1: Welcome to The Briefing,
your weekly debrief of Top News by the Arizona Republic and a essential.com.
I'm Rafael Carranza.
Here are the top three things that you need to know this week.
A new report found that the school vouchers in Arizona,
known as the Empowerment Scholarship accounts are going disproportionately to
wealthy areas.
2: We must address the lack of accountability and transparency in Arizona's ESA
program.
1: The program allows families to use state funds for private school expenses.
There are more than 77,000 students enrolled so far.
Brookings Institution found that the zip codes with the highest voucher use
rates are in Paradise Valley, Scottsdale, Peoria,
and Surprise construction of a new airport terminal is starting next year at Sky
Harbor. If.
3: You walked through terminals three and four recently,
there's no doubt you've noticed how much busier they are than in past years.
Soon we will need a new terminal to accommodate our future growth,
and I'm proud to share that.
Next month the city council and I will get to work on a cutting edge terminal at
Sky Harbor's. West End.
1: City of Phoenix has yet to release full details,
but we do know that the terminal will go up into the west side of the airport.
It'll have between 40 to 60 gates and construction will end by 2031.
City leaders are prioritizing securing a route from Phoenix to Asia.
Passenger traffic at Sky Harbor reached a record 48.8 million in
2023 surpassing pre pandemic levels. 13 of the state's,
15 counties are set to use ballot tracks for the upcoming statewide elections in
July and November.
The system is designed to help voters in smaller counties track the status of
their mail-in ballots, Arizona Secretary of State, Adrian Fontes,
says this will give voters greater transparency. Maricopa and Pima Counties,
the State's two largest, use their own system to track ballots.
Arizona voters could decide whether to criminalize migrant crossings along the
state's border with Mexico.
It's part of Republican's efforts in the legislature to keep border security
front and center. This year,
Republican lawmakers in Arizona are set to override a governor's veto to
empower local law enforcement to enforce US immigration laws.
It's part of their efforts to even the playing field. Come November.
An abortion measure,
which has already gathered enough signatures to get on the ballot,
is expected to turn out Democratic voters.
Republicans are now poised to send a ballot measure on border security,
an issue they pull better in HCR 2060, also known as Secure.
The Border Act would make it a state misdemeanor to cross the Arizona border in
between ports of entry.
It would also allow local police to arrest and deport migrants.
4: My constituents are already fearful.
They're already fearful for their safety,
for their lives, for their property,
and this is because we have unlimited unchecked mass
illegal immigration across our border.
1: HCR 2060 is expected to pass the legislature along party lines.
But even if Arizona voters approve the ballot measure in November,
there's no guarantee yet it could go. In effect,
the Secure the Border Act is modeled after Texas's Senate Bill four.
That law is held up in federal courts from taking effect,
and the Supreme Court will likely decide whether it's Constitutional.
Arizona would join five other Republican LED states that already passed laws
enabling state officials to enforce immigration laws along with Texas.
They are Georgia, Iowa, Oklahoma, and Tennessee.
The states are defying 150 years of immigration precedent under
which federal government has sole authority. But if US Courts uphold Texas,
as before many more states could follow suit
For this week's sunspot,
a den of endangered Mexican wolf pups will be calling Arizona home.
The five pups were born in a New Mexico Zoo as part of a captive breeding
program for this highly endangered animal.
The five pups will be fostered at a wild den located in the Eastern Arizona
wilderness. There's now been 100 pups fostered through this program.
According to Arizona, fish and Wildlife,
Mexican wolf numbers have been rising in Arizona and New Mexico,
but they're still well below the threshold to remove them from the endangered
species list. Thank you for joining us on The Briefing,
your weekly debrief of top news by the Arizona Republic and AZ Central.
Have a great week.