Renewing Arizona Families: Join Us Tuesday Night
Behind every Arizona statistic about poverty, education, and child welfare, there is a quieter story about family. On Tuesday, Center for Arizona Policy (CAP) will release the Renewing Arizona Families report in partnership with the Institute for Family Studies and the Center for Christian Virtue. This first-of-its-kind report tells that story with clear-eyed honesty and remarkable hope.
Here is what the data shows. Arizona ranks 35th nationally on the Family Structure Index (FSI). Just 10 percent of Arizona children in married, intact homes live in poverty, compared with 38 percent of children in single-parent homes. Children from non-intact families are 104 percent more likely to be impoverished, even after controlling for race, age, and parental education. Family fragmentation costs Arizona taxpayers between $800 million and $1 billion every year — and that is a conservative estimate.
But here is the better news. Marriage and intact family life remain among the most powerful, fiscally responsible engines for human flourishing the social sciences have ever measured. Married adults in Arizona are more likely to own homes, save more, live longer, and report greater happiness. Children raised in intact, married homes outperform their peers academically by margins that exceed the gap between the highest- and lowest-income school districts in the state.
This is a story about agency, not despair. It is a story about what Arizona can do — and about the policy levers and intentional investment that can reverse the trend. Strong marriages, intact families, and engaged faith communities are not relics of a bygone era. They are the cornerstone of a thriving future for every Arizona neighborhood.
Join us Tuesday, May 12 for Renewing Arizona Families events
Press Conference: Tuesday, May 12, at 10:00 a.m. at the Arizona State Capitol (1700 W. Washington St., Phoenix, AZ 85007). Join us as we publicly unveil the Renewing Arizona Families report alongside legislators, faith leaders, and community partners. We will share the findings, name the stakes, and lay out what Arizona can do to renew the family foundation our state is built on. Please attend to show how we support marriage and family in Arizona.
Date and Time: Tuesday, May 12, 2026, at 10:00 a.m.
Meeting Location: Arizona State Capitol Rose Garden, situated just behind the Senate building. 1700 W. Washington St., Phoenix, AZ 85007.
Parking: Wesley Bolin Plaza located east of the Capitol building, with entrances off Jefferson Street and Adams Street.
Please arrive a few minutes early so we may begin promptly.
Webinar: Tuesday, May 12, at 7:00 p.m. Watch the Renewing Arizona Families webinar unpacking the report with Arizona-specific findings, county-level data, and policy opportunities that encourage and support marriage and family. You will hear what the research says, what it means for your family, and how Arizona can build a stronger future together.
Register for the webinar today: Sign up
Decline to Sign: Defending 102,852 Arizona Students
If you have walked into a grocery store, a fairground, or a strip-mall parking lot in the last few weeks, you may have been approached by a paid signature gatherer with a clipboard and a friendly smile. The pitch sounds reasonable — accountability, transparency, common sense. Read the fine print before you sign anything.
Right now, an anti-ESA ballot initiative is circulating across Arizona, dressed up in the language of oversight. Strip away the marketing, and here is what the measure would actually do.
It would kick students off the Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) program with arbitrary income limits that ignore family size and cost of living. It would seize the savings of families who responsibly carry funds from one year to the next. It would drown parents in regulatory paperwork, requiring written justification for every pencil and notebook. It would force private schools into state testing regimes and accreditation bottlenecks, gutting the educational freedom Arizona families have fought to build. And it would replicate enforcement powers the law already exercises while leaving the door wide open for even further regulation.
This is dismantlement disguised as oversight. And it is aimed squarely at 102,852 Arizona K-12 children — many with disabilities, many from working families, many discovering for the first time what it feels like to learn in a classroom built for them.
Sixty-six percent of Arizonans support ESAs. Most do not want to take that freedom from their neighbors — particularly the disabled students, the rural families, and the children whose parents finally found a school that fits.
As we’ve mentioned previously, there is a second ESA ballot measure circulating that would also burden this student-empowering program with regulation, red tape, bureaucratic inefficiency. Educational freedom is one of Arizona’s greatest strengths. Taking ESAs from Arizona’s children is the wrong path.
When a clipboard appears, decline to sign. Then tell your friends, your neighbors, and your church to do the same. Arizona families are not going back.
A Major Win, a Brief Pause, and What Comes Next
Last Friday brought the day many Arizonans have been praying for. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, ruling in State of Louisiana v. U.S. Food and Drug Administration, ordered the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to restore the nationwide in-person dispensing requirement on the abortion drug mifepristone — halting the unlawful flood of mail-order abortion drugs into pro-life states.
Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill, partnering with Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), argued that the Biden FDA’s 2023 removal of the in-person safeguard was a reckless political maneuver designed to nullify state pro-life laws. The 5th Circuit agreed, rebuking the rule as a textbook example of arbitrary agency action and a deliberate end-run around state authority.
ADF also represents Rosalie Markezich, a Louisiana woman coerced by her then-boyfriend into taking mail-order abortion drugs ordered from a California prescriber. She did not want an abortion. Her child died. Her story is the human face of what the FDA’s mail-order policy made possible — and what the 5th Circuit just ended.
On Monday, however, Justice Samuel Alito issued a one-week administrative stay at the request of the drug manufacturers, temporarily restoring telehealth and mail-order access while the U.S. Supreme Court reviews emergency appeals. The Court is expected to rule by Monday, May 11.
Here is the picture. The legal foundation built by Louisiana and ADF is strong. The 5th Circuit ruling vindicated the constitutional principle that states have authority to protect unborn children within their own borders — including Arizona. The next several days will tell us whether the Supreme Court allows that protection to take effect now or sends the case back to the appeals court for further review on the merits. This battle matters. In the wake of the Biden administration’s unlawful expansion of the drug’s availability, most of the abortions in the United States now take place through medicine.
Pray for the Justices. Every life reflects God’s image and deserves compassion and protection.
ICYMI
- Sign up for our webinar discussing the FSI report
- Stay informed! Sign up to receive our 2026 AZ Voter Guide
Visit azlovesesas.com, download yard signs and shareable graphics, and equip your community to defend educational freedom