Warren Petersen

Doubling down: Republican state lawmakers say Pima County officials broke the law by approving a policy that prevents federal immigration agents from working on county property without a judicial warrant, Gloria Rebecca Gomez reports for the Arizona Mirror. Senate leaders filed their complaint with Attorney General Kris Mayes and asked for an investigation. Senate President Warren Petersen said he’s seeing “Democrat-run local governments put radical political agendas ahead of public safety.” Their complaint comes a week after Republican Rep. Quang Nguyen asked Mayes to investigate the City of Tucson for a similar policy. (April 8, 2026)

A rogues gallery: All those lawsuits filed by Democratic Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes ginned up an array of political adversaries who are now bankrolling ads for Republican Senate President Warren Petersen as he tries to unseat Mayes in November, the Arizona Mirror’s Jerod MacDonald-Evoy reports. The lineup of donors to Restore Order Arizona — the PAC behind the ads — includes private prison operator GEO Group, mobile home operator BoaVida Group, vaping companies, and other businesses that feel they’d get a better deal if Mayes were out of office. (June 4, 2026)

Anti-vaxmaxxing: As measles cases continue to spread through Arizona and the rest of the country, Arizonans who refuse to get vaccinated would not be denied services or employment under a bill that’s moving through the state Senate, Capitol scribe Howie Fischer reports. HB2248 wouldn’t just allow unvaccinated students to attend schools, it would also force any business, such as a concert venue, to let unvaccinated people use their services. The bill’s sponsor, Republican Rep. Lisa Fink, said her bill was inspired by the Declaration of Independence and protects a person’s “bodily autonomy.” Democratic lawmakers tried to use that principle to rouse support for SB1396, which would have guaranteed the right to obtain contraceptives, but Senate President Warren Petersen didn’t assign the bill to a committee, guaranteeing it would have no shot to become law. (April 22, 2026)

Great power, great responsibility: Two of the top GOP officials in Arizona are trying to block a court order that would require the state to fix an unconstitutional funding system that doesn’t provide schools with enough money to repair buildings, per Capitol scribe Howie Fischer. Senate President Warren Petersen and House Speaker Steve Montenegro argue the Legislature is the only body with the authority to set education policy. Public school advocates pointed out the Legislature set the standards for funding schools, but then violated those standards by not providing enough money. (June 2, 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)

Calling all recorders: The election-denying crowd is gaining steam again and Democratic officials at the Capitol are warning county officials not to hand over unredacted voter files to the Trump administration, Sasha Hupka reports for Votebeat. Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes and Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, both Democrats, sent a letter to county recorders saying they should decline “any such illegal demands.” Their letter came shortly after Arizona Senate President Warren Petersen said he’d given the FBI the data gathered by the Cyber Ninjas as they tried to debunk the 2020 election results in Maricopa County. (March 12, 2026)

The post-session rebrand: The Capitol Times dropped a series of Q&As recapping the 2025 session with Arizona’s legislative leaders, and some lawmakers are taking an interesting approach to reframing this year’s chaos. House Speaker Steve Montenegro said the “relationship between the House and the Senate is fine” after this year’s budget feud, while Senate President Warren Petersen said “unnecessary division within the party made the process more difficult than it needed to be.” Democratic leaders Rep. Oscar De Los Santos and Sen. Priya Sundareshan highlighted their party’s budget wins and called for a clean renewal of Prop. 123 next year. (July 22, 2025)

Just to clarify: Arizona’s Attorney General Kris Mayes and Secretary of State Adrian Fontes are warning county elections officials not to turn over confidential voter information to the Trump administration, per Capitol scribe Howie Fischer. They wrote a letter to county recorders saying there is a lawsuit underway to determine whether the U.S. Department of Justice has a legal right to request unredacted voter information. At the same time, Mayes and Fontes say Trump officials may use subpoenas — like they did with Arizona Senate President Warren Petersen last week — to get information before a judge rules on the lawsuit. “We reiterate our offices' position here just in case you may be contemplating disclosure,” Mayes and Fontes wrote to county recorders. "We write to inform you that doing so would violate both federal and state law.'’ (March 12, 2026)

He’s almost got his Clout-Chasing merit badge: Tucson Sentinel columnist Blake Morlock, who worked for Republican Attorney General candidate Rodney Glassman back when Glassman was a Democrat challenging John McCain for the U.S. Senate, does not have many nice things to say about Glassman. In one of the funniest columns we’ve read in a while, Morlock dishes on what it was like to work for Glassman, and paints a picture of a self-absorbed political sellout who would “destroy the Constitution for a dinner with Trump.” “I can honestly say I never met anyone like him. After working for him for six months, I refused to go (to) the voting booth on Election Day because I would have voted for McCain. Twice,” Morlock writes. “Here's a difference between Petersen and Glassman. Both are Eagle Scouts. Good for them. But an adult Petersen probably didn't put that on his business card.” (June 5, 2026)

Great power, great responsibility: Two of the top GOP officials in Arizona are trying to block a court order that would require the state to fix an unconstitutional funding system that doesn’t provide schools with enough money to repair buildings, per Capitol scribe Howie Fischer. Senate President Warren Petersen and House Speaker Steve Montenegro argue the Legislature is the only body with the authority to set education policy. Public school advocates pointed out the Legislature set the standards for funding schools, but then violated those standards by not providing enough money. (June 2, 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)

Touching a nerve: Republican lawmakers want to shorten how long a divorced person has to pay their former spouse, per Capitol scribe Howie Fischer. SB1049 would set a maximum of four years of paying spousal support, even if a judge believes it should be longer. But the backstory of the bill is where it really gets interesting: Republican Sen. Wendy Rogers said she sponsored the bill to help out Petersen, and Craig Harris at 12News noted that Petersen divorced his wife in 2021 and paid her more than $200,000 and gave her a house. Petersen took to Twitter to clarify in no uncertain terms that his ex-wife remarried in 2022 and he hasn’t owed her any money since then. But we’ve been around long enough to remember that Petersen also sponsored a bill in 2022 that overhauled Arizona's alimony laws. That bill required the state Supreme Court to create guidelines for spousal maintenance and said it should only last long enough to get the receiving spouse back on their feet, not indefinitely. (June 4, 2026)

Not your Senate: The social justice organizing group Living United for Change in Arizona (LUCHA) is suing Republican Senate President Warren Petersen and Speaker Steve Montenegro for banning several of its members from the Arizona Senate for the rest of the legislative session, the Phoenix New Times’ Zach Buchanan reports. As we noted in our coverage of the incident in February, Senate security officials handed several people generic slips of paper — which don’t list the names of those who were trespassed, don’t have any letterhead and don’t look terribly legit. There is no indication that the building’s security has a list of people they trespassed for a chanting outburst during a committee hearing the day before, and LUCHA is claiming violations of the First and 14th Amendments. (April 9, 2026)

Putting on a show: President Donald Trump warmed the hearts of several Arizona officials who are on the ballot this year, like Senate President Warren Petersen, when he name dropped them during Friday’s “Build the Red Wall” event in Phoenix. Trump also pantomimed blowing up boats in the Caribbean Sea and made wild promises about the Iran war and releasing UFO files, while Republican U.S. Rep. Paul Gosar’s performance at the rally raised more concerns about his health. (April 20, 2026)

The fraudit never ended: Arizona Senate President Warren Petersen asked the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate Attorney General Kris Mayes — who also happens to be the person Petersen is trying to unseat in this year’s election. Petersen says Mayes and Secretary of State Adrian Fontes may have obstructed justice and tampered with witnesses when they told county recorders not to comply with grand jury subpoenas for private voter records. Mayes also asked Petersen whether he turned over private information when he released records from the Cyber Ninjas’ “fraudit” of the 2020 election to the U.S. Attorney’s Office last month. Yesterday, Fontes called Petersen’s referral to the U.S. Attorney’s Office “political theater” and Mayes said Petersen was “desperately seeking favor from a president who cannot accept that he lost his re-election in 2020 fair and square.” (April 8, 2026)

Read all about it: The subpoena that federal prosecutors sent to Petersen earlier this month for information about the Cyber Ninjas “fraudit” of the 2020 election results is now available for public viewing. In the subpoena, prosecutors said the documents were part of a criminal investigation, per the Mirror’s Jerod MacDonald-Evoy. The items obtained through the subpoena include six terabytes of data, including “forensic images,” probably of ballots, and backup servers with video footage of the Cyber Ninjas at work. (March 23, 2026)

Announcing the announcement: Arizona House Speaker Steve Montenegro and Senate President Warren Petersen announced they’re planning to release their budget proposal on Tuesday morning. They sent out a press release and filmed a video of themselves talking for nearly two minutes without giving any concrete details about their proposal. But they do say it “does not rely on gimmicks,” delivers “one of the largest tax cuts in state history,” and has enough votes to pass both the House and Senate (which isn’t exactly hard because the GOP controls both chambers). It’s a lot of puffery for a starting point in negotiations that Hobbs is sure to veto. But with that opening salvo, Hobbs says she’s ready to lift the moratorium she put on signing bills into law, per Capitol scribe Howie Fischer. Still, Hobbs says just because she is no longer going to veto every bill that comes across her desk, that doesn’t mean she’s going to stop vetoing bills altogether. “They're making it real easy to do that,” Hobbs said, by sending her bills they know she won't sign. (April 28, 2026)

Give a mouse a crumb: The conservative U.S. Supreme Court appears poised to uphold two state laws that ban transgender girls from playing school sports on girl teams after hearing oral arguments on Tuesday in a case that will also decide the fate of similar laws in Arizona and beyond. Arizona Senate President Warren Petersen — a candidate for Arizona attorney general — traveled to DC to watch the hearing. Arizona lawmakers passed the anti-trans law in 2022, but the law has been enjoined as the Supreme Court case plays out. With a court victory near certain, Arizona lawmakers are looking to push the ban further, to bathrooms and locker rooms this year, the Arizona Mirror’s Gloria Rebecca Gomez writes. (January 14, 2026)

Lots of legal stuff isn’t in the Constitution: Republican attorney general candidate Warren Petersen told DACA recipients to “be ready to be deported,” if he becomes AG, the Mirror’s Gloria Rebecca Gomez reports. While DACA recipients have temporary legal status under an Obama-era rule, Petersen noted that the program is “found nowhere in the Constitution.” AG Kris Mayes, who Petersen hopes to challenge if he can beat Rodney Glassman in the GOP primary election, called the comment “disqualifying.” (June 22, 2026)

Welcome back to budget season: Arizona’s Democratic governor and GOP legislative leaders struck an amicable tone as they started negotiating the state budget. Just kidding. It’s the same slugfest as last year. Gov. Katie Hobbs is fed up and said she won’t negotiate on the budget until GOP leaders like Senate President Warren Petersen publicly release their own budget plan, Caitlin Sievers reports for the Arizona Mirror. Petersen and House Speaker Steve Montenegro accused Hobbs of throwing a “temper tantrum,” while Hobbs said Republicans were “unserious.” A big sticking point is Prop 123, a decade-old, voter-approved measure that helps fund public schools. Republican Sen. Jake Hoffman said if Republicans support Hobbs’ plan for Prop 123, they’d essentially be “underwriting the Hobbs’ re-election campaign.” (March 23, 2026)

Nonpartisan naming: Gov. Katie Hobbs vetoed a bill on Friday that would have renamed a section of Loop 202 after slain conservative activist Charlie Kirk, the Arizona Mirror’s Caitlin Sievers. Hobbs called Kirk’s assassination a “tragic and horrifying act of violence,” but said naming government roadways should “remain nonpartisan.” Senate President Warren Petersen, the bill’s sponsor, said Hobbs “broke with a long-standing Arizona tradition of recognizing impact over politics,” and he pointed out one section of Loop 202 is already named after former Democratic Congressman Ed Pastor. Now we’re watching if she’ll also veto the bill creating monuments to Kirk and assassinated investigative journalist Don Bolles, which we expect to get a vote in the House this week. (March 30, 2026)

Anti-vaxmaxxing: As measles cases continue to spread through Arizona and the rest of the country, Arizonans who refuse to get vaccinated would not be denied services or employment under a bill that’s moving through the state Senate, Capitol scribe Howie Fischer reports. HB2248 wouldn’t just allow unvaccinated students to attend schools, it would also force any business, such as a concert venue, to let unvaccinated people use their services. The bill’s sponsor, Republican Rep. Lisa Fink, said her bill was inspired by the Declaration of Independence and protects a person’s “bodily autonomy.” Democratic lawmakers tried to use that principle to rouse support for SB1396, which would have guaranteed the right to obtain contraceptives, but Senate President Warren Petersen didn’t assign the bill to a committee, guaranteeing it would have no shot to become law. (April 22, 2026)

Taking it to court: Arizona’s political scene has turned into its own legal drama. Joseph Chaplik, a former Republican state lawmaker who’s running in Arizona’s 1st Congressional District, filed a defamation lawsuit against the Conservatives for Effective Government super PAC for a political sign that used an AI-generated image of him and an advertisement he says misrepresented his role in a child pornography bill, Morgan Fischer reports for the New Times. Also, backers of the Protect Education Act are suing over the Republican-approved language that will appear on the ballot, Capitol scribe Howie Fischer reports. The description of the act “misrepresents the initiative’s provisions” and casts the measure “in the worst possible light,” a lawyer for the groups backing the measure said. And a judge said Republican lawmakers can defend a voter-approved border security law if Democratic Attorney General Kris Mayes won’t. Arizona Senate President Warren Petersen and House Speaker Steve Montenegro said they’ll defend Prop 314, which goes into effect this week, from an ACLU lawsuit claiming the law would lead to rampant racial profiling. (July 17, 2026)

Let him draw the maps!: Now that the U.S. Supreme Court took a sledgehammer to the Voting Rights Act, Arizona Senate President Warren Petersen wants to redraw the state’s political districts, Ray Stern reports for the Republic. In Petersen’s view, “our maps are racist” and the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission should meet and “fix” them. (Arizona is among a handful of states that doesn’t let it’s politicians draft political maps — thanks to a voter initiative, that’s the commission’s job.) If the commission doesn’t do it, Petersen says he’ll sue. (May 1, 2026)

Inch by inch: In yet another sign that GOP leadership in the state Legislature are getting closer to a budget deal with Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs, Senate President Warren Petersen said “we’re probably 97% of the way there,” per KJZZ’s Wayne Schutsky. Last week, Republican Sen. TJ Shope said he expects a deal to be reached after Memorial Day weekend, while Petersen predicted “early June.” (May 21, 2026)

Voting wrongs: Besides the threat of a lawsuit against Arizona’s political maps from Senate President Warren Petersen, last week’s U.S. Supreme Court decision gutting Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act will have longterm implications for Arizona’s map-making entity, the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission, Sasha Hupka writes for Votebeat. The decision makes it much harder to challenge maps as racially discriminatory, meaning Arizona’s “majority-minority” districts, like Southern Arizona’s CD7 and Phoenix’s CD3, represented by Democrats Adelita Grijalva and Yassamin Ansari, respectively, may not exist after the next round of redistricting in 2030. Same goes for legislative districts that give minority groups the opportunity to elect “representatives of their own choice.” “At the end of the day, this is going to be a really big story for Arizona in 2031,” Democratic consultant and redistricting nerd DJ Quinlan explained. (May 4, 2026)

Feds join the fray: Get ready to hear this name a lot over the next few months: U.S. Attorney Timothy Courchaine. He’s the top Department of Justice official in Arizona who was first appointed by former U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi last year. He signed off on the recent grand jury subpoena seeking voter records from the Cyber Ninjas shenanigans, and he’s taking seriously the allegations of witness tampering Arizona Senate President Warren Petersen leveled against his would-be political opponent, Attorney General Kris Mayes, and Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, KJZZ’s Wayne Schutsky reports. The letter he sent to Petersen reads like it was written by a person who’s on board with the nonsense election conspiracists. And he’s using the language of a person who has never heard of Donald Trump. “(I)t is astonishing that public servants who are charged with upholding the law would try to dissuade or threaten others to ignore proper legal processes,” Courchaine wrote. (April 16, 2026)

Pushing him toward the door: After a poll showed Republican U.S. Rep. David Schweikert was way behind Republican U.S. Rep. Andy Biggs in the GOP primary for governor, and campaign finance reports showed Schweikert was nearly out of money, Petersen called for Schweikert to drop out of the race. Both GOP candidates trail Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs by a wide margin. She’s sitting on $7.2 million, while Biggs has about $1.1 million and Schweikert has $86,000, the Arizona Mirror’s Jim Small reports. (April 20, 2026)

Time to turn off your TVs: The actual candidates for public office are busy putting out the first round of campaign ads. Gov. Katie Hobbs is highlighting her tough childhood when her “parents didn’t make a lot of money” and her days as an Uber driver, while Republican gubernatorial hopeful Andy Biggs is blaming Hobbs for rising gas prices and Republican Warren Petersen is hyping up his endorsement by President Donald Trump in the race to get the GOP nomination for attorney general. (May 28, 2026)