Duct Tape and Bailing Wire

Arizona’s legislature was designed over a hundred years ago, when life moved at the speed of a horse and carriage. Back then, meeting for 100 days a year made sense. Today, we live in 2026. The world changes overnight. Federal laws, economic shifts, and the needs of everyday people don’t wait for a slow-moving legislature.

Still, Arizona keeps using the same old system. It’s like trying to cross the desert in a covered wagon pulled by lame oxen. We limp along, but we never get where we need to go without a lot of getting out to push.

So how does the legislature actually get anything done? If they do at all, they use a trick. In January, they pass a bunch of unimportant bills—things like naming a state cookie. Later in the year, when something important comes up, they take one of those “fluff” bills and completely rewrite it. They replace the original text with new laws that never went through the normal process. No public hearings. No real debate. Just a sneak attack.

Take 2026’s House Bill 2917. It started as a bill to create a cancer registry for firefighters—a worthy cause that would help track and prevent occupational cancer in the men and women who risk their lives fighting fires. Everyone agreed it was needed. Then, without warning, the bill was gutted. The firefighter cancer registry was stripped out and replaced with sweeping new restrictions on how cities and police departments can use surveillance technology like automated license plate readers.

The surveillance bill might be needed too. But here’s the problem: we lost the firefighter cancer registry that we had already agreed to. The bill was hijacked. One thing got traded for another in the dark, with no public debate, no committee hearings, no chance for firefighters to speak up for their own health and safety.

This is called a “strike-everything” amendment. It lets lawmakers skip the rules that are supposed to make government open and honest. Instead of orderly transparent lawmaking, we get confusion, misdirection, and ambush. It’s a Rube Goldberg machine made of outdated rules, loopholes, and clownery.

This is no way to run a state in 2026. But I also understand why people are scared of big changes to the constitution that would fix this. There’s a lot of distrust toward the government in Phoenix. And when lawmakers do childish things that end up on national news, that distrust only grows.

The real problem is that we treat local elections like they don’t matter. We vote for state legislators based on how we feel about the President. We don’t pay attention to who is running for the state house or senate. As long as we stay passive and vote blindly, our legislature will keep looking like a run-down circus instead of a serious government.

I’ve written two cooperating bills to help fix this mess without waiting for Phoenix to change itself.

Idea One: The Arizona Resilient Infrastructure and Capital Cooperative Framework Act (ARICC)

ARICC builds a network of member-owned businesses called public benefit corporations. Think of them like co-ops. They’re owned by the people who use them or work in them. These co-ops do two main things.

Because co-ops are member-owned, they have no incentive to cut corners or extract profits. They exist to serve, not to enrich outside shareholders. And because they compete for contracts on price and quality, they often beat private companies while paying better wages. And because they are charter-bound, they can’t suddenly pull the rug on their customers, communities, and workers to switch to a predatory business model.

First, they compete for government contracts. Because they don’t have to pay profits to outside shareholders, they can do the work cheaper and better than private companies. They also run social services—like help for families in crisis—and get paid based on how well they perform. If they do a good job, they get funded. If not, they don’t.

Second, ARICC creates a voluntary retirement fund for Arizonans. That fund invests in local projects—things like clean water, housing, energy, and medicine. The money stays in our communities instead of being sent off to Wall Street. It helps build good jobs doing work our neighborhoods actually need.

Each local co-op is run by members who live in the community. They elect their own leaders. Those leaders have a legal duty to be honest and do their best. If a leader breaks that duty, the members can sue them. That keeps everyone accountable.

There are already hundreds of special districts in Arizona—groups that handle water, fire protection, and other services. ARICC doesn’t try to destroy them. Instead, co-ops can partner with these districts or offer them a way to convert into co-ops if they want to. Because members vote on what projects to fund, there’s no pressure to compete with a district that’s already doing a good job.

Best of all, ARICC doesn’t need permission from the legislature to start. Public benefit corporations already exist under Arizona law. And if lawmakers tried to outlaw them, it would be political suicide. You can’t ban the cheapest, most effective bidder from competing for contracts without looking foolish.

Idea Two: The Restoring Local Representation Act (RLRA)

RLRA has two parts. The first part changes how we draw legislative districts. Right now, each district has about 250,000 people. That’s too many. You can’t really know your legislator when they represent a quarter-million people.

My idea shrinks districts to about 45,000 people. Why 45,000? It’s roughly the size of a large town or a few city neighborhoods. It’s a number that fits how our brains work—we can only really understand and connect with a community that size. Your legislator becomes someone you might actually run into at the grocery store.

For Southeast Arizona, this is a game changer. Right now, we are split across districts dominated by Tucson or Phoenix. LD19 goes from Patagonia to Morenci across hundreds of miles 5 different counties. Under RLRA, Southeast Arizona would have five to seven dedicated senators who actually live here, not four counties away.

Smaller districts do a few important things:

They make gerrymandering much harder.

They make campaign money less powerful.

They give everyday people better access to their lawmakers.

The second part of RLRA helps a larger legislature work better. If we have more lawmakers—maybe 500 instead of 90—we need better tools. So RLRA asks Arizona’s universities to build modern digital systems. Lawmakers could participate remotely. The public could see what’s happening in real time. And students studying public policy, law, and political science could serve as interns, helping with research and constituent services.

This creates a powerful partnership. Lawmakers get access to experts from the universities. Students get real-world experience. And over time, the anti-university crowd in the legislature loses influence—especially if lawmakers are given scholarships they can award to students from their districts.

RLRA includes a backup plan that changes the default. If the legislature can’t agree on a matter of local concern—land use, water, education, public health—the bill dies. But instead of nothing happening, the matter gets sent down to counties, cities, and towns, along with the money to handle it. Those local governments can work together using intergovernmental agreements to solve problems in ways that fit their own needs. No more waiting for Phoenix to decide what’s best for your community.

For Sierra Vista, home to Fort Huachuca, this matters. When the military makes decisions, the community needs to respond fast. A slow-moving, broken legislature can’t keep up. Local default means local response.

For the border communities of Douglas, Nogales, and Naco, this matters. When the federal government changes immigration policy overnight, they don’t have time to wait for a legislature that meets 100 days a year. They need local tools and local power to respond.

For farmers and ranchers in the Sulphur Springs Valley and the Gila Valley, this matters. Water policy shouldn’t be written by someone who has never seen a well drop. Local default means local control over the resources that keep us alive.

How the Two Ideas Work Together

ARICC and RLRA are designed to support each other.

ARICC builds the local tools—co-ops that deliver services, create jobs, and keep wealth in the community. RLRA builds the local power—smaller districts, better representation, and the authority for communities to make their own decisions.

When local communities have both power and tools, they don’t have to wait for Phoenix to act. They can solve their own problems. And when the legislature sees that communities are succeeding on their own, they have less reason to stand in the way—and less ability to claim that only Phoenix knows best.

Conclusion

Arizona’s legislature is stuck in the past. It uses tricks and loopholes to get around its own rules. The result is a government that’s confusing, secretive, and often embarrassing. Just this year, we saw a bill about firefighters’ health get hijacked and turned into something else entirely. The cancer registry that everyone agreed on? Gone. Swapped out in the dark of night.

But instead of waiting for Phoenix to fix itself, we can build alternatives from the ground up. ARICC creates cooperative businesses that deliver services, create jobs, and keep money local. RLRA shrinks districts, improves technology, and pushes power back to communities.

These ideas don’t require a perfect legislature. They work even if the legislature stays broken. And over time, they create a new way of doing things—one that’s transparent, accountable, and built for 2026.

We don’t have to keep limping along using duct tape and bailing wire to make 1910 function today. Imagine driving the interstate in a rickety covered wagon with modern vehicles haphazardly screaming past us. We can build something better. But it won’t happen by waiting. It happens when we demand better, when we pay attention to local elections, and when we support ideas that put power back where it belongs: in our communities.