By J. Graber
Mail | X: @AzNewsmedia

Remember the tamale bill?

Known officially as the cottage food industry bill in the Arizona Legislature, it expanded the types of food that can be sold after being made in home kitchens, to include products such as those with meat in them.

It originally passed in 2023 but Gov. Katie Hobbs vetoed it, citing concerns over food borne illnesses.

The Legislature then passed an almost identical bill in 2024, which Hobbs then signed.
What changed in a year?

Pressure from Hispanic Democrats and “free market” Republicans, changed her mind, said Sen. John Kavanagh, R-Fountain Hills.

The scenario is discussed as a real world example of how state Legislatures work in Kavanagh’s new book “State Legislatures: An Owner’s Manual.”

The book is now available in paperback on Amazon.

Kavanage wrote it as a textbook for an introductory class on state government at ASU.

“It has everything a new legislator or even a veteran needs to know,” said Kavanagh, who has a master’s in government and a Ph.D. in criminal justice. “I learned a lot of new stuff researching the book, and I’ve been here (in the Legislature) 19 years. It’s perfect for legislators, staff members or people who interact with the Legislature, which could be newspaper or TV reporters. It’s even something citizen activists could use. I have a whole chapter on how to communicate effectively with legislators.”

Kavanagh, who has been a college professor for 25 years, said he had wanted to teach a course on the legislative process for years before getting permission to do so at ASU.

But when it came to select an introductory textbook on the subject, he couldn’t find one so he spent the last year and half sporadically writing his own.

The 395-page work is loaded with insights, Kavanagh said.

For instance, in a two chamber Legislature, most bills have to go through 21 individual steps before becoming law and they can be killed at any one of those steps along the way.
“It’s extremely difficult to get legislation passed, which is good because some legislation has real problems and needs to be vetted or sometimes the bills have to be euthanized,” Kavanagh said.

Another insight he shares is about writing bills.

“I naively thought plain, simple language, straightforward, is the best way to write laws like it is in communication in most areas,” Kavanagh said. “Not so with laws because an army of lawyers will look to take a law apart and find loopholes. Laws have to be written very precisely. And unlike contracts, which can be precise and long, bills have to be precise and short.”

He dedicates a whole chapter to the science of bill construction, which he describes as “a little nerdy.”

In the end, he said the book is a realistic look at how the “sausage” is made on Capitol Hill.

“It goes beyond the formal, cartoon characterization of how a bill becomes law that we give to visiting school kids and talks about the informal and often very messy system of what we call making sausage,” Kavanagh said. “It’s a textbook that gives the formal procedure but it’s also an insider’s view of how things really happen.”

Please send your comments to AzOpinions@iniusa.org. We are committed to publishing a wide variety of reader opinions, as long as they meet our Civility Guidelines. J. Graber can be reached at jgraber@iniusa.org.