Legislative Action

The Need for Legislative Action

Legislative action is essential to protect citizens' rights. Something has changed within Arizona County government.

County elected officials and employees now act as though they are inconvenienced and sometimes threatened by their own citizens. Likewise, county citizens feel threatened and abused by the same people that collect our taxes.

This mutual distrust serves no one. There is a line from the Buffalo Springfield song, For What It's Worth, that applies to this situation:

"Nobody's right if everybody's wrong"

Life would be beautiful if we could snap our fingers to stop the divide and we could all heal with love. Excuses stop the love, which prevent the healing. Any excuse will do, time, commitment, money, whatever.

Intervention is needed to stop the divide. The intervention will be tough, tougher for some than others. Tough love will be required to heal, develop mutual respect and build trusting relationships.

In a government for the people, by the people, the public will be the authoritarian in this tough love scenario. If we allow the County Governments to lead with tough love, we will have already yielded our personal interest to the government authority and the abuses will continue.

Arizona Citizen Voice has discovered the Ruby Slippers to administering tough love for Arizona Counties. The power to change comes from the very source of power they use to ignore citizens. It's the Law!

Counties repeated say they are in compliance with the law and they are under no obligation to do anything beyond what is required by law. The actions tell a different story. Counties may be in compliance with the law, which is the minimum requirement. However, they act as though they are under no obligation to explain any of their practices or behaviors that are not specified by law.

Legislative Action is needed to create new laws that require counties to respond to citizens. If law is what drives county behaviors, then new laws will be needed to drive change.

ACV does not pretend to know the messy political details needed to create new laws. We are seeking legislative support to pass legislation that promotes accountability by ensuring transparency by requiring a citizen complaint process with oversight by the Arizona Ombudsman Citizens' Aide. Compliance reviews will ensure citizen complaints are reasonable and valid and corrective actions will ensure counties implement actions to improve their own internal controls.

Arizona Citizen Voice seeks legislative action.

1. We have presented our goals. We haven't written the actual proposed bill. However, we have written the process specification to achieve our goals and guide Legislators to drafting an effective bill.
2. We have researched governance gaps using personal experience and government documents. Data is presented within this website to justify the need for change. Read Interesting Takeaways if you want to see a few examples show the need for change.
3. We are building our coalition. It's building slowly for now, knowing the Legislators are campaigning for the mid-term elections. ACV plans to build the coalition immediately after the election, knowing there is a short window to submit proposed bills in January 2027.
4. We will start a new bipartisan campaign to ask family members and friends to contact their Legislators, ask them to support legislative action to bring transparency to Arizona Counties.
5. We will continue to push for this legislation until a Legislative sponsor is found. Our task will end when it becomes a Legislative task.