Bills introduced by Sen. Steve Smith

As I did last year, I wanted to give you an update as to some of what I have been working on the first month of the session this year in the Senate.

I personally wrote/authored 11 bills (description below), most of which will be heard this week in committee. I also sponsored many other pieces of legislation, some of which help with the economy, underwater mortgages, tort reform and other important issues. You can view the entire list.

Additionally, if you would ever like to visit the Capitol or shadow me for a day to see what exactly I do, please let me know and I will be happy to help arrange it for you. We also do this for classes in school or other groups.

That being said, below you will find the bill number, title, and description for the 11 bills I introduced, so please let me know if you have any thoughts or questions relating to them. If you feel strongly about any of them, contact the other members of the Legislature and tell them to support them as well.

SB 1104 – appropriation; border security advisory committee

This is a technical change to my border fence bill from last year that allows the Joint Legislative Border Security Advisory Committee to spend the money raised through the www.buildtheborderfence.com website when the Legislature is out of session. As a side note, I expect construction for the fence to begin this year, much more on this to come soon.

SB1275 – state budget; appropriation limitation; hearing

Also called the “Truth in Spending” bill, this would require a special vote if the Legislature wants to increase state spending at a rate faster than the rate of growth of state population plus inflation (this is not TABOR). The bill is also a government transparency measure and would require the Legislature to give the public two weeks notice before holding a public hearing to allow for taxpayer input before the budget vote.

I think this is needed for the simple fact that if the state is going to spend more money than it takes in, the public ought to know about it, have a say in the matter, and see which legislators voted for it.

SB1443 – teachers; performance pay

Currently, there is little uniformity as to how teachers are awarded their performance pay, so under this bill, K-12 principals would receive their school’s entire Proposition 301 money allotment from the district superintendent and would have the authority to determine how much each teacher in their school would receive in bonus pay based on the state’s evaluation criteria. This should help great teachers make much more money and bad teachers less.

As a background, I received more than 500 pages of emails from teachers when I asked them their opinions on this issue. When it came down to it, many of them preferred to continue to be evaluated by their principal rather than by a new formula from the state, so this bill would give the principal the local control over performance pay that the teachers are asking for.

SB1444 – schools; data; noncitizen students

This is one of my immigration bills I introduced last year that I am bringing back. It simply instructs K-12 school administrators that when they collect data during the time of the student’s enrollment (just as they do now per the Arizona Constitution), if they do not receive evidence that the student is in the country legally or a U.S. citizen, they would be required to file it as such. The Arizona Department of Education would then submit an annual report to the Legislature and in it would contain how many illegal aliens are in our public schools (this bill in no way calls for deportation, just data collecting).

This legislation is desperately needed in that approximately $1.5 billion/year of our taxpayer money is spent on educating illegal aliens in Arizona and this would help derive more exact numbers so we the taxpayers will know exactly who we are paying for and how much.

SB1445 – hospital admissions; restrictions

The second of my immigration bills from last year, this would require hospitals to do two things when administering care to illegal aliens. First, during the course of admission/treatment, if citizenship or lawful presence in the United States cannot be reasonably determined (reasonably determined is defined in the bill), law enforcement is to be immediately contacted. Second, the incident will be noted and filed. which will be part of an annual report from the department and will be given to the Legislature (medical care will not be denied just as it is not denied today).

Our best guess is that approximately $800 million/year of our taxpayer money is spent on free health care for illegals in Arizona, and this bill will address the issue head on.

SB1446 – disabled veterans; VLT exemption

Currently, if you are 100 percent disabled from service in the military, your license plate fee (VLT) is waived, so this bill would extend the same benefit to those who are 50 percent disabled. The idea behind this is that if a person loses half of their body in service to this nation, this is the very least that can be done for them.

SB1447 – municipal finance decisions; public hearing

Simply states that if a city or town is going to potentially raise its budget/spending, a public hearing must be held first (this is very similar to my other bill that requires the Legislature to do the same thing). Most cities/towns do this now by way of their council meetings so this bill would not affect them, but apparently some are not doing this, which is an injustice to the taxpayer.

SB1448 – misconduct involving weapons; public property

Good Second Amendment bill that states unless a public establishment is properly secured (i.e. armed officer present, metal detectors, proper security, etc.), the right to carry shall not be infringed. This gives more rights to legal gun owners.

SB1449 – recall; primary; general election

This would slightly adjust the recall system in Arizona in that if an elected official is recalled, the election would first revert to a primary format and then to a general election format if needed (currently, only a general election format is in place). This is a good bipartisan bill in that it would help to offset tampering by outside party influences as we saw in the Russell Pearce recall.