Why is a state lawmaker from Pinal County acting in the interests of a Canadian mining company to derail part of the Town of Patagonia’s new roads ordinance?
For one thing, because he can.
In an effort to stop the City of Tucson from destroying guns seized by police, the Republican-dominated state government passed a law in 2016 that allows the legislature to withhold funds from counties, cities and towns that implement or enforce ordinances that don’t conform to state regulations. The law, known as SB 1487, allows a state representative or senator to ask the Attorney General’s Office to investigate a local government for a regulation that might be in conflict with state law, and punish a violating entity by taking away state-shared revenue.
So, after the Town of Patagonia passed a new roads ordinance in late November that, among other things, limits the number of trips heavy trucks can make on town roads while increasing the total weight the trucks can carry, Canadian-owned Arizona Mining just needed a single lawmaker from anywhere in the state to take up the cause of eliminating a rule that the locally elected government had put in place by a 4-1 vote.
Vince Leach, a Republican state representative from Legislative District 11 between Tucson and Phoenix, was an excellent candidate to initiate the challenge. He’s been endorsed by the Arizona Mining Association and Arizona Trucking Association, and according to the National Institute on Money in State Politics, a nonprofit organization that tracks campaign finance data, collected thousands of dollars in donations from mining interests.
What’s more, Leach has a track record of going to bat for special interests. As a member of the Arizona House in 2016, he sponsored the second go-round of a bill that the Arizona Republic described as having been “crafted specifically to help a Phoenix lawyer and real-estate investor avoid paying $146,100 in county fees.”
(For the record, Arizona Mining this week refused to directly answer the question of whether it had discussed the Patagonia ordinance with Leach. However, when the town was considering the new rules earlier this year, the company notified the town manager that it had decided the pending change wasn’t legit and had reached out to state lawmakers to challenge it.)
People have always been able to challenge laws they don’t like through the court system. But what makes SB 1487 so intimidatingly effective is the potential loss of state funds, which comprise a large portion of local government budgets, and the ease with which the state can pressure a county, city or town to give up the fight before having their day in court.
According to the law, once the AG has investigated a complaint against a local law, he or she must issue a report of finding. The AG alone – not a judge – can decide that the local ordinance has to go and instruct the state treasurer to withhold funds. But even if the AG decides only that the law “may” be in conflict with state regulations, he or she must file a special action in supreme court to resolve the question. In the meantime, the local government has to post a bond equal to the amount of state shared revenue it received in the preceding six months as it awaits a resolution.
Regardless of what you think of Patagonia’s new road rules, you should be alarmed at this kind of heavy-handed usurpation of local elected authority by the state, especially when it can be triggered by a single lawmaker with no direct connection to the affected community.
The threat of consequences under SB 1487 was effective enough for Patagonia to table its new road regulations in February. It will be very interesting to see how the town fares now that it appears ready to stand up to state overreach.
(Clark is managing editor of the Nogales International.)