By Nicole Ludden | Arizona Agenda
As a freshman lawmaker in 2023, Republican Rep. Selina Bliss sponsored a bill to let cities cap the number of short-term rentals in their jurisdictions.
Another lawmaker ran the same bill the year before with bipartisan support, so she thought it would be an easy win.
“As a naive freshman, I came in thinking that this wouldn’t be that difficult,” Bliss told us. “(I) learned rather quickly that there’s a lot of people that are against reform in the short-term rental industry.”
This session marked the fourth year in a row that Bliss’ short-term rental reform efforts failed.
But this year was different: For the first time, both the group that lobbies for cities and the largest short-term rental platform in the world — Airbnb — backed Bliss’ bill.
Then, after months of negotiations, that rare consensus died the way many bills do: in the hands of a committee chair.
And while the bill was top of mind for many lawmakers and lobbyists this session, its death seems to boil down to a lapse in memory.
Bliss’ HB2429 would have let cities limit the number of people who can stay overnight in a short-term rental while giving cities more authority to deny or revoke short-term rental licenses. It also required sex offender background checks for renters.
