On the surface, the Arizona Attorney General’s Civil Rights Division is doing really well.
The division secured a consent decree requiring a mining company to revamp its policies, train staff and submit to monitoring after a female employee filed a sex-discrimination complaint.
State attorneys secured a $35,000 payout for Flagstaff tenants after their landlord refused to allow an emotional support animal needed for a disability. And they won another $30,000 for a woman who was fired from a Tucson hardware company because she was pregnant.
That all happened this year alone.
The division is tasked with investigating discrimination complaints, and its 35 employees hold people and institutions accountable for depriving Arizonans of basic rights because of factors like race, gender, disability or age.
Behind those wins, however, the Civil Rights Division is facing a funding cliff, and an ongoing upheaval of federal civil rights enforcement under President Donald Trump that is further putting Arizonans’ civil rights in jeopardy.
Now, the division is asking the state to address the problem before the damage becomes irreversible.
The office has been operating under a structural deficit for several years — its recurring expenses are higher than its recurring revenue, and it has been using leftover federal cash from previous years to fill the gap.
But that option isn’t available next fiscal year, per division head Leslie Ross. The carryover cash is running dry, and Arizona’s civil rights watchdogs won’t have enough funding to meet their legal mandates.
“Many of the people who come to us do not have the resources to secure their own attorney to represent their rights,” she told us. “So you might have people that are facing housing discrimination who will never have their rights defended.”
In its budget request for the upcoming fiscal year, the Attorney General’s Office warns that the Civil Rights Division is already stretched thin. More Arizonans are seeking help than ever before, and investigators are juggling unsustainable caseloads.
Without additional state funding to fill the looming gap, the office cautioned, the consequences will be severe.
“The Civil Rights Division provides a voice for Arizona residents who are often unrepresented and have no other resources to defend their rights under Arizona law,” the office explains. “Absent the Civil Rights Division’s work, more Arizona residents will suffer without recourse.”
“Bearing the burden”
Arizona created a department dedicated to investigating civil rights complaints after the state Legislature passed the Arizona Civil Rights Act in 1965, a year after Congress passed the federal Civil Rights Act.
That means people whose civil rights are violated have recourse on the state level, separate from federal law. While the protections are largely the same on the federal and state levels, Arizona law goes further in some cases.
For example, federal law prohibits workplace sexual harassment, but only for employers with at least 15 people on staff. Arizona’s law applies in all workplaces regardless of employee count.
But Arizona is far from a post-racial paradise — Phoenix remains deeply shaped by segregation and redlining.
The number of complaints the Civil Rights Division receives has surged by 72% since 2020. In that same timeframe, housing discrimination allegations doubled, and public accommodation complaints1 more than tripled.
“There’s just an increase in need overall from the Arizona constituents, and they are asking for help from their government. They don’t have the resources to go at it alone,” Ross said.
Arizona’s Civil Rights Division gets federal funding from two different federal agencies: the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).
The state’s employment and housing discrimination cases can be dual-filed at the federal and state levels. But since getting a civil rights complaint processed at the federal level takes a lot longer, more people are turning to the state division.
And the federal support the state does get is quickly eroding.
Nearly 100 employees at the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) took the Trump Administration’s buyout offers in January, another 21 resigned and hundreds more workers are expected to leave in the coming year and a half.
HUD’s fair housing office lost 65% of its workforce at the beginning of the year, and employees told the New York Times they’re not being allowed to actually enforce housing civil rights.
“We’re bearing the burden of the loss in employees at the federal level,” Ross said.
Plus, the division receives funding from HUD and EEOC based on preset formulas for the number of cases it takes in, not on the actual cost of resolving those cases through mediations and litigations.
The ask
Next year, the division won’t have enough cash in the bank to continue plugging the budget hole. So the Attorney General’s Office is asking lawmakers to appropriate an additional $1.2 million from the General Fund on an ongoing basis, and another $250,000 to hire two new employees.
The division flagged the structural deficit back in its FY2024 budget request and warned that “substantial turnover” from non-competitive pay was forcing much less experienced investigators to handle heavier caseloads. The AG’s office asked for 10 full-time spots and a $1.5 million ongoing budget increase.
The Legislature gave the division three new workers and increased its budget by $287,000.
“What we’re hoping for is not a band-aid fix, but a long-term solution to these needs,” Ross said. “We directly respond to the needs of the Arizona public. They’re asking for help, we want to be able to help them.”
Arizona’s lawmakers once considered civil rights important enough to pass a set of laws and create a dedicated division to enforce them. But politics have shifted since the 60s.
The Trump administration is rewriting the playbook for civil rights enforcement. The Justice Department’s new priorities include finding noncitizen voters and defending white people from discrimination.
And Trump has a lot of supporters at Arizona’s Capitol.
Ross hopes they remember that her division, and the Arizona Civil Rights Act, have existed across many shifts in political control.
“Civil rights is not a political issue,” she said. “The expectation that we have equality and fairness with regard to our laws is nothing new.”
Four more years (of vetoes): Gov. Katie Hobbs launched her reelection campaign yesterday in a video leaning on her working-class roots, history of fast-food and rideshare gigs, the tax cuts her administration has delivered and the National Guard she has sent to the border. Also on the highlights reel: lowering childcare costs, (arguably) balancing the budget deficit, creating high-tech jobs and taking on Fondomonte. The takeaway she wants you to remember is she’s a tough fighter with thick skin who’s going to lead the people through these partisan times.
No lane for semi-MAGAs: David Schweikert’s gubernatorial campaign hopes to unite Reagan conservatives with MAGA voters tired of losing general election races, but Substacker Robert Robb sees two problems with this approach. First of all, those two subsets of the Republican electorate probably won’t add up to a winning plurality. Secondly, Schweikert hasn’t done enough to convince the never-Trump crowd that he’s actually one of them. Cases in point: He hasn’t spoken against Trump’s tariffs or crony capitalistic tendencies, and he voted to overturn the results of the 2020 election (not in Arizona but in Pennsylvania).
“Even in a three-way race, residual Reaganite conservatives and disaffected Republicans probably won’t add up to a plurality. And, thus far, MAGA voters have shown no interest in tactical considerations, such as which candidate can win a general election,” Robb writes.
Stand your ground (in the bedroom): The Arizona Supreme Court vacated a man’s conviction for assaulting a roommate/sometimes-girlfriend and her friend when they broke into his locked room, Bob Christie reports for Capitol Media Services. The decision, with one justice dissenting, significantly expands Arizona’s “Castle Doctrine” to include separate, locked living areas inside of a home.
In the ICE box: New research shows a spike in the use of solitary confinement at Arizona immigration detention centers, Steph Solis and Jessica Boehm write for Axios Phoenix. Arizona facilities have the third-most people in solitary confinement — around 1,500 detainees — of any state. Some detainees are being held in isolation for weeks at a time. Fifteen days or more is considered “psychological torture.”
Deputy mayor, not police: The deputy mayor of San Luis, Tadeo De La Hoya, appeared in court on Tuesday, where he is facing one count of unlawful flight, James Gilbert reports for the Yuma Sun. De La Hoya, who is also the president of the Arizona School Boards Association, turned himself in after several days of being sought for allegedly fleeing a police traffic stop.
In other, other news
EPCOR Utilities Inc. became the first water provider in Arizona to receive an alternative designation of assured water supply, which will allow more development in the West Valley, despite the moratorium on building thanks to depleting groundwater reserves (Sasha Hupka / Republic) … Former Democratic Rep. Lorenzo Sierra’s new memoir details his battle with COVID-19, which landed him in the hospital in 2020 (Jeremy Duda / Axios Phoenix) … The Arizona Department of Economic Security’s new CACTUS unemployment system is riddled with glitches and errors, according to users (Wayne Schutsky / KJZZ) … And Wesley Leasy, a former Arizona Cardinal, filed a notice of claim against Phoenix and Mesa after police mistakenly held him at gunpoint five months ago (Balin Overstolz McNair / KTAR).
Tolleson Unified School District Superintendent Jeremy Calles not only skipped out on Tuesday’s Joint Legislative Audit Committee hearing that aimed to dig into the district’s finances — he sent a process server to deliver a notice of claim that he was suing the committee’s chairman, Republican Rep. Matt Gress, for defamation.
Bold choice!
12News’ Brahm Resnik caught Gress’ bewildered reaction in real time.
We also loved Gress’ outrage about a $28,000 price tag for public records he requested from the district.
“We’re going to get (those records) no matter what. And we’re not going to be paying for them,” he told Resnik.
Welcome to the struggle, Matt.
We hope this experience leads to some positive reform for Arizona public records laws.