As Gov. Katie Hobbs heads into her third legislative session, she's looking to find common ground on housing affordability, border security and water policy with Republicans who control both chambers.

The big picture: Hobbs is severely limited in her ability to pass Democratic policies by the GOP majorities in the House and Senate.

• Voters increased those Republican majorities in November's election.
• "The message I'm taking loudest from this election is that our voters want our elected leaders to work together to solve these tough challenges," Hobbs told Axios in a recent interview.

State of play: The 2025 legislative session begins today, and Hobbs will outline her agenda in her third State of the State address at 2pm.

Zoom in: One of Hobbs' biggest priorities will be addressing Arizona's housing crisis.

• She wants to expand the Arizona is Home program she launched last year, which provided down payment assistance and mortgage interest rate relief, to cover 1,000 households.
• Hobbs said she's eyeing legislation similar to bills she signed last year that made it easier to convert commercial property to residential, required larger cities to allow accessory dwelling units on single-family lots and allowed for denser housing in downtown areas.

Between the lines: Hobbs wants to lower child care costs by two-thirds through a public-private partnership and create a grant program for after-school and summer programming for kids from working families.

• Hobbs wants to allow cities to regulate short-term rental "party houses" she says are "eating up housing inventory."
• And she hopes to enhance border security and public safety by increasing state support for border-area drug interdiction, funding an anti-fentanyl unit and increasing pay for law enforcement.

She also plans to push several water policies.

Hobbs' agenda

Republican House Speaker Steve Montenegro and Senate President Warren Petersen view last year's election as a signal that voters want more conservative governance, but they'll have to contend with Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs.

The big picture: After two years of one-vote GOP majorities in both chambers, Republicans gained a seat in the Senate and two in the House.

• Voters rejected the status quo and "said we're going to go in the direction of the Republican vision," Montenegro told Axios.
• Petersen said we'll see bills that failed over the past years get to Hobbs' desk.

Yes, but: Hobbs hasn't been shy about vetoing conservative bills she disagrees with.

• Montenegro said Republicans told voters they'll strengthen border security, public safety, parental rights and school choice, and now they have to put those bills on Hobbs' desk, regardless of the likelihood they'll be signed.

Zoom in: One of GOP lawmakers' top priorities is legislation to speed up Arizona's notoriously long vote-counting process, primarily by eliminating voters' ability to drop off early ballots without showing ID through Election Day.

• Hobbs told Axios that anything making it harder for Arizonans to participate in elections is a red line for her.

Between the lines: One thing lawmakers can do without the governor is refer measures to the ballot, giving Republicans the upper hand when it comes to reauthorizing Proposition 123, which expires in July.

Full story

William Schafer III, who served as lead prosecutor in the car-bombing murder of Arizona Republic reporter Don Bolles in the 1970s, died last month.

The big picture: Schafer was remembered at a memorial service on Friday at the Beatitudes Campus in Phoenix. Friends, family and colleagues described him as a great storyteller who devoted his life to the law.

• He served as Pima County attorney, led the criminal division at the Arizona Attorney General's Office and served for 11 years as a Maricopa County Superior Court judge, retiring in 2000.

Zoom in: Schafer was Attorney General Bruce Babbitt's criminal division chief when he was tapped to lead the prosecution in the Bolles case in June 1976.

• Schafer won convictions and death sentences against suspects Max Dunlap and James Robison in 1977, though the Arizona Supreme Court overturned the convictions in 1980. After star witness John Adamson balked at testifying again, Schafer secured a conviction and death sentence against him later that year.

Flashback: Schafer in 1967 faced off in court with famed attorney F. Lee Bailey, who defended accused murderer Charles Howard Schmid Jr., the so-called "Pied Piper of Tucson."

Remembering William Schafer III

⚾ The Arizona Diamondbacks want state approval to fund Chase Field improvements using sales tax revenue from the ballpark. (AZcentral)

🛩 Gulfstream Aerospace Corp. opened a $130 million service center at Mesa Gateway Airport. (KJZZ)

🚨 Glendale police who were responding to a domestic violence call shot and killed a man who was unrelated to the incident. (12 News)

🤠 Chris Stapleton will perform at Desert Diamond Arena on Aug. 8. The general public can buy tickets starting at 10am Wednesday. (KTAR)

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"Sons of Ecstasy," a new documentary streaming on Max, chronicles how Salvatore "Sammy the Bull" Gravano and his family traded the New York mob scene for Arizona drug dealing in the 1990s.

The intrigue: The documentary features "the story we never allowed my father to tell," Gravano's son Gerard says in a preview. And by the sounds of it, he doesn't hold back a bit.

• "I don't give a flying f--k. We'll go to war, like that," Gravano says with a snap of his fingers.

Catch up quick: Gravano, once the underboss for the Gambino crime family, famously became a government witness in 1991 and implicated boss John Gotti and 28 other mobsters.

• He moved his family to Arizona in 1995 and opened Uncle Sal's restaurant in Scottsdale and a pool installation business.

Yes, but: "Old habits die hard," as the "Sons of Ecstasy" preview says.

From mob hits to ecstasy in the desert