Two bills are making their way through the Arizona Legislature to end the state’s use of speed and red light cameras.
SCR 1002, sponsored by State Senator Wendy Rogers (R-Flagstaff), is a Senate Concurrent Resolution, so if passed, it would bypass a likely veto by Democratic Governor Katie Hobbs and be placed on the ballot for voters. It passed out of the House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee mainly down party lines after a hearing last week.
SB 1019, also from Rogers, has similar language but would have to go through Hobbs and has yet to be brought up in two House committees that it was assigned to.
In 2023, Hobbs vetoed a bill that banned red light cameras in the state.
Rogers spoke at the hearing to introduce the legislation, calling the camera system a “cash cow” and “scam on Arizonans.”
“Mr. Chairman, this is a seminal piece of legislation,” she said. “It bypasses the governor because the voters of Arizona want their freedom back, they want their rights back. They do not want to be subject to photo radar. I represent a rural district, and my rural constituents are adamant about this, and I know several municipalities in Maricopa County are adamant about this."
Rogers said the machines can be “tweaked” to bring in more money, pointing out that 10 percent of the revenue goes to Clean Elections. She said this creates a conflict of interest for politicians who run for office using Clean Elections. She said a human, not a machine, should issue a ticket.
Rogers said the Town of Paradise Valley has 11,000 residents yet issued 100,000 tickets last year alone, bringing in “millions of dollars” of revenue. She said she was told that only one vendor has all the contracts in the state, which is a “monopoly” and “wrong.”
