public school. They’re going to take your kid’s spot on the sports team, and I think that’s wrong. So, we’re going to keep up the fight against this private school vouchers game.”
To what extent will Democrats advance legislation designed to promote water security?
“This is the one I always love to talk about. Water security is one of my favorite topics and, as we all know, very important for our state. Democrats will continue to put forward legislation that promotes water security. Last year, I introduced SB1485, which was our Rural Groundwater Management Act, and I can’t emphasize enough how much this bill was the product of bipartisan conversations when we introduced it. This bill was supported by Governor Hobbs. We had a bipartisan group of elected officials around the state, county supervisors, Mayors who were Republicans standing up there with me as we introduced it, and even some of the leaders in agribusiness. It was a really groundbreaking piece of legislation to create a new water management tool that Arizona’s rural communities could use to manage their groundwater resources, which are completely open for the taking by anyone with the next bigger straw who comes in and can pump that water out. And there’s a real outcry in these rural communities for it, but it was halted by Republicans in the State Legislature. It never received a hearing, and unfortunately, the rural groundwater bills that were heard were nowhere near close enough to actually provide that conservation security. Rural groundwater continues to be a top concern for Democratic members.”
“We are also interested in shoring up our urban areas, our active management areas, and the urban water supply. I’ll probably continue to introduce another Rural Groundwater Management Act because I firmly believe we’ve got to put a handle on our rural groundwater. I’ve got other bills similar to what I’ve introduced before like in this last session like SB1248, which would require state lands that are leased to charge for the groundwater use, and I think we all know what I’m referencing here. This is very relevant to the Fondomonte situation, where we learned that Governor Ducey allowed those state lands to be leased to these corporations for very nominal prices, and then the groundwater that’s pumped is completely unmeasured and uncharged for. That’s our state resources going to some foreign entities. Other bills would require that we actually measure and report what groundwater is being pumped around the state, so that we understand exactly where these aquifers are in decline and can address them. Our Department of Water Resources has the data available to move quickly when we need to. I’ve also spoken about the urban loopholes that I continue to work on. I have two bills that would require that the assured water supply standard be more evenly applied across our active management areas. I think most people don’t realize that even though we live in active management areas, the assured water supply requirement is not required of all users of all groundwater users in the area. Some exemptions apply, and I think those exemptions we need to seriously look at closing. Those are a couple of ideas out of many to address water security, and it’s really important. We’re also in the middle of Colorado River negotiations, and that water is declining because we’re in a drought. It’s being impacted by climate change, and we are getting into a permanent state of less and less water. And so, we’ve got to both be managing our Colorado River negotiations and realizing that our lack of groundwater management is putting us in an even tougher spot, and so we’ve got to be able to work on both and be very protective of our groundwater resources that might be even more in demand. As Colorado River Water decreases, we see those rural areas across our state where wells are running dry, where residents are running out of water. Small farms are unable to continue operating. So if we want Arizona to continue to be the vibrant state it is, for residents here to thrive, we have to make some changes so that our water is completely secured.”
Representative De Los Santos: “Clearly, our water system is broken under Republican rule. You had foreign corporations, including a Saudi Corporation, coming to Arizona and siphoning away our water. And it wasn’t until Democrats like Katie Hobbs and Kris Mayes came in and cracked down on that. Now, they’ve kicked that Saudi Corporation out of Arizona and are protecting our water, but those loopholes shouldn’t exist in the first place. For years we’ve been fighting for groundwater reform. We have that legislation. It is supported by a bipartisan group of advocates, including Republican elected officials, Republican County Supervisors, Republican city councilmen and women across the state of Arizona. So, the truth is that Republicans have turned their backs on our water future. They’ve turned their backs on Rural Arizona, and we’re going to continue the fight to strengthen the Arizona Groundwater Management Act when it comes to the Colorado River. I was proud that last session, Democrats won millions of dollars for the Colorado River Litigation fund. It’s the first time we’ve ever had to create such a thing. Basically, these other states are trying to screw with our water and take our water, and we’re going to potentially need to take those states to court to preserve our water for our people here in Arizona and to make sure that we have the resources to do that. In court, we created this fund, and we’re going to continue doing that.”
To what extent will the Democrats Advance legislation like they did last year to make sure children are fed in schools and disabled children are well cared for?
Senator Sundareshan: “Ensuring that students are fed in schools is a top priority for our legislative Democrats in Arizona. I’ll uplift both Senator Diaz’s bill as we’re as well as Representative Gutierrez’s Bill from last year. Senator Diaz’s bill was SB1637, and it would require that public schools ensure that students whose parents haven’t paid their students’ school meal fees are not shamed or treated differently or even served a different meal from what students who aren’t in that situation are served. This would also prevent school personnel from taking disciplinary action against a student that would result in the denial or delay of a meal. Representative Gutierrez’s bill was an appropriations bill to appropriate $3.8 million from the state’s general fund to the Department of Education to provide those free school lunches for children who met income eligibility requirements for free and reduced-price lunches. The emphasis here is on providing nutritious meals to children. We know that children can’t learn if they’re hungry, and so we want to make sure that our kids have everything that they need to be able to focus on their education to grow into healthy adults, and to be able to fully learn and participate in school and extracurricular activities. It’s our responsibility to ensure that these students are fed, because no children should go hungry in Arizona.”
“Children with special needs are very important, very important. Last session, we had to pass emergency additional funding legislation to support developmentally disabled children and adults. We will continue to make sure that disabled children are cared for, will continue to fight for those families to make sure that they’re supported, and again, as we know, public schools are the ones that accept and take responsibility for the education of our disabled children. You know, the ESA voucher program, the private schools that might be receiving those funds, do not have any requirement to accept or enroll children with disabilities, and so often what we see is that those children are left out and do not receive the benefits of those programs.”
Representative De Los Santos: “This is part of the affordability agenda that we’re going to have, because right now, one of the biggest concerns that I hear when I’m talking to my constituents is the price of food. I mean, under Trump and due to his tariffs, the price of food has skyrocketed, and families are hurting. We’re trying to do everything we can to lower costs. When it comes to food, that means making sure that working-class and middle-class kids have free meals and free breakfast in schools. I mean, we’re a civilized country in the wealthiest nation in human history, and the idea that we have kids going hungry in our schools because parents can’t afford food is insane. We’re not going to stand for it. For the past couple of years, the House and Senate Democrats have been fighting to make breakfast and lunch free for working-class kids. We’ve been successful in that. We’re going to continue that fight.”
“When it comes to children with disabilities, I mean, it’s the same exact thing here. This is an issue about affordability for working families and middle-class families. This is basic care. It’s feeding kids. It’s changing kids. It’s making sure they get their medication on time. Some of these kids have multiple seizures a day. They don’t sleep through the night, and they need around-the-clock care. This is completely unaffordable without help from the state. And so this is 100 percent an affordability issue. You’ll remember that last session, Republicans wanted to completely cut and eliminate the funding for children with disabilities. It’s disgraceful. They kicked out families who were there to advocate at the Capitol from a hearing and silenced them. They prevented them from offering testimony and sharing their stories. I don’t think for the time I have been in the legislature I’m going to see something as shameless and disgraceful and disgusting as that. I’m very proud of the House and Senate Democrats who led that fight and got that funding. We’re going to continue to fight for affordability when it comes to food and when it comes to families who have children with disabilities.”
Is there anything not covered in the first five questions that you would like the readers to know about the Democrats’ 2026 legislative agenda? Please explain.
Senator Sundareshan: “I want to bring this back to the fact that, right now, Democrats are really focused on addressing the cost of living, seeing that the affordability crisis that people are experiencing that has only gotten worse over the last year as Donald Trump and Federal Republicans are playing with the economy as though it’s a game and instituting tariffs and other policies that are not helping in reducing costs as they had actually promised on the campaign trail. Democrats are focused on the cost of living, and we will continue to introduce a number of bills that we have long championed that are geared towards making the cost of living and prices go down for Arizonans. That includes addressing these corporations that are driving up housing costs in both single-family homes and rental units. That includes lowering the cost of utilities, where I have introduced every single year a bill that would prohibit the use of ratepayer dollars going towards utilities lobbying or Association dues or other PR purposes. In that same vein, as we see the rise in data centers, we’ll be putting forward bills that protect residential rate payers from bearing the burden of those rising utility bills as a result of large loads coming online. That’s housing. That’s utilities. We absolutely want to help lower the cost of raising a family by strengthening childcare, strengthening early education, by investing in those areas that help children flourish. We want to expand access to Universal Pre-K, ensuring that every child has access to free meals. Because these kinds of affordability policies help parents stay in the workforce and help our kids succeed. Finally, Health Care affordability is a cornerstone of this agenda. It includes lowering prescription drug prices, simplifying enrollment for public healthcare, and making sure insurance companies can’t deny legitimate claims. We will continue that work of making sure that Medicaid coverage is stable, comprehensive, and accessible to everyone. All of this is rooted in a commitment from Senate Democrats, along with our partners in the House, to stop corporate abuse, keep public dollars serving public needs, and that goes all the way from reforming school voucher systems to strengthening transparency and protecting our public schools or holding large companies accountable when they drive up costs. Our priorities will always be ensuring that the state of Arizona’s policies reflect the needs of working families and not those of corporate special interests.”
Representative De Los Santos: “To sum it up, this way, we’re going to lower costs by taking on corporate greed. We’re going to fight to make health care more affordable and take on Big Pharma and the Insurance Corporations, and we’re going to fight for public school students to ensure that every Arizonan has the shot at an upright future that they deserve.”
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