Janae Shamp

Welfare millionaires?: Arizona’s Department of Economic Security is cutting about 500 jobs, or roughly 5% of its workforce, thanks to federal grant cuts, ABC15’s Elenee Dao reports. The agency provides services to low-income residents, including SNAP benefits, Medicaid and other programs. Meanwhile, Republican lawmakers on the House Appropriations Committee yesterday approved a bill to cut about $108 million from AHCCCS, the state’s Medicaid program, per KJZZ’s Ben Giles, saying Congress is gonna cut it anyway and lawmakers don’t want people to sign up for AHCCCS then get dropped. And in other Medicaid news, Republican Sen. Janae Shamp claims that as many as 5,000 millionaires are leeching off the state’s medicaid system, AHCCCS, per Capitol scribe Howie Fischer. But she didn’t provide any proof of her claims, citing a report that nobody has seen allegedly conducted by a MAGA organization. Shamp said she forwarded the report to Gov. Katie Hobbs, but Hobbs’ office said it didn’t receive a report. "These are lies and conspiracy theories to justify her party's desperate attempts to slash Medicaid for hard-working Arizonans, no matter the human cost,” gubernatorial spokesman Christian Slater told Fischer. (June 18, 2025)

A super “part-time” Legislature: Democratic lawmakers skipped more days of work this legislative session than Republicans, the New Times’ Morgan Fischer reports, but playing hooky is still a bipartisan affair. Arizona’s top truant lawmaker, Democratic Rep. Seth Blattman, who is not seeking reelection, missed more than half of the House’s floor sessions — skipping 35 days out of 65 — while the Legislature’s top truant Republican, Sen. Janae Shamp, missed 18 out of 65 floor sessions (plus, she was late seven times). (July 23, 2026)

Bills on the move: If your kid makes money through YouTube videos, Republican Rep. Julie Willoughby wants to require you to put half the money into an account you can’t touch until your kid turns 18, Fischer reports. Meanwhile, Republican Rep. Joseph Chaplik is pushing legislation to make retailers accept cash for purchases of $100 or less, per Fischer. And Republican Sen. Janae Shamp’s bill to ban fluoride in public drinking water passed a Senate committee yesterday, per the Senate GOP. (January 29, 2026)

Problem solved!: Republicans in the Arizona Senate Federalism Committee are taking action on what they’d have you believe is a huge problem rocking the nation. The panel voted along party lines to “ban the use of Sharia law in Arizona,” Fischer reports, which doesn’t really mean anything. In the United States, there is no room for the existence of alternate legal systems, making the vote to ban Sharia Law little more than a symbolic gesture. Even Republican Sen. Janae Shamp — who sponsored the bill — noted that there haven’t been any cases in Arizona and had trouble defining it when questioned. (January 28, 2026)