Arizona State Law Journal Blog

By Luke Sower. On March 15, the U.S. Senate passed by unanimous consent the Sunshine Protection Act. This bill—if it passes the House and receives the signature of President Biden—would make Daylight Savings Time (DST) permanent across the United States. History of Daylight Savings Time Despite the story told to many American schoolchildren, modern Daylight Savings Time was almost certainly not an invention of Benjamin Franklin. Rather, the modern iteration of the practice grew out of Europe, when Germany adopted Daylight Savings Time in 1916 to conserve fuel during World War I. The rest of Europe followed suit, and the United States adopted the Standard Time Act in 1918. This act confirmed the existing standard time zone system and implemented Daylight Savings Time. After the war, Congress abolished Daylight Savings…

By Natalie Packard. Gas prices across the nation have been at a record high for the past several weeks. Inflation has been sharply rising for months, spiking as the U.S. cut off Russian oil imports after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In response to taxpayers’ frustration about the $4.33 gas price average, Arizona Senator Mark Kelly introduced the Gas Prices Relief Act of 2022 on February 9th to temporarily suspend the federal gas tax until January 1, 2023. Arizona Representative Tom O’Halleran introduced companion legislation to the House of Representatives. Gas Prices Relief Act The federal gas tax is currently 18.4 cents per gallon. The revenue goes to the Highway Trust Fund and pays for much of the federal transportation spending. Senator Kelly’s bill would require the cuts to go directly…

By Matthew Adler. A High-Profile Case As many Arizonans have probably heard, the Supreme Court of Arizona recently invalidated a large and highly publicized piece of legislation known as Senate Bill 1819. The case, Arizona School Boards Association v. State, made waves in both the legal and non-legal communities and is notable for several reasons. First, the invalidated legislation was politically controversial, addressing hot-button subjects such as mask mandates and voter fraud. Second, the Court was unanimous in holding the Republican-passed bill unconstitutional, which is significant given that all seven justices of the Supreme Court of Arizona were appointed by Republican governors. Third, the Court’s holding relied on a long-dormant constitutional provision, potentially heralding a revolution in the Court’s judicial-review jurisprudence. The Single-Subject Rule Although the Court’s opinion covered a…

By Stefan Oakley. In Puente v. Arizona State Legislature, the Arizona Court of Appeals considered whether a group of non-profit organizations and Arizona residents (together, the Appellants) could hold the state legislature accountable, in court, for an alleged breach of Arizona’s Open Meeting Law (the “OML”). Appellants alleged that 26 members of the Arizona state legislature planned to attend a three-day summit hosted by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). Once there, the legislators would meet with lobbyists and other state lawmakers to draft model bills. Appellants asserted that this was an issue because the legislators said to be in attendance constituted a quorum of certain legislative committees and were thus potentially in violation of the OML. Under Arizona law, a meeting is “the gathering, in person or through technological…

By Emily Tegley. When does a single criminal offense end and another begin? The Supreme Court addressed this issue in the recent opinion Wooden v. United States. THE ARMED CAREER CRIMINAL ACT In 1984, Congress passed the Armed Career Criminal Act (“ACCA”) to address repeat offenders. The ACCA applies to individuals who have three or more prior convictions for: (1) a violent felony; and/or (2) a serious drug offense. To be sentenced under the ACCA, the offenses must have been “committed on occasions different from one another.” If the ACCA applies, then the individual faces a minimum of fifteen years in prison. WOODEN AND THE ARMED CAREER CRIMINAL ACT In 1997, William Dale Wooden and three other individuals entered a storage facility in Dalton, Georgia. The individuals gained access to…

By Kristin Leaptrott. On March 3, 2022, President Biden signed the Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act of 2021 (“EFASA”). This law represents a significant “win” for the MeToo movement as it prohibits employers from enforcing mandatory arbitration agreements against employees bringing claims against their employers for sexual harassment or sexual assault in the workplace. Me Too is a social movement that supports sexual assault survivors and sheds light on the prevalence of sexual harassment and sexual assault. Activist Tarana Burke started the Me Too movement in 2006, but Me Too reached a global audience in 2017 when celebrities like Alyssa Milano started using the hashtag #MeToo on social media to talk about their experiences with sexual assault in the entertainment industry. The Me Too movement…

By Julianne Baggett. A day before the International Transgender Day of Visibility, Governor Douglas A. Ducey signed two anti-trans bills into law: Senate Bill 1138 (“SB1138”) and Senate Bill 1165 (“SB1165”). Previously, SB1138 had died in committee after the Senate Health and Human Services Committee heard three hours of public testimony. Less than one week later, the committee revived the bill with a “strike everything” amendment that narrowed its language and then voted to pass the bill without permitting public testimony on the newly-amended version. In effect, SB1138 forbids transgender individuals under the age of eighteen from receiving certain gender-affirming surgeries. While Senator Pace insisted that the revised bill comports with the World Professional Association of Transgender Health’s (“WPATH”) standards of care that were established in 2012, the bill limits…

By Chloe Plaisance. Earlier this year, members of the Arizona legislature introduced House Bill 2112, a bill regulating classroom instruction that prohibits educators from teaching Critical Race Theory (“CRT”). This comes just months after a CRT ban was stricken from the annual state K–12 budget bill. CRT is a field of study that has caused quite a bit of national controversy along political party lines. Although CRT is only gaining attention as of recently, it is an academic concept that has been around for over 40 years. CRT teaches that race is a social construct, and that racism is structurally embedded in our society through legal systems and policies. Some themes of CRT that have been brought to light in the last few years are white privilege and systemic racism.…

By Nicholas Hodder. The San Pedro River flows northward from the mountains in Sonora, Mexico, crosses the border into Arizona, and continues 140 miles to its confluence with the Gila River in Winkelman, Arizona. It is the last major, undammed desert river in the American Southwest. It hosts over 300 species of migratory birds, including over 100 species that breed along the river. That accounts for two-thirds of the avian diversity in the entire United States. Tragically, this ecologically significant river is in danger of drying up. The Drying River and the Depleted Aquifer The San Pedro River, in a sense, is already dry. For many stretches of the river, no water flows on the surface except in direct response to rain, often during the monsoon season. But this does…

By Keith Knight. In January 2022, an Arizona State Senator, Wendy Rogers, introduced SB 1341, a bill which seeks to amend the Arizona Revised Statutes to add Bitcoin as a legal tender in Arizona. Thus far, only one jurisdiction in the world has taken the decision to make Bitcoin legal tender, El Salvador. Though it might sound like an exciting and innovative move, Arizona should not take the decision to make Bitcoin a legal tender. What is Legal Tender?  According to 31 U.S. Code § 5103, “United States coins and currency are legal tender for all debts, public charges, taxes, and dues.” A centralized legal tender is vital to any nation or state as it creates a system of trust and certainty which allows financial growth to occur. It is…