The short version
The Arizona Legislature writes the state’s laws, passes the budget and decides a great deal about what cities like Scottsdale may and may not do. It has two chambers: a Senate of 30 and a House of Representatives of 60. The state is divided into 30 legislative districts, and each one elects one senator and two representatives, all for two-year terms, all at once in even-numbered years.
It is a part-time citizen legislature. Base pay is $24,000 a year, a figure voters set in 1998 and have declined to raise since, plus a per diem during session. Most members have other jobs, and the regular session starts on the second Monday in January and is meant to wrap up in about 100 days, though it usually runs well into spring or early summer.
Scottsdale’s districts
Under the maps drawn in 2022, Scottsdale is split three ways. LD 3 takes in the north and east of the city, from the McDowell Mountains up to Carefree and Rio Verde. LD 4 covers the central corridor along the Paradise Valley side, including much of the Airpark area. LD 8 covers south Scottsdale and reaches into Tempe, Phoenix, Mesa and the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community. Every Scottsdale address therefore has one senator and two representatives, and the city as a whole has nine lawmakers. The lines move after every census; the elections guide covers how to look up yours.
Term limits
Voters imposed term limits in 1992: no one may serve more than four consecutive terms, eight years, in the same chamber. Many members simply switch chambers when they hit the limit, which is why familiar names bounce between the House and Senate.
How a bill becomes law
A bill is introduced in either chamber, assigned to one or more committees, and needs a majority there to survive. Then it goes to the full chamber, is debated in the Committee of the Whole and passes on a third reading with a majority of members (16 in the Senate, 31 in the House). The other chamber repeats the process, and any differences get worked out before a final vote.
The bill then goes to the governor, who has five days (not counting Sundays) during session, or ten after the legislature adjourns, to sign or veto it. On budget bills the governor can veto individual spending items. Overriding a veto takes two-thirds of each chamber, which is rare. A normal law takes effect 90 days after the session ends, the window in which citizens can refer it to the ballot. A bill with an emergency clause, which needs a two-thirds vote, takes effect immediately and cannot be referred.
Going straight to the voters
The legislature can also skip the governor entirely by referring a measure to the ballot with a simple majority of each chamber. That is how constitutional amendments start, and it is increasingly how lawmakers push policies a governor would veto. The November 2026 ballot carries several referrals that reach into city budgets, including Prop 316, which would cap city sales taxes on groceries, and Prop 319, which would restrict photo enforcement cameras like the ones Scottsdale uses.
The legislature and the city
Arizona’s constitution gives charter cities home rule over local affairs, but the legislature decides what is local. When lawmakers declare an issue a matter of statewide concern, a conflicting city ordinance gives way. That principle is behind state limits on how cities regulate short-term rentals, the state’s control over city sales-tax rules, and the formulas that send income and sales tax revenue back to cities, covered in the state shared revenue guide. In 2016 lawmakers added teeth with SB 1487, which lets any legislator ask the attorney general to investigate a city ordinance and threatens a city’s share of state revenue if it doesn’t fix a violation.
The sharpest recent example is Axon. In late 2024 the Scottsdale council approved the company’s headquarters campus with a hotel and nearly 2,000 apartments near Loop 101 and Hayden Road, and opponents gathered enough signatures to force a 2026 referendum. In April 2025 the legislature passed SB 1543, written to fit cities of Scottsdale’s size, requiring hotel and multifamily use to be allowed on land zoned like Axon’s without a public hearing. The governor signed it, the referendum lost its object, and Scottsdale later dropped a lawsuit against the law. The preemption guide and the voters and ballot measures guide follow the fight in full. Lisa Borowsky took office as mayor in the middle of it.
Who draws the lines
Until 2000 the legislature drew its own districts. That year voters passed Prop 106, handing the job to a five-member Independent Redistricting Commission. The majority and minority leaders of each chamber each pick one member from a screened pool of nominees, and those four choose a chair who is registered with neither of their parties. The commission redraws legislative and congressional lines after each census; its current maps were approved in January 2022 and first used that year. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld voters’ power to create it in 2015.