December Advocacy Update: Capitol Consulting Legislative Update

While it seems like not much is happening and we do not have a final answer for our members of the future of our profession in Arizona, AFCCA and Capitol Consulting have been keeping the conversations flowing and advocating in the background. Here are a few updates from Jake Hinman, Capitol Consulting, to keep you in the know:

  • Sen. Kaiser was recently named Senate Commerce chair which likely means he will be the bill sponsor for our profession.  This is a good thing.  Sen Kaiser is pragmatic, and I have strong working relationship with him. I met with him a few days ago and he understands our concerns with eliminating the licensure requirement, but he is still interested in finding ways to remove regulations.
  • On the House side, Rep. Wilmeth was named House Commerce chair, another positive development, from a process standpoint as the bill will originate out of Senate Commerce and end up in House Commerce.  We probably couldn’t have had better chairs.
  • We are currently coordinating a tour with Sen Kaiser at one of our member facilities to provide him some technical insight on the profession.  Hopefully we can get the tour scheduled for next week (week of December 12).
  • You do need to be aware that this recently became more complicated with the Leadership election, namely Senator Petersen being elected the Senate President.  Sen. Petersen has a longstanding history of opposing occupational licensure requirements.  This is not insurmountable, but it is new element that we will have to manage.

We anticipate further Stakeholder meetings in the future, as well as ways our members can be involved once the legislative session begins. We will keep you up to date as we learn new information.