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Before ending Arizona’s legislative session for the year, the state Senate voted to pass several lingering pieces of legislation that would do things like provide compensation for people who’ve been wrongly incarcerated and create more oversight for the state’s prisons.
Senate Bill 1500 would provide 200% of the median annual income to people who were erroneously incarcerated for each year that they were imprisoned. The bill passed by a bipartisan vote Friday of 16-13, after passing through the House a day earlier with near-unanimous support. In both chambers, only one Democrat voted against it.
It would also provide reimbursement for restitution and fines and fees the wrongfully convicted person was forced to pay, and would give up to $100,000 for mental health treatment.
Sen. Kiana Sears, a Mesa Democrat, said she was pleasantly surprised to be voting for this legislation.
“I am happy to see that we’re looking to do the humane thing and actually address justice in a holistic way, looking at mental health as well as financial compensation,” she said.
Hobbs signed the bill into law early Friday evening.
Senate Bill 1507, which would create an independent corrections oversight board, was approved Friday by a bipartisan vote of 26-3. The office, whose head would be appointed by the governor, would monitor the state’s correctional facilities for compliance with federal and state laws and best practices, inform the public about prisoners’ rights and set up a system to take complaints from corrections employees, inmates and their families.
This bill comes at a time when the state’s correctional facilities are severely understaffed, with about 2,000 jobs unfilled, contributing to an increase in inmate assaults and murders. Ten inmates in Arizona correctional facilities have been murdered so far in 2025, according to Senate Republicans, including three murdered by one inmate who told the Arizona Mirror he hoped to kill as many as a dozen.
Hobbs signed several other bills Friday evening, but left out SB1507, which both Republicans and Democrats had accused her of attempting to block.
After failing its first vote on Friday, HCR 2055, which would ask Arizona voters to designate drug cartels as terrorist organizations, passed by a party line vote of 16-13. The resolution, that already passed through the House, avoids a veto from Hobbs and will be sent to the voters in 2026.
Sen. Catherine Miranda, D-Phoenix, warned that the resolution was unconstitutional, violating the supremacy clause that gives the federal government authority over immigration issues.
“It is also weaponizing the ballot to push the Right’s anti-immigrant agenda,” she said, adding that it puts migrants unaffiliated with drug cartels at risk of being swept up in accusations of terrorism.
Also on Friday, the chamber passed and Hobbs signed Senate Bill 1198, which would expand the definitions of animal cruelty. The Senate also voted to approve Senate Bill 1082, which would ban agents of the United States’ foreign adversaries from owning property in the state, which its sponsor, Republican Sen. Janae Shamp said was aimed at preventing spying on military bases.
The bill got bipartisan support, passing by a vote of 19-10, but several Democrats who voted against it said that it could open the door for discrimination based on national origin.
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