Camryn Sanchez
Arizona Capitol Times
Some lawmakers say that they want party precinct committeemen to solely handle the process of replacing House and Senate members who leave before the end of their term, cutting out county boards of supervisors.
If that were ever to be implemented, it could drastically change the makeup of the Legislature.
Currently, if a lawmaker leaves office before the end of their term, the elected PCs in their legislative districts belonging to the same political party hold a vote and select three candidates to replace the departed lawmaker.
The district then submits those names to the board of supervisors for that county, and the board selects the replacement who is then sworn in to the Legislature.
Vacancies happen for a variety of reasons such as death, expulsion and resignation. It’s become common in the past couple of years.
Sixteen of the current Legislature’s 88 members were appointed at one time. It will soon be 18 out of 90, once former Sen. Steve Kaiser and former House Minority Leader Andrés Cano are replaced. That’s 20%.
Some of those lawmakers might never have assumed their current offices without both PCs and the boards of supervisors playing a role in their appointment.
In this legislative session, so far, five lawmakers have left their seats early and triggered this replacement process. They were Kaiser, Cano, Rep. Liz Harris, R-Chandler; Sen. Raquel Terán, D-Phoenix and Sen. Flavio Bravo, D-Phoenix.
