Reprint from Arizona Capitol Times
Jordan Gerard Jun 15, 2026
A bill to protect the Salt River horses and conduct scientific studies on the herd died on the Senate’s last day of the legislative session — with supporters still in the gallery.
Senate Bill 1199 would have enacted several protections for the Salt River horse herd, including genetic testing and assessment, and a three-year moratorium on the removal of any horse, except if it’s necessary to prevent or alleviate the suffering of a horse.
Rep. Cody Reim sponsored the bill, which was introduced through a striker amendment, and passed with bipartisan support on June 9.
It was unclear why the bill went unheard in the Senate, but Reim said there was likely party opposition against bringing it to the floor for a vote.
But even if the bill had passed the Senate, there’s a chance it could have been vetoed. Reim said he met with Gov. Katie Hobbs’ office and the Arizona Department of Agriculture multiple times regarding a provision that would’ve prohibited “a person from intentionally harassing, shooting, injuring, killing or slaughtering a horse that is, or was, part of the Salt River horse herd.”
The two entities handed him back an amended version that excluded the protection from slaughter.
“They didn’t really have a good answer, but they said it was a non-starter to have that in there,” Reim said. “So negotiations at that point fell apart, because if they can’t agree to protect these horses from slaughter … I really don’t want to work with it if it doesn’t have that protection in there.”
The Governor’s Office nor the department responded to a request for comment prior to the Arizona Legislative Report’s deadline.
Members of the Friends of the Salt River Wild Horses advocacy group spent about 13 hours at the Capitol on Friday waiting for the bill to be heard.
“It was extremely disappointing that, given the overwhelming majority of votes that were obtained in the House, and the large number of Arizonans who were pleading for action on this bill, that the Senate chose to ignore it and not let it go to a vote, instead spending 13 hours of the last day of the session passing laws they knew the governor was going to veto rather than take up a bill that all the majority of Arizonans care about,” said Susie Bell, the leader of the group.
Bell added Hobbs could take action without the bill and do what’s listed in the bill anyways. She said she’s disappointed in Hobbs’ lack of action to protect the horses. Neither she nor Reim are giving up, they said.
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