By Ray Stern | Arizona Republic
Republican lawmakers in Arizona want to answer former President Donald Trump’s campaign demand to “finish the wall” with action of their own.
The state Senate on Wednesday approved up to $700 million for the job via Senate Bill 1032, which passed on a 16-12, party-line vote. It now goes to the House for consideration.
Sen. Wendy Rogers, the bill’s sponsor, declined to comment about the proposal after its passage. At last week’s Senate Appropriations Committee hearing, Rogers said the money would allow Arizona to complete 17 miles of “wall.”
That would work out to about $41 million per mile.
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Senate Bill 1718 would appropriate $1.1 million and 14.5 full-time-equivalent positions from the general fund and placed in the Border Security Fund, where it could be used for a number of things, from construction and maintenance of a border wall to “clearing nonindigenous plants.”
