Photo by Gage Skidmore | Flickr/CC BY-SA 2.0
Following the lead of the Trump administration, Republicans in the Arizona legislature moved forward with proposals that would force government workers back to the office and ban diversity, equity and inclusion.
Both chambers of the state legislature are led by small Republican majorities, and many of them, especially members of the far-right Arizona Freedom Caucus, are MAGA diehards.
As Trump and unelected billionaire Elon Musk continue to fire federal workers, regardless of their performance or how crucial their jobs are to public safety, Arizona’s GOP legislators are attempting to bring his agenda to fruition in the Grand Canyon State.
Senate President Warren Petersen’s Senate Bill 1237 would bar the state’s government employees from working remotely, regardless of their job title or duties.
The Trump administration is pushing for federal employees who work remotely to return to the office or quit, claiming without evidence earlier this month that people who work from home only actually work 10-20% of the time, and that instead they’re out playing golf. (Trump played golf on nine of the first 30 days of his term, at an estimated cost of more than $10 million.)
Petersen’s rationale for the return to the office is similar to Trump’s.
“As we have seen play out from the Trump administration, it is important for all full-time government employees to be accountable to their supervisors,” Petersen said in a statement. “This accountability, which can only be achieved through in-person work, increases productivity.”
The Senate passed Petersen’s proposal Feb. 27 by a vote of 17-12, along party lines.
Brian Sikma, a lobbyist for the Foundation for Government Accountability pushed for Petersen’s bill during a Feb. 19 Senate Regulatory Affairs and Government Efficiency Committee meeting.
The Foundation for Government Accountability is a right-wing think-tank with a history of seeking to curtail social safety net programs and advocacy for reducing child labor restrictions. Economists have called some of the studies by the think-tank “junk science.”
Democratic Sen. Mitzi Epstein, of Tempe, said that while she loves working with her colleagues in person, SB1237 puts strict regulations on government employees, which could prevent hiring the best person for a job and ban flexibility that might make things less efficient.
What would happen if someone with the best expertise lives out of state, she asked, or if someone who does great work for Arizona needed to move out of state temporarily for a few months?
Petersen said he would make amendments to make the plan more workable, but the only exception in the version of the bill headed to the House is for a sick employee to work from home with permission from their supervisor.
Studies about the productivity of those who work from home have been mixed, including a recent one from Stanford that found workers with hybrid schedules that allow them to work in the office and from home remained just as productive as full time office workers.
DEI
House Concurrent Resolution 2042, sponsored by House Speaker Steve Montenegro, R-Goodyear, would ask voters in 2026 to strengthen prohibitions on “preferential treatment and discrimination based on race or ethnicity in public education, hiring, and contracting.”
Montenegro’s bill follows Trump’s executive orders banning diversity, equity and inclusion from the federal government, getting rid of positions that promote DEI as well as programs to facilitate it and threatening to withhold federal funding to schools that continue the programs.
Montenegro told the members of the House Government Committee during a Feb. 12 meeting that the resolution would “help restore color blindness to our institutions, and to ensure that our states treat students, employees, job applicants, and small business owners equally, regardless of race.”
DEI has become a boogeyman of sorts for some Republicans and far-right commentators who have a habit of claiming without evidence that any woman or person of color who has a high-status or difficult job was hired due to DEI policies and not because of their qualifications.
Vania Guevara, a lobbyist for CHISPA Arizona who came to the U.S. from El Salvador as a child, told the committee that it would be great if all applicants and candidates for jobs and colleges were treated the same, but she knows from her own family’s experience that isn’t the case.
“There are instances where I’ve literally had to tell a loved one to change their name so that they would be taken into consideration for an important position,” Guevara said, even though that person was highly qualified.
She told the committee that DEI initiatives serve to prevent the harms of racism instead of promoting them.
“The reality is, and I know this from a lived experience, our members know this from a lived experience, racism and discrimination, unfortunately, does exist,” Guevara said.
Rep. John Gillette, R-Kingman who is white, railed against DEI, saying it contributed to “every little fringe group” asking for a leg up, adding that he believed Guevara became successful through merit and nothing else.
Guevara told the committee that she obtained a law degree with help of programs that assisted immigrants in gaining access to higher education.
“If you want to succeed, you do this on your own merit, we don’t give you a free handout,” Gillette said.
Rep. Walt Blackman, the chairman of the committee who is Black, acknowledged that institutionalized racism exists in the United States, but said he still opposes DEI policies because they tell Black people that they need someone else’s help to be successful, which he said was insulting.
The resolution was approved by the House Feb. 25 by a party-line vote of 33-27 and will next head to the Senate.
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