Mary Jo Pitzl
Arizona Republic
The future of mass transit in Maricopa County is among the hot-button issues at the Legislature this year, and a bill to let the county hold a transportation-tax election is likely one of the last acts lawmakers will take.
But while the Legislature hammers out a solution for competing interests on the proposal, others are raising a more basic question: Why does the county need the Legislature’s permission to hold an election in the first place?
“In Pinal County, we decide on our own whether or not we are going to approve the half-cent sales tax,” Rep. Teresa Martinez, R-Maricopa, said at an April 4 hearing. “We don’t have to come to the Legislature, thank God.”
Martinez, like many others, was puzzled why Maricopa County is the only of Arizona’s 15 counties that needs permission from the Legislature before asking its voters to consider a tax increase or extension.
Arizona Rep. Teresa Martinez attends a protest against Governor Katie Hobbs’ veto of House Bill 2509 outside the Arizona state Capitol in Phoenix on April 25, 2023.
At the same hearing, Rep. Selina Bliss, R-Prescott, suggested lawmakers give Maricopa County the same treatment as her home county: “Don’t be telling Yavapai County what to do and I won’t tell Maricopa County what to do,” she said.
The answer to why the Legislature is involved dates to 1999, when the then-chairman of the House Transportation Committee stuck an amendment onto a bill that removed the county’s ability to continue a half-cent sales tax — first passed in 1985 — beyond its 2006 expiration date.
