April 18, 2025 — Governor Hobbs Signs SB 1543, the Axon Bill

What happened

Governor Katie Hobbs signed Senate Bill 1543 on April 18, 2025, after the House passed it 40–19 on April 10 and the Senate 17–13 on April 15. The law exempted Axon's approved headquarters campus at Loop 101 and Hayden Road — 70 acres, a 435-room hotel, roughly 1,900 apartments and, the company said, 5,500 jobs — from the local referendum that opponents (Bob Littlefield's TAAAZE) had qualified for the November 2026 ballot with about 25,000 signatures. The council had approved the project 5–2 in November 2024.

Why it matters

SB 1543 was the sharpest state preemption of Scottsdale's land-use power in the city's history, and it settled — for now — the decade's central argument about apartments and growth. Mayor Lisa Borowsky, elected in 2024 on limiting high-rise growth, said the bill 'poses a serious threat to local democracy'; Axon's Rick Smith called it 'a defining moment.' The city joined a lawsuit over the law, then on November 18, 2025 voted 4–3 for a compromise of 1,200 units, 600 of them condominiums, cancelling the referendum.

The parcel

Axon — the Scottsdale company that makes Tasers and police body cameras — had outgrown its headquarters near the Airpark and in 2024 asked the city to approve a new campus on about 70 acres of state trust land it had bought beside Loop 101 at Hayden Road: offices, a 435-room hotel, and roughly 1,900 apartments for the workers it said it would hire. The council approved it 5–2 in November 2024. Within weeks a group led by former councilman Bob Littlefield, calling itself TAAAZE, had gathered some 25,000 signatures to force the apartments to a referendum, enough to put the project on the November 2026 ballot. Axon cancelled its groundbreaking and said it might leave Arizona.

The same election that produced the petition produced a mayor who agreed with it. Lisa Borowsky had unseated David Ortega in November 2024 on a platform of limiting high-rise and apartment growth, and she took office in January 2025 with the Axon fight as her first test.

The Legislature steps in

Axon went to the Capitol. Senate Bill 1543, written to fit its project, declared that a headquarters campus of a company of Axon’s size, approved by a city, could proceed without a local referendum. The House passed it 40–19 on April 10, the Senate 17–13 on April 15, and on Friday, April 18, 2025 Governor Katie Hobbs signed it. Borowsky’s statement said the law “poses a serious threat to local democracy”; Axon’s founder Rick Smith called it “a defining moment.” It was the sharpest preemption of Scottsdale’s zoning power in the city’s history — sharper than the short-term-rental laws of the previous decade — and the referendum 25,000 people had signed for was void.

The compromise

The city joined a lawsuit challenging the law that fall, and then, on November 18, 2025, cut a deal: by a 4–3 vote the council repealed the 1,900-unit approval and adopted a compromise of 1,200 units, 600 of them apartments and 600 condominiums, with the hotel and offices intact and the referendum cancelled. Axon broke ground; the lawsuit faded. Whether the outcome was a defeat for local control or a workable settlement is the argument the 2020s chapter leaves open, and the preemption guide explains the machinery the state used.