Legislative Dems Statement on Republican Special Session Failure on ESAs and Ballot Measures Attacking Educators, Fire Fighters and Law Enforcement

PHOENIX- Senate Democratic Leader Priya Sundareshan and House Democratic Leader Oscar De Los Santos released the following statement regarding the Republican failure – announced today via social media – to come together on a special session to pass modest ESA voucher reforms and to claw back misleading ballot referrals attacking public schools, educators, firefighters and law enforcement.

"Republicans created this mess by rushing harmful and misleading ballot referrals through the Legislature, including an attack on teachers, firefighters, law enforcement officers and other public employees who wish to join a union and negotiate the terms of their employment. Today, they had the opportunity to come together and work with Democrats to pull back these rushed and ill-considered reforms and once again, they failed Arizona.

Legislative Democrats negotiated in the hopes of getting a deal that would protect public education, strengthen accountability in the ESA voucher program, and stand with working families. Instead, Republican leadership chose politics over solutions, proving they were never serious about fixing the chaos they created.

What we saw today was a failure of leadership from Republicans in both chambers. While Speaker Montenegro and President Petersen stated they were negotiating in good faith – we now know the truth. There will be no special session. Instead, Republicans backtracked on the terms of a deal which were not only widely reported, but which they themselves put together.

Now it's up to Arizona voters. We have every confidence that Arizona’s voters will pass the Protect Education Act to rein in waste, fraud, and abuse in the ESA voucher program, and will mobilize to protect public education and unions that represent educators, firefighters and law enforcement.”