PHOENIX (AP) - The Arizona House on Thursday voted to reject a measure that would have allowed Attorney General Mark Brnovich to revive a lawsuit he had filed against the board that oversees state universities over what he calls overly high tuition.
The measure by Republican Rep. Jacqueline Parker of Mesa, HB1411, failed after one Republican joined all Democrats is opposing the measure. The bill was needed after the Arizona Supreme Court ruled in November that Brnovich had no right to sue.
Brnovich sued the Arizona Board of Regents in 2017, saying the three state universities had raised tuition so much that they were violating a provision of the state constitution that they be “as nearly free as possible.” But courts cited a 1960 state Supreme Court case that found the attorney general could not sue a state agency on his own over an alleged constitutional violation.
Republican Rep. Michelle Udall, who represents a different Mesa-area district, was the lone Republican in opposition. She said that while yearly in-state tuition at Arizona State University is about $11,000, the average student actually pays only about $2,800 a year.
“I don’t think that we should be using taxpayer money to attack them for the rate that they have,” Udall told The Associated Press. “I mean, $2,800 a year in tuition is pretty inexpensive for the most innovative university in the country.”
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