Pima County Board of Supervisors Chair Jen Allen said Tuesday she hopes Governor Katie Hobbs will veto HB 2873 “if and when it lands on her desk,” putting Arizona’s second-largest county on the record against a retroactive state bill that would strip local referendum tools used to challenge data-center developments.
Allen, who chairs the five-member board and represents Pima County’s third district, gave the on-record veto ask in a Laterstack interview Tuesday afternoon. The bill, sponsored by Republican Senator Shawnna Bolick, would void referendum petitions for projects already under way, including the Marana data-center referendum that Pima County residents are organizing as a check on local zoning decisions.
“This is a fight over whose interests the town council decisions are being driven by,” Allen said. “Is it the interests of the residents who clearly don’t want a data center? Or is it the interest of the private equity fueled, speculative developers?”
The dissent block, the redirect, and the rate increase
Allen’s veto ask did not come out of nowhere. She is part of a four-member dissent block on the Pima County Board of Supervisors that lost a December 16 vote on a $20 million land sale tied to data-center buildout. Losing the vote did not end the fight. Allen and the dissent block negotiated a redirect of $1.3 million from the land-sale proceeds to utility assistance and weatherization for Pima County residents.
The redirect mattered because it landed during the same budget window in which Tucson Electric Power proposed a 14 percent residential rate increase.
“Tucson Electric Power, the private utility who would provide electricity for the data center, has already proposed a 14 percent residential rate increase,” Allen said. “So $1.3 million for utility assistance and then also weatherization, helping folks get windows repaired so that money isn’t just flowing out their single-pane windows.”
Coverage of the rate-increase proposal has emphasized the load growth from data-center demand. Allen connected the two threads explicitly: a county that hosts data-center development pays for the buildout in the rate base, and the dissent block redirected dissent into a measurable transfer to ratepayers.
Marana, the referendum, and the Worker Power split
The Marana data-center referendum is the test case that brought HB 2873 into existence. Marana residents organized to gather signatures challenging a zoning decision tied to a data-center project. The referendum drive ran into structural problems on the local side, then state legislators introduced HB 2873 with a retroactive scope that would void referendum petitions like Marana’s even after they had been filed.
Allen described the referendum’s signature-gathering hand-off carefully.
“Worker Power had said that they would take it over because they were already out gathering signatures for a different referendum,” she said. “And so folks handed it over to them to do. Now, that’s regrettable. But the power of being able to have a citizen-driven referendum is important.”
Worker Power, a labor-coalition organization, picking up the signature drive split parts of the original organizing coalition. The No Desert Data Center Coalition, which Allen named as the source readers should follow on the ongoing Marana fight, has continued to track the case alongside Pima County’s broader posture.
A retroactive bill, in a moratorium
HB 2873 sits inside a larger procedural fight at the state level. Governor Hobbs declared a bill moratorium on April 13, 2026, pledging to veto every bill that reaches her desk until Republican legislative leaders produce a budget plan. As of late April she had vetoed forty-five bills in 2026, per Phoenix New Times tracking. HB 2873, if it clears House concurrence and reaches her, lands in moratorium territory.
The bill itself has been characterized in coverage as targeting referendum tools used by communities to challenge data-center development. Allen is the highest-ranking county-level Democrat to ask for the veto on the record.
The preemption frame
The Allen interview returned several times to the broader pattern of state-level preemption of local authority. The data-center fight is one example of a structural dynamic Pima County and other Arizona counties have flagged across multiple policy areas.
“We have so many things that we are preempted from doing by our state legislature,” Allen said. “The way that they have usurped so much local control over things that are unique to our community.”
The same federalism dynamic that has driven Arizona’s state-level AI protections into a fight with the federal preemption framework is the dynamic at work in HB 2873, only with the direction inverted: state authority preempting local authority instead of federal authority preempting state authority. The procedural defense looks similar at every level. Communities argue for the right to use the tools they have, including referendum, against larger entities arguing the tools are inefficient or contrary to development priorities.
Zoning as the choke point
Allen flagged zoning as the critical local tool that referendum law protects.
“Zoning is essential. It is a critical decision,” she said. “And it’s oftentimes one of the most powerful tools that community members have to weigh in on land use decisions.”
A retroactive bill voiding referendums tied to zoning challenges does not eliminate the zoning authority itself. It removes the corrective tool residents can deploy when zoning decisions move faster than the consent of the people they affect. Allen’s framing is that the bill is the wrong response to a procedural problem residents are already trying to solve through the channels available to them.
Where this goes next
Allen named the No Desert Data Center Coalition as the source she would point readers to for ongoing tracking of the Marana case.
“I would suggest that folks follow the No Desert Data Center Coalition,” she said. “They monitor not just us as the Board of Supervisors, but the Marana Town Council and the Arizona Corporation Commission.”
The bill remains pending House concurrence as of late April. If it clears, it goes to the governor. Hobbs’s bill moratorium gives the public posture; the actual veto would have to be signed. Allen’s veto ask gives Hobbs’s office air cover from the senior county Democratic side. The bill’s path through the House depends on the next two to three legislative days. The Marana referendum signature drive depends on local signature-collection volume and on whatever procedural posture the Marana Town Council adopts after April 27 oral arguments.
The data-center buildout in Arizona will continue regardless of HB 2873’s specific outcome. The procedural question is whether residents retain the tools to challenge specific projects in their own communities while the larger industry expansion plays out around them.
This is a federalism story before it is a partisan one. The same procedural template would apply against a state government of either party that overrode local referendums after the petitions had been filed. Coverage of this beat will hold to one rule regardless of who controls the state legislature: a retroactive bill voiding citizen petitions deserves the same scrutiny when it comes from the right or from the left.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is HB 2873?
HB 2873 is an Arizona state bill, sponsored by Republican Senator Shawnna Bolick, that would retroactively void referendum petitions filed against projects already under way, including the Marana data-center referendum in Pima County. As of late April 2026, it is pending House concurrence and has not yet reached Governor Hobbs’s desk.
Why is Pima County Chair Jen Allen asking Hobbs to veto it?
Allen said in a Laterstack interview Tuesday April 28 that local referendum tools are “one of the most powerful tools that community members have to weigh in on land use decisions” and that retroactively voiding citizen petitions removes a check on data-center development. Her exact words: “Hopefully the governor will veto it, if and when it lands on her desk.”
What is the dissent block on the Pima County Board?
A four-member dissent block on the five-member Pima County Board of Supervisors lost a December 16, 2025 vote on a $20 million land sale tied to data-center development. After losing the vote, the dissent block negotiated a redirect of $1.3 million from the land-sale proceeds to utility assistance and weatherization for Pima County residents.
How does TEP’s 14 percent rate increase fit in?
Tucson Electric Power, the private utility that would provide electricity for the data-center development, proposed a 14 percent residential rate increase during the same budget window in which the dissent-block redirect was negotiated. Allen tied the two together publicly, framing the $1.3 million utility-assistance redirect as a direct offset to the rate-increase pressure on Pima County residents.
What is Hobbs’s bill moratorium?
Governor Katie Hobbs declared on April 13, 2026 that she would veto every bill that reaches her desk until Republican legislative leaders produce a budget plan. As of late April she had vetoed forty-five bills in 2026. HB 2873, if it clears House concurrence and reaches her, lands in moratorium territory.
Where can readers follow the Marana referendum case?
Allen pointed readers to the No Desert Data Center Coalition, which she said tracks “not just us as the Board of Supervisors, but the Marana Town Council and the Arizona Corporation Commission.”