Matt Gress

Classroom cash clash: Republican senators want voters to force school districts of at least 7,500 students in Maricopa and Pima counties to spend 60% of their budgets on teacher pay, Fischer reports. The proposal now heads to the House, where Republican Rep. Matt Gress is advancing a version that applies to any district with at least 200 students. Democrats say the mandate ignores chronic underfunding, strips local control and overlooks essential non-teaching staff. (March 25, 2026)

Oversight costs money: After the Arizona Auditor General found last year that state education officials weren’t actually checking how schools used grants from the School Safety Program, Republican Rep. Matt Gress wants to divert $98 million to a new School Safety Center that would conduct oversight on the grant funds, per the Mirror’s Caitlin Sievers. (January 15, 2026)

Historic housing shortage: State lawmakers nixed a bill that would have protected historic neighborhoods from being turned into multifamily housing, per Capitol Media Services’ Bob Christie. Residents of historic neighborhoods were worried their homes would be torn down as cities implement the “middle housing” law that took effect this year to help alleviate the housing shortage. But developers and housing advocates convinced lawmakers to kill the bill, even after the bill’s sponsor GOP Rep. Matt Gress watered it down. Elsewhere in housing legislation, Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs signed into law a bill from GOP Sen. Wendy Rogers that would make it easier to remove “squatters” from residential property, per KTAR’s Balin Overstolz McNair. (June 3, 2026)

Bailout fallout: The superintendent of the Tolleson Union High School District is suing Republican state Rep. Matt Gress for defamation, Elenee Dao reports for ABC15. Superintendent Jeremy Calles locked horns with Gress last year over a $25 million property deal between the Tolleson and Isaac Elementary school districts. Now, Calles said Gress made false statements that implied Calles had improperly used public funds, which hurt Calles’ consulting business. (May 1, 2026)

Fewer and fewer ways to protest: Arizona House Republicans approved a bill this week aimed at teachers who called in sick for a national protest after federal agents shot and killed two people in Minneapolis, per Capitol scribe Howie Fischer. Tucson Unified School District ended up closing 22 schools when hundreds of teachers said they weren’t showing up to work that day. Republican Rep. Matt Gress said HB2313 would clarify the definition of “coordinated work stoppages,” which technically don’t qualify as a strike. Under his bill, teachers would be fired and forfeit any chance of being rehired at public schools. (February 27, 2026)

Future unclear, ask again later: It’s not looking good for Prop 123, the ballot measure that expired last year after bringing $300 million annually to Arizona’s public schools, per the Capitol Times’ Jakob Thorington. Republican Rep. Matt Gress, who’s the chair of the House Education Committee, says the chances of getting a deal on renewing Prop 123 is “almost zero.” “The governor wants to tie Prop. 123 to the budget,” Gress said. “We do not think that’s a responsible play. We’re talking about a $300 million question mark that will have to be resolved at the ballot.” (April 13, 2026)

Superintendent smackdown: Republican Rep. Matt Gress launched a broadside against school district superintendents (and maybe one superintendent in particular?), with a package of five bills that limit superintendents’ pay and benefits, as well as blocking them from having second jobs or signing contracts with district for longer than one year, J. Graber reports for the Scottsdale Independent. (February 10, 2026)

Bills on the move: Arizona’s legislative pipeline is pumping out bills again, including one to stop HOAs from banning large dogs, per Capitol scribe Howie Fischer. GOP Sen. Jake Hoffman chairs the Senate Government Committee and refused to hear the bill, but Republican Sen. Kevin Payne tacked it onto another bill to get around Hoffman. Meanwhile, Republican Rep. Matt Gress is trying to find a workaround for his plan to protect historic homes, after his bill died in the Senate, Jakob Thorington reports for the Capitol Times. And Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs signed a bill from Senate President Warren Petersen that requires cities and towns to set time frames to speed up issuing licenses or building permits. (June 8, 2026)

No teaching for you: After dozens of Tucson schools closed for a day when teachers called out sick en masse to protest ICE and the killings of American citizens, Republicans Sen. Hildy Angius and Rep. Matt Gress are introducing a measure to prohibit work stoppages for teachers, Noor Haghighi of AZPM reports. Critics like Arizona Education Association President Marisol Garcia claim the measure will raise undue suspicions and is also a First Amendment violation. Angius and Gress argue teachers should be expected to be focused on class. “Parents should not wake up to closed campuses because of organized protests,” Angius said in a statement. “The Tucson closures showed how a coordinated call-in can shut down learning overnight. This legislation restores accountability and stability for families and keeps the focus where it belongs, on students in seats and classrooms open.” (February 18, 2026)

Getting schooled: Republican lawmakers in the state House are pushing a budget that would revoke in-state tuition rates for students not legally in the country, writes Howie Fisher for Capitol Media Services. Republican Rep. Matt Gress, one of the lead lawmakers on the proposal, said he doesn’t believe this would conflict with Proposition 308, which was passed by voters in 2022 and grants in-state tuition to dreamers who meet certain criteria. Meanwhile, Arizona Superintendent Tom Horne is threatening to report Scottsdale Unified School District to the federal government over what he called a “DEI-oriented textbook,” per Tom Powell at AZFamily. Horne also called the school board “woke” for passing curriculum that he says contains anti-police propaganda. “To label them woke without having ever read what was the 1,250 pages in the textbook is a problem from my perspective,” said Scottsdale Superintendent Scott Menzel, in response to Horne’s comments. (June 17, 2025)

Those in glass Capitols: Republican Rep. Matt Gress is mad that the Tolleson Union High School District wants to charge him $26,000 to turn over a mess of records that he requested as part of his investigation into how the school district mismanaged its budget so badly. It’s an absurd price tag that he says is clearly meant to stonewall him from getting the records. But at least the school district has the records he seeks — state lawmakers changed the law a few years back to allow them to destroy certain records, including their email communications, after just three months. Speaking of Tolleson: Leezah Sun, a TUHSD school board member (and former troubled lawmaker), is facing a recall campaign alongside fellow school board member Steven Chapman. Organizers have until November 7 to collect 8,711 valid signatures from registered voters in the school district to make the recall a reality, Axios Phoenix’s Jeremy Duda reports. (September 29, 2025)

After the sunset: Arizona lawmakers want an audit of the state’s Low Income Housing Tax Credit program to see if it’s worth extending past its sunset date at the end of the year, the Capitol Times’ Jakob Thorington reports. The Joint Legislative Audit Committee voted unanimously for a special audit of the program, which was created in 2022 and has been used to build more than 400 housing units. Republican lawmakers like Rep. Matt Gress pointed to the program’s “insignificance,” while Democratic lawmakers defended it as a good incentive for developers to build affordable housing. Meanwhile, Phoenix’s homeless population has risen almost 40% since 2024 and the closing of The Zone, per the Republic. (October 21, 2025)

The girls are fighting: Arizona’s far-right Republicans are throwing a fit over speculation that Arizona GOP Chair Gina Swoboda will run for the CD1 seat that Rep. David Schweikert is vacating to pursue a gubernatorial bid, the Republic’s Laura Gersony reports. Freedom Caucus Rep. Joseph Chaplik is also rumored to want the seat, and called Swoboda “a recent Hillary Clinton supporter.” Other potential candidates include Rep. Matt Gress, political operative Sean Noble and former ASU football coach Todd Graham. Kari Lake has also entered the chat. (October 8, 2025)

Clamping down: In the wake of a $39 million embezzlement scheme in Santa Cruz County, state lawmakers are considering more stringent rules for county treasurers, the Arizona Republic’s Sarah Lapidus reports. GOP Rep. Matt Gress introduced HB2369, which would make state officials evaluate the accountability measures used by county treasurers. They would then give recommendations to county officials, who would tell state auditors whether they plan to adopt those recommendations. Last October, former Pima County Treasurer Chris Ackerley laid out the steps his office had already taken to ward off embezzlement schemes, with an eye on legislation Ackerley expected to see coming this year. (March 3, 2025)

Bills on the move: Arizona’s legislative pipeline is pumping out bills again, including one to stop HOAs from banning large dogs, per Capitol scribe Howie Fischer. GOP Sen. Jake Hoffman chairs the Senate Government Committee and refused to hear the bill, but Republican Sen. Kevin Payne tacked it onto another bill to get around Hoffman. Meanwhile, Republican Rep. Matt Gress is trying to find a workaround for his plan to protect historic homes, after his bill died in the Senate, Jakob Thorington reports for the Capitol Times. And Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs signed a bill from Senate President Warren Petersen that requires cities and towns to set time frames to speed up issuing licenses or building permits. (June 8, 2026)

Full ballot incoming: The anti-trans constitutional amendment that lawmakers sent to your November ballot cleared a legal hurdle on Thursday when a Maricopa County Superior Court judge ruled that one provision banning trans girls from playing on girls sports teams, and another banning them from using the school restroom of their gender, aren’t such different questions that the measure violates the separate amendment rule of the Arizona Constitution, Capitol scribe Howie Fischer reports. Meanwhile, the legal battle continues over another referral lawmakers sent to the ballot that would severely curtail union activity. Lawmakers say it’s aimed only at public education unions, while other public sector unions argue it’ll apply to them, too. The legal fight is over whether the description that Legislative Council adopted is actually impartial and correct — it expressly states the measure will only impact school unions. (That referral has a pending single-subject challenge, too, and Republican Rep. Matt Gress, who supported it, recently told KJZZ that lawmakers should just come back into session to repeal it.) (July 20, 2026)

Lobbying lawmaker or lawmaking lobbyist?: Public school advocates want Democrats to file an ethics complaint against Republican Rep. Matt Gress for working as an anti-union lobbyist in four other states, KJZZ’s Wayne Schutsky reports. Democrats haven’t filed a complaint, although it has been months since we broke the news that he is a registered lobbyist pushing similar legislation in other states that he’s voting on here. “To be clear, Arizona law bars legislators from working as lobbyists in Arizona, but it doesn’t bar them from lobbying in other states. Meaning there’s nothing illegal about what Gress is doing,” we wrote back in April. (July 6, 2026)