American Center for Law & Justice (ACLJ) Defending Christians and Churches from Attacks
- President Biden and the radical Left have launched a sinister war on your Christian faith. The ACLJ was just in court to fight back.
- Biden’s weaponization of Deep State agencies has emboldened and empowered anti-Christian forces to target Christians.
- Kids’ Bibles are confiscated in school. Christian hats are banned, and kids are told they “can’t talk about Jesus.” Churches are being banned from using their own property for worship and ministry. A government agency even banned a realtor from saying, “Jesus loves you,” and federal employees have been prohibited from attending church on Sunday.
- The church closures during the pandemic were just the beginning. We’re seeing a widespread escalation of these targeted attacks on Christians.
- The ACLJ is sending demand letters, filing lawsuits, and fighting numerous cases to defend Christians – including kids. They JUST presented oral arguments in one of three federal appeals court cases they are battling in to defend churches from outrageous government assaults. All these cases could quickly head to the Supreme Court. They already are working in two more cases at the Supreme Court to defend prayer and your right to go to church.
Arizona Legislature Update
- First as a bit of training or reminder – here are a few definitions of the Bills and Resolutions that our Legislature reviews and passes.
- HB/SB – Are House or Senate Bills that once passed in both chambers must be signed by the governor to become law.
- HCR/SCR – Are House or Senate Concurrent Resolutions which once passed by both chambers would go to the Attorney General to sign to put on the next ballot for voters to codify through voting.
- Steps for bills to become law.
- Anyone can draft a bill; however, there is a lot that goes into writing and properly organizing a bill.
- The Arizona Speaker of the House and Senate President decide which bills they put into committee in their respective chambers.
- Once a committee discusses a bill, they vote on it. If Passed,
- The bill proceeds to the Rules committee to ensure it is written in the proper format. Once a bill is properly formatted,
- It goes to vote for the entire Chamber that started it. Then, if passed by entire Chamber (House or Senate) then it must also go to the other chamber for vote.
- Once a bill is passed by both Chambers, it must go to the Governor for signature to become law.
- Similarly, the Resolutions, go to the AG for signature to put on the next ballot for voters to codify into law.
- The Senate and House have had some lively discussions (especially HB2458 on CRT) in their first weeks with a number of bills going to committee. Most of these have passed along party lines when they have gotten to a vote in Committee (recall the Republicans have a slim majority of one seat in both the House and Senate in Arizona):
- Election – Bills regarding early ballot: SB1105 and SB1141
- A number of tax related bills: SB1122 – transportation tax, SB1063 – food tax, consolidated with rental tax bill. SB1184 – municipal tax and HB2067 residential leases, municipal tax exemption.
- A number of school bills: HB2474 – exclusion for school immunization, HB2458 – ban on CRT, HB2472 – social credit prohibition
- Budget bills – SB1139 and SB1142
- SCR1015 – (Senate Concurrent Resolution) initiative referendum – this could be on ballot in 2024; requires signatures must be in all 30 districts across the state to qualify for a candidate to be on the ballot.
- Next week, some bills continuing as follows:
- Election bills –
- SB1140 – prohibits voting center models and takes us back to precinct voting.
- SB1141 – requires affidavit for anyone to carry/drop off your ballot.
- SB1143 – for orgs that use pre-filled voter registration forms, sole exemplar not allowed to use their prior signature from signing in at a polling location to vote
- SB1144 – requires using original ballots in adjudication and hand made duplicates; thus, prohibits using only electronic scans of “unreadable” ballots as is the current Maricopa practice of electronic ballot adjudication; duplication
- SB1170 – ban ballot drop boxes
- SB1264 – Political Action Committee (PAC) prohibition for election officials, conflict of interest
- HB2415 – changes practice of automatically removing early ballot voters from receiving an early ballot after not voting in the last election (rather than 2 elections)
- HB2560 – images; voter lists; records; gives public info. on the ballot to audit elections but preserves personal info from public
- SB1265 – statute to codify the constitution to protect plurality (candidate with most votes wins), and prohibits any form of ranked choice voting.
- HCR2033 – primary elections; eligible candidates – trying to get prohibition of ranked choice voting on ballot in 2024.
- Tax bills to continue in committee
- SB1122 – transportion tax
- SB1312 – tracking vehicles – prohibits limiting miles traveled
- SB1260 – income tax increase for wealthy passed last year, so this bill trying to help small businesses reduce their tax rate from 2.8% to 2.5% starting this year
- Culture war/School items –
- HB2157 – requires government documents to only have two gender choices – male/female.
- SB1026 – protect minors against drag shows, library story times not to be funded by tax dollars.
- SB1163 – if elected official passes bond or override funding, those officials cannot also invest in these target items
- SB1232 – OPPOSE this bill – Marsh sponsored this bill to repeal results-based funding; prior law is to reward high performing schools. This is now providing funding based simply on schools maintaining certain class room sizes. Nothing to do with performance in the classroom.
- SB1305 – Senate mirror of the House CRT bill
- SB1599 – school districts; teacher or Admin salaries; should be posted to compare across districts. This bill adds a fine to schools that don’t follow this current law.
- Election bills –
- You can go to azleg.gov/Bills and enter any bill number above to review specific wording of that bill.
Prayer – As always, please do remember to keep our leaders of our church and government in your prayers. There are so many people fighting to protect our freedoms that need God’s guidance.