2024 Policy Priorities Primer

Every year, LAMA’s Policy Council meets to select our Policy Priorities for the upcoming legislative sessions. There are so many issues that need attention, but our office can only tackle so many at once; together, our council, made up of clergy, lay members, and Bishop Hutterer, prayerfully discuss and democratically decide which areas need our focus and energy.

This page serves to outline our three Policy Priorities for 2024, and provide information for how these issues impact Arizona.

1. Hunger

Throughout the Gospel, food is an important part of many stories. Jesus eats with people, cooks for them, and feeds them. He commands his followers to also feed the hungry by sharing what they have. Lutherans have been involved in hunger relief since the very beginning of our movement; Martin Luther himself wrote that, “we are bound to each other in such a way that no one may forsake the other in his distress but is obliged to assist and help him as he himself would like to be helped.”

“Food insecurity” means that some or all members of the household have limited or uncertain access to healthy, safe, nutritious foods, or an inability to acquire these foods in socially acceptable ways. Rates of hunger in Arizona have decreased significantly in the last five years, but as COVID-era assistance programs end, food insecurity is once again a growing problem.

• Over 900,000 ( or 13.1% of) people in Arizonans are experiencing food insecurity at any given moment (Feeding America)

• In one year, a total of 2 million Arizonans will have dealt with food insecurity at some point (St. Mary’s Food Bank)

•  Due to the rising cost of living, 53% of people experiencing food insecurity are over the SNAP threshold but are still unable to consistently access food they need (Feeding America)

• 1 in 10 workers participates in the Supplemental Nutrition Access Program (SNAP) (Center on Budget and Policy Priorities)

• 14% of Arizona children group up facing food insecurity (St. Mary’s)

  • Children facing food insecurity are more likely to struggle in the classroom 

  • Childhood hunger is linked to higher rates of Type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, and obesity later in life (St. Mary’s Food Bank)

• Apache county has the highest rate of food insecurity in the state at 21.5% (Feeding America)

  This year, we are advocating for a Farm Bill that supports nutrition assistance programs and empowers growers to produce food sustainably, an appropriations package that adequately funds the WIC program, the adoption of the summer EBT program for school-aged children, equal access to SNAP for formerly incarcerated folks on probation, affordable and free school lunches, and policies that help local small-scale growers produce food.

2. Civic Engagement and Voting

Democracy is a unique and powerful way in which we are able to work towards a just society. To be able to advocate for the dignity of ourselves and our neighbors is not a privilege that has always been available to Christians, and in many places, still is not. It is our job to steward our society, that it might be one where all of God’s children can live in peace and justice, and in America, we have the opportunity to do this by participating in our election cycles.

This year, LAMA seeks to engage with policy that keeps Arizona’s elections accessible and transparent, as well as helping our community engage in the process. This includes helping churches sign up to be polling places and providing education on ballot majors.

In Arizona….

• “Independent” is the most common party affiliation, surpassing the number of voters registered with either of the major political parties (Cronkite News)

• Independent voters can vote in state elections if they request a ballot, but not in presidential primaries (even though other states allow it)

• about 89% of Arizona Voters vote by mail (Arizona Citizen Clean Elections Commission)

• Arizona has led the country in the number of election interference bills introduced since 2020 (Brennan Center for Justice)

• Over the last few years, the legislature has brought forth a series of bills requiring excessive voter ID, which disproportionally bars voters of color, voters from reservations, and college students from participating

  This year we are advocating for accessible elections, fair access to the polls, equitable voter ID laws, and full voter participation from our community.

3. Water

Water use and access intersect with every issue we care about, from food production and cost, to dignity for the unhoused. It is also a vital part of our own daily lives. As Christians, we are called to live in harmony with and to care for all of God's creation, which means that we must steward our resources with wisdom and foresight, that we may best provide for ourselves, our neighbors, the future, and the planet. 

In 1993, the ELCA adopted an official Social Statement titled “Caring for Creation: Vision, Hope, and Justice,” which details the ways to best live out this calling in our modern era. On the topic of global resource use, the statement says: 

• “The idea of the earth as a boundless warehouse has proven both false and dangerous. Damage to the environment eventually will affect most people through increased conflict over scarce resources, decline in food security, and greater vulnerability to disease.” Despite the complexity of the issue of water in Arizona, the many competing needs, the different problems, we have adopted water policy as a priority this year because, “It is in hope of God’s promised fulfillment that we hear the call to justice; it is in hope that we take action. When we act interdependently and in solidarity with creation, we do justice. We serve and keep the earth, trusting its bounty can be sufficient for all, and sustainable.”

• Az water comes from four sources: surface water (lakes, rivers, streams, etc), Colorado River, groundwater (water held in soil and porous rock), effluent (waste water)

• Water use is 72% agriculture, 22% municipal, 6% industrial (Arizona Department of Water Resources)

• Arizona’s water supply from the Colorado River has decreased by 21%, due to droughts (AzCentral)

• The average Arizonan uses over 140 gallons of water a day (Arizona Department of Water Resources)

• Polyfluoroalkyl substances, (PFAS), are used in many common consumer and industrial goods, but if ingested, they are connected to many poor health outcomes, including a reduction in vaccine efficacy, cancers, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol. They are present in at least 57 public water systems in Arizona. (AzCentral reporting on the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality)

• Currently, a municipality is not required to treat PFAS contaminated water, even though it is possible to remove the chemicals

• 15% of houses on the Navajo reservation have no running water, thousands more only have access to contaminated water (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency)

  This year we are advocating for tax parities which help homeowners conserve water, legislation limiting and regulating PFAS, requiring treatment for PFAS contaminated systems, expanding programs that help farms and ranches transition to sustainable water systems, and an equitable settlement between the Navajo Nation and the State of Arizona.

+ Housing

In addition to our three policy priorities, LAMA is also partnering with Lutheran Social Services of the Southwest on housing advocacy. We are advocating for affordable housing as it relates to the rising cost of living, homelessness, and the housing crisis in Arizona.

Throughout the Bible, God calls us many times to care for those in need, including and especially those without adequate shelter. For Christians, housing has been one of the longest focuses of our charitable and organizational efforts. However, so much of policy, from zoning laws to tax rates to wages, affect the state of housing in Arizona, and we at LAMA know that churches and their charities cannot fix the issue on their own.

• Arizona is among the worst states for housing affordability.

• 21% of all renters are extremely low-income and severely-cost burdened, even though 60% of them are retired or in the labor force. (Low Income Housing Council)

• Seniors are the fastest growing population of housing insecure; 54% of seniors spend 30% or more of their income on housing. (Department of Housing and Urban Development)

• Over 30% of people experiencing homelessness are women with children (National Alliance to End Homelessness)

• In today’s market, a worker in Arizona would need to make $32.70/hr to sustainably rent a 2-bedroom apartment. A minimum wage earner would have to work 91 hours/week. (National Low Income House Coalition)

• Rents have increased 40-50% across the state while wages have increased 4-10%.

• The Phoenix area alone has a deficit of more than 200k affordable rental units. (Arizona Department of Housing)

  We are advocating for the construction of emergency shelters (like Mesa’s expanding Off the Streets program), rent control measures, equitable revision to eviction law, and support for the governor’s Inter-Agency Council on Housing and Homelessness.