Police fired tear gas to disperse anti-abortion protesters from outside the Arizona Capitol on Friday night, forcing lawmakers to briefly huddle in a basement inside the building as they scrambled to complete their 2022 session. .
Thousands of protesters had previously gathered on the Capitol grounds in Phoenix, divided into groups that supported and condemned the US Supreme Court decision that overturned Roe v. Wade.
Members of the Department of Public Safety’s SWAT team fired tear gas from the second floor of the old Capitol building to disperse protesters in the mall between the current House and Senate buildings. KPHO-TV reported that officers opened fire as several anti-abortion protesters began banging on the glass doors of the Senate building.
Authorities said there were no injuries and no arrests.
The incident sent Senate lawmakers into the basement for about 20 minutes, Democratic Sen. Martin Quezada said. Sharp tear gas wafted through the building afterward, forcing the Senate to move its proceedings to a courtroom instead of the Senate chamber.
Republicans enacted a 15-week abortion ban in March, and a pre-Roe law banning all abortions remains in place, forcing providers across the state to stop performing abortions on Friday.
Republican lawmakers had previously approved a massive expansion of Arizona’s private school voucher system with only Republican backing. Another important measure passed with broad bipartisan support: a major plan to shore up water supplies. The Senate and House approved a $1 billion plan to increase supplies after adding another $200 million for water conservation efforts.
Senate Republicans pushed for the voucher program that has already passed the House. It allows all Arizona students to take public money to attend private schools, even the nearly 60,000 whose parents are already paying for that instruction.
The vote came after Republican leaders voted to block Democrats from debating or proposing changes to the coupon bill, sparking a heated procedural fight that left Democrats furious.
The plan would open the program to all 1.1 million public school students. Currently, about 255,000 public school students qualify for the Empowerment Scholarship Account program, although fewer than 12,000 participate.
About 59,000 private school students would be eligible under the new plan championed by House Majority Leader Ben Toma.
Toma and other advocates say money should not be a barrier that prevents children from attending private schools. Democrats fiercely oppose the bill, saying there is no testing or other mechanism to make sure children are really learning.
His efforts to try to add accountability mechanisms, or at least force a vote on the issue, were thwarted when Republicans voted to suspend rules that would normally allow such changes.
Democrats criticized the measure, saying it would siphon off much of the more than $500 million in new K-12 spending lawmakers enacted earlier this week.
“It will cost the state an additional $125 million by 2025,” said Sen. Christine Marsh, a Phoenix Democrat. “This is not just fiscally responsible for us to try to run two separate systems at the same time.”
Republican Sen. TJ Shope of Coolidge said the measure doesn’t go far enough. “I think in an ideal situation, we would fully fund the student wherever parents choose to send their students,” Shope said.
Lawmakers were also considering a massive new water bill that Governor Doug Ducey requested earlier this year that is designed to help the state pay for new water sources.
Ducey called for a major new investment in water in his January state of the state address, implying that some of that money would be used to build a desalination plant in Mexico. While the money can be used for that, it can also be used for conservation, groundwater development, or possibly importing water from other states.
The House briefly voted against a measure that allows the Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation and Reentry to continue operating for another eight years due to bipartisan concerns that the agency is too secretive and fails to implement reforms suggested by the state auditor. Without approval of the bill, the agency’s authorization would expire at the end of the month.
Instead, lawmakers voted to impose new transparency requirements on the prison system.
“I’m not asking the department to do anything it’s not legally required to do,” said Rep. Shawnna Bolick, a Glendale Republican who pushed for the additional requirements. “I just want to make sure there’s accountability at the end of the day.”
The House and Senate voted on dozens of other bills, most of them noncontroversial measures that passed with bipartisan majorities.
But one of the final votes of the night was a Republican proposal that makes it illegal to teach so-called Critical Race Theory, a hot topic for Republican politicians. Democrats called it an attack on public school teachers that will scare them away from teaching about race in America, but won’t stop students.
“If you tell a child not to learn something, not to read something, what is the first thing they will do?” Quezada asked. “They’re going to go study it, they’re going to go get those books.”
Republican Sen. JD Mesnard said his bill was being misconstrued, that while it avoids divisive concepts, it will allow slavery, race and other topics to be taught.
“I challenge anyone to go back and explain why it’s okay to promote or defend any of these things,” Mesnard asked.
The Legislature adjourned at 12:26 am on Saturday.
Reference-www.independent.co.uk