Did you know that Arizona -- otherwise known as home to xenophobic politicians like Kari Lake and former Maricopa County sheriff Joe Arpaio -- just voted for a ballot measure that will allow undocumented students to pay in-state tuition at their public universities?
The best evidence of Arizona’s shift away from Republican policies was the passage of a ballot measure reinstating the right of undocumented Arizonans to pay in-state tuition at public colleges and universities.
At 2.48 percentage points, the margin of victory for “yes” on Proposition 308 was bigger than the margin that secured the governor’s seat for Democrat Katie Hobbs over Kari Lake and broke 13 years of Republican dominance in Arizona.
How did this victory come to be? As usual, the answer was organizing, combined with building the broadest coalition possible. Dreamers even lined up the Chamber of Commerce for this effort, convincing the business group and moderate Republicans that an educated Arizona Latinx population was in their interest.
A voter-approved in-state tuition ban had made college three times more
expensive for the last decade, putting it out of reach for many undocumented students. But Arizona has demonstrated it can move on from a season of fear of the newcomer.
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