Two state lawmakers, at an appearance for a city council mixer, weighed in on a pair of questions about likely topics at the 2025 Arizona Legislature session, which starts Jan. 13.
Sen. J.D. Mesnard and Rep. Jeff Weninger both represent a legislative district that’s mostly in Chandler. Both live in Chandler and are members of the Republican Party, which maintained both its House and Senate majority in the Nov. 5 elections.
Education funding
Chandler Independent: What would you like to see happen, ultimately, with the K-12 funding Aggregate Expenditure Limit, rather than simply voting to waive the limit again this year?
Mesnard: I don’t have any reason to believe we wouldn’t pass another year of it with a two-thirds majority, so we’ll most likely vote to lift it again. It’s all we can do, at the moment, unless we take it to the voters.
I think what ends up happening with Proposition 123 (a 2016 voter-approved referendum that’s about to expire) will determine quite about what happens with the AEL. Until we figure that out, we’ve got to deal with what’s more pressing, which is the annual AEL (waiver). Someone asked me if we can combine the two for the voters; I don’t think so, as long as there’s so much disagreement on 123. So I think we’ll just waive it again until a more permanent solution can be worked out.
Weninger: A lot of people just want to get rid of it. The spirit of it says it should go back to the voters, like runway lengths and a lot of other things. But a lot of people who say ‘Get rid of it’ went out and got signatures for a lot of other (ballot proposition) things, but not this.
So, I see myself voting to allow the AEL to go over again.
Water reform
CI: If groundwater management areas comes down to urban or rural Arizona making the bigger sacrifice, which solution might be more politically viable? What would you like to see happen?
Mesnard: Water is a four-dimensional chess game. It’s just hard. The 100-year certificate system is kind of its only thing.
The nice thing about water is it’s one of the few things that’s not super-partisan. We all use water, we need it; there are only so many things that can be done. So we can have authentic conversations. But it is a rural-vs.-urban issue, at times.
State Sen. J.D. Mesnard makes a point during a Dec. 16 Chandler legislative mixer. Mesnard said water issues are complicated and make it tough for state legislatures to find equitable solutions.
Independent Newsmedia/Jason W. Brooks
In the Senate, I think T.J. Shope (R-Coolidge) will take up the mantle from (termed-out former Sen.) Sine Kerr (of Buckeye). Gail Griffin (R-Hereford) will be looked to in the House. But there’s disagreement on these problems, even within our own caucus. Last year, our majority leader and majority whip disagreed.
I look to people who are better versed than me on these issues. I don’t pretend to have the solution. Between Congress and agreements with other states, it’s just a lot of dynamics.”
Weninger: I haven’t completely formed an opinion on the changes the governor has already made. But I’m going to be more mindful of this, this time around: I’m not going to lock myself into one side or the other.
These issues are complex. There’s not one thing that ‘fixes’ the border; there’s a lot of things. There’s not one thing that ‘fixes’ water; there’s a lot of things. We don’t know what technology we might have, 100 years from now. We should take advances into consideration.
We also have to deal with the one-offs, such as stopping wildcatters and stopping foreign countries from farming a high-water-use crop here. But there are also things we could do like incentivizing or requiring more parts of the state to use reclaimed water.
I’m not sold on desalinization yet.
One of the last things I did when I was in Chandler (as a City Council member), there were a few HOA neighborhoods that weren’t hooked up to our reclaimed water system. It would have been $40,000 or $50,000 for each of them to hook up, so the cost was a nonstarter. So we didn’t just give it to them, but we kept them at the same rate for a few years until that hookup cost debt was paid off, and then, they got cheaper water.
So that’s an example of 100 little things we need to do to reduce waste.
Jason W. Brooks News Editor | Chandler Independent
Jason W. Brooks joined Independent Newsmedia, Inc., USA, in July 2021 as an associate editor. After a year covering Buckeye, he has covered Chandler since the fall of 2022, in addition to assisting the Daily Independent throughout his time at INI.
Education: University of New Mexico, bachelor of arts in journalism and mass communication, print emphasis, English minor.
Random Fact: He and his siblings witnessed a Space Shuttle launch and landing in the same year in person, on opposite coasts.
Hobbies: Karaoke, bicycling and American Sign Language.
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