Senators Sundareshan and Kuby Condemn MAGA Republican Power Grab Through SCR1022

MAGA Republican Legislators in Arizona, calling themselves “The Freedom Caucus” and across the nation have three public policy goals.

Power

Power

Power

To that end, anything that helps them achieve and maintain power is on their to-do list at the State Legislature and around the country.

Sometimes it is passing cultural wedge issue legislation that stokes their largely uninformed base.

Sometimes it is passing welfare for the wealthy tax cuts and private school voucher scholarships to curry favor with their like-minded donors.

Sometimes it is passing measures that will solidify their hold on legislative power, when demographic shifts in the population toward a non white majority frighten them into putting forth legislation or ballot referrals that will postpone the inevitable.

That is the purpose of Jake ‘Voter Troll Farm and MAGA Fake Elector’ Hoffman’s push to get SCR1022 on the ballot.

The measure is an attempt by Republican legislators to maintain their advantage in the composition of the legislative districts by conducting a state-wide census suppression operation that only counts Arizonan/American Citizens and not just everyone like the regular federal ten-year census seeks to accomplish.

If successful, SCR1022 would favor the largely white rural areas of the Grand Canyon state and create legislative districts that would undoubtedly favor MAGA White Christian Nationalist interests.

That this idea is blatantly Unconstitutional and goes against everything taught in Constitutional Law 101 does not matter to the MAGA party whose national leaders are trying to take away birthright citizenship that is enshrined in the Fourteenth Amendment.

Unfortunately, MAGA Republicans at the State Legislature and across the country have a warped and historically inaccurate perspective on what a census is supposed to do.

Check out this social media rebuttal from Democratic Senate Leader Priya Sundareshan on Hoffman’s wrong and illegal position on census reporting as reported by Arizona Agenda.

Speaking further on the outlandishness and Unconstitutionality of SCR1022, Senate Democratic Leader Priya Sundareshan and Senator Lauren Kuby issued a joint statement.

In her remarks, Sundareshan stated:

“As elected members of the state senate, we find it alarming how little our Republican colleagues actually understand about our nation’s government. As required by the Constitution of the United States, the census counts people—all people, regardless of status —because the federal government has the responsibility to ensure the states have the needed resources to provide for their occupants. This duplicative state census effort—and entirely unnecessary ballot referral—was crafted by Republicans to depress participation in the federal census and ensure that voters are stripped of their right to choose their own representation. Please hear me clearly: The radical Arizona Freedom Caucus is leading the charge to redraw our legislative maps to handpick the voters they want, while stirring up further hate for undocumented immigrants to hide their true intent. I invite the Senate Republicans, if they are truly upset that the Census Bureau under the first Trump administration mismanaged their duties and left Arizona with less federal funding and underrepresented in Congress, to put their money where their mouth is—take it up with the current Trump administration and leave Arizona voters alone. Without fail, Republicans prefer to burden voters with irresponsible and unworkable proposals like this that will only further exacerbate our strained state resources.”

Kuby wrote:

“At this point, Arizona voters should brace for another two-page ballot in 2026. The Senate Republican caucus, rather than conduct a simple Google search or open a high school history textbook, are giddy to send SCR1022 to the voters with the end goal of ensuring the legislature wields the power to gerrymander legislative districts for their own political benefit.
It cost nearly $14 billion to conduct the last nationwide census. Based on Arizona’s population, the State of Arizona would need to spend a little under $300 million to complete its own census, not even accounting for the fact that Arizona does not have the pre-existing infrastructure of the U.S. Census Bureau. Despite the worryingly moderate $158 million estimated in the fiscal note, this stunt would gut the voter-created Citizens Clean Elections Fund and still not cover the true cost, passing it onto the taxpayer another do-nothing Republican pet project.”

If this ballot measure comes up in 2026, Arizona voters need to push back and give this MAGA Republican power grab the sound defeat it deserves.