TUCSON, Ariz. (KGUN) — The sweeping change from the midterm elections gave Arizona Democrats control of the Governor’s office and both Houses of the Arizona Legislature for the first time in 60 years. We asked the new Senate President—who is from Tucson—how Democrats will use the clout they've been waiting for for so long.
Democratic Senator Priya Sundareshan will be the new Senate President. She says with Republicans in control Democratic bills went nowhere.
“In my 4 years I've had one bill receive a committee hearing, and so that's generally how it has operated. So that does mean that we have many years of Democratic bills that have never received a committee hearing, let alone go through the process that we have this large backlog that now that we're in charge, we finally have the chance to hear those bills.”
She says now those bills will get a hearing.
“Now that does not mean that we will completely leave Republicans out. I just want to make clear that we want to hear their good ideas and we want to work with them on our good ideas. And so there will be a lot of our bills to, to work through that backlog before we might, uh, you know, turn over to them.”
She says Democrats will work to fight the high cost of living.
And then protecting water and, you know, our environment are very important as well as the big one that we know that Arizona has unfortunately been in the news nationally for a long time, decades of.
Investment in our public education system and figuring out how do we make sure that our public education system is properly invested in and that the ESA voucher program does not waste money and enable fraud as we've seen.
Over the years, Southern Arizona Senators and House members have felt frozen out by the strong majority of lawmakers from Maricopa County but as Senate President Senator Sundareshan will bring the perspective of someone from Tucson. Several members of the new Democratic leadership in the Senate and House are from the Southern part of the state too.
“Well, I think at the very least what that means is Southern Arizona is not forgotten, you know, we are, we are going to be here. We are going to make sure that, you know, as we've, we have heard criticism from our region that Southern Arizona priorities do not get a hearing, that some of the important employers and industries do not rise to the level of getting any level of importance at the state legislature. Well, here we are and so we're really glad to be able to provide Southern Arizona with a greater voice into the legislature now. “
