AZ Political Podcast: What will Democrats do with their power after winning the state Senate?

Priya Sundareshan, my guest this week on the AZ Political Podcast, has a new job. A new, big job that she’ll have to do along with her old job. And not only will she not receive additional compensation for her additional duties, but the original job also pays more like part time than full time.

It’s a wonder anybody wants to be Arizona’s state Senate president — but it’s the job Sundareshan chose to accept after Democrats claimed their first legislative majority — in either chamber — in more than 30 years.

Her first job, of course, is being a state senator for Arizona Legislative District 18 — representing northeast Tucson. And now, on that semi-part-time wage, she’ll have to represent all of the Senate Democrats as well.

(About that pay: Arizona legislators earn a base salary of $24,000 — but they can make closer to $60,000 when you add in per diem payments — which, being a non-Maricopa County legislator, Sundareshan is eligible for.)

So, what kind of bills would she and her fellow Democrats like to see reach Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs’s desk — waiting for a signature?

Well, she first said, “lowering the cost of living because we know that those have been increasing in a lot of areas … health care, housing, groceries, utilities — all these bills are rising and some of it is due to corporate greed.”

Her mention of “corporate greed” led me to ask if a tax increase was in the works — something Sundareshan said she didn’t think would be “a first stop.” She said she’d be interested in moving forward bills that “hold corporations accountable for rising costs without providing, necessarily, the service associated with that.”

She said Democrats have heard a lot of frustration about insurance companies denying claims. “Was that denial actually justified, or is it something that they just are choosing because that’s the profit model?” And she’d like to see Democrats take on utility prices.

A couple of areas where she feels like Democrats can find Republican support are water and one that relates back to utility costs (because of the possibility that they will add large loads onto the electrical grid): data centers.

Interestingly, data centers might be the topic that unifies legislators from both parties but divides Democrats. While many Arizona Democrats have expressed a desire to place a moratorium on future data center construction, Gov. Hobbs — the de facto head of the Arizona Democratic Party — has publicly said she opposes the idea.

We’ll have to wait (and stay tuned) to see if that issue comes to a head this upcoming legislative session. But frankly, I’ll be surprised if Democrats decide to pull the “intraparty infighting” page from the Republican playbook. Because, in many ways, Republican infighting is what led to Democrats seizing power.

Seizing power in a way we haven’t seen in several generations.

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