They’re itchin’ to overrride the governor’s veto

Of note this week is the governor's veto on the bill to ban the People's Republic of China (PRC) from having ownership interest in Arizona land. The bill, SB1109, had carve-outs and was light on enforcement direction. The governor’s veto letter pointed to checks already in place to prevent what the bill weakly claims to accomplish. Senate President Petersen has now decided to try to override the governor’s veto. He will put the bill up for an override vote  the week of June 16th.

A veto override requires a two-thirds vote in both the House and Senate, meaning the override won’t succeed unless most Democrats reverse course and vote for a bill that previously passed without their support.

It’s not clear whether the House actually intends to hold a veto override vote, yet Petersen seems intent on doing so on the senate.

It’s still up in the air what a budget for Fiscal Year 2026 will look like. Reports are the GOP majority is still having trouble getting their act together. We can expect some sort of “bribe funding” to be included in whatever budget they hobble together. Since precedent was set last session to give individual buckets of money to lawmakers to entice their yes vote on the budget, lawmakers now expect to fund their pet projects with their special bucket or they can refuse to vote to keep the state open. It was a terrible precedent to set, but this is where we find ourselves.