REP. JOHN MCCOMISH

   On the last day of a long legislative session, lawmakers tend to get wistful and try to reflect on the highlights (and lowlights) with bits of humor to help the hours move a little faster.
   One joke today that got some laughs (and probably plenty of mean looks from some Democratic corners) took a place a little while ago during a meeting among House Republicans. Gov. Janet Napolitano holds the record for the most bill vetoes of any governor. She usually finishes her constitutionally required veto message with something along the lines of “For these and other reasons, I veto this bill.”
   A Republican staff member read to the room a top 10 list of those “other reasons.” Here’s a few from the list that I caught while tuning in to the live Web steaming broadcast:

“I can’t find my pen, but I know where my veto stamp is at.”
“I know it will annoy Russell Pearce.”
“I really don’t know what this bill does, but George (Cunningham?) told me to veto it.”

And the No. 1 reason:
“I heard the governor with the most vetoes gets a Dutch treat lunch at La Canasta with the House majority leader.” (That would be Rep. John McComish, R-Ahwatukee Foothills, who runs these House GOP caucus meetings.)

Steve Voeller, president of the Arizona Free Enterprise Club, sent this simple request to the state Legislature today after they adopted a debt-ladden $9.9 billion budget on Thursday. Here’s his note in its entirety:

 The undersigned organizations encourage you to sine die as soon as possible before any more damage is done.

ATRA
Greater Phoenix Chamber of Commerce
NFIB
Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry
Free Enterprise Club

   The state House has narrowly adopted a new $11 billion budget (31-29) that came from the Senate and has the tentative support of Gov. Janet Napolitano. Lots of angst from Republicans who are reliving what happened last year. Again, a handful of their colleagues joined up with the minority Democrats to roll over House leadership. Expect the Legislature to end the 2008 session tonight; exactly when depends on how many more bills lawmakers are willing to hang around for to vote on. Right now, angry Republicans are attempting to shutting down the session immediately.
Update:
   Capitol Media Services is reporting tonight that the Senate adjourned while the House was still working on bills. So the end of the 2008 session has been pushed back at least until Friday.

   Reliable state Capitol sources tells me it’s likely the House will have to concede to the Senate $11 billion budget plan adopted in the wee hours of the morning. It could take all day for the House GOP leadership to accept that. But if true, Gov. Janet Napolitano largely gets the budget she has wanted since January, and rank-and-file lawmakers have got to be asking themselves what they have been doing for the last six months.
   A final budget vote today also likely would lead to an immediate end of the legislative session, leaving a sizeable number of unfinished bills on the table.

REP. RUSSELL PEARCE (original photo at flickr.com)

Usually, events at the Legislature seem to move impossibly slow. But lawmakers can find a way to work at lightning speed when they want to. That’s what is happening tonight, as both the Senate and House try to move through competing sets of bills for a $10 billion to $11 billion budget from committee hearings to final votes – a process that can usually takes a week or longer.
A plenty of stumbles and humor so far, such as when Rep. Russell Pearce, R-Mesa, admitted he didn’t know for sure which amendment he was adding to one House bill, but the Republican majority voted for it anyway to keep things rolling.
There was a major hiccup over in the Senate at about 5:30 p.m. Sen. Bob Burns, R-Peoria and chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, made it clear he doesn’t like the deal struck between his colleagues from both parties. He lectured everyone during the committee hearing about the borrowing, sweeps of special funds and budget tricks, all of which means planning for a budget that begins July 1, 2009, will start with a potential shortfall by $1.2 billion.
“…Basically, we’re going off the cliff at the end of 2009,” Burns said. “I think that’s a problem.”
Burns demanded to know why that fact wasn’t being included in explanations of the current budget proposal being passed around the Capitol. He then suspended the appropriations meeting for 30 minutes, “to get an answer.”
Meanwhile, the House just recessed until about 8 p.m., when it’s expected to take roll-call votes on that chamber’s budget plan from Republican leadership that includes deeper cuts and less borrowing than the Senate version.
Lawmakers will be working late into the night, and it’s pretty murky as to where the Legislature will be at end of the voting. Either plan could fail to pass on roll-call votes. The Senate and House could approve their separate plans and then stare at each other over the next few days to see who blinks first. Or a revolt in one chamber or the other could lead to final passage of a budget to be sent the governor.
Update:
Capitol Media Service is reporting that the House abruptly adjourned for the day shortly before 6:30 p.m., instead of coming back at 8 p.m. to vote on the budget bills. Apparently, there’s doubt that House Speaker Jim Weiers, R-Phoenix, has the 31 votes he needs to pass the House GOP budget.
In any case, we move another day closer to the July 1 deadline and a partial government shutdown.

JOHN SHADEGG

   Democrats are trying to score political points against Rep. John Shadegg, R-Ariz., for a recent quote to a health care industry lobbying group picked up by the Yellow Sheet from Arizona Capitol Times. Here’s the quote as printed in a news release from Shadegg’s Democratic opponent, Bob Lord:

   “It’s important to note, Shadegg said, that contrary to what many believe, no one in this country goes without health care.”

   Lord’s campaign manager goes on to say this shows Shadegg doesn’t understand the crisis facing many Americans.
   But Shadegg made an accurate statement that puts the debate about the future of health care in some context. I constantly turn away comments that claim some white American can’t get any health care because “illegal Mexicans” are getting it all for free at the emergency rooms. The truth is every American can receive a wide variety of medical tests and treatments from emergency rooms at reduced costs or for free if they don’t have health insurance and can’t pay for it on their own. (Illegal immigrants can only receive true emergency care).
   It’s expensive, and treating emergency rooms like a doctor clinic is creating lots of problems for the health care system. But Americans simply aren’t denied live-saving care for a lack of money or health insurance.
Update:
   Sarah Muench, Bob Lord’s communication director, sent me a response to this post and she gave me permission to put it up as well. Here’s her response in full:
   “I understand your argument, but there are millions of Americans who don’t have access to any kind of real health care. There’s a big difference between emergency treatment and real health care. Treatment at an emergency room may include a wide variety of medical tests and emergency care, but when it comes down to someone who has a long-term illness like cancer, that person can’t go to the emergency room for
chemotherapy. And that’s what’s so disappointing about Shadegg’s argument, just think of the 47 million Americans and 9 million children out there without access to real health care. John McCain recognizes this and notes that at any given moment there are tens of
millions of Americans who lost their health insurance because they lost or left a job. Friends of mine have younger siblings who had cancer before they were 10 years old. If they did not have real health care, they would not have gotten the treatment they needed.”

ARIZONA SENATE PRESIDENT TIM BEE (left) AND SEN. MARSHA ARZBERGER (Photo by Capitol Media Services)

  As promised, Senate President Tim Bee, R-Tucson, and Democratic floor leader Marsha Arzberger, D-Willcox, have unveiled what’s supposed to be a bipartisan budget plan with tentative support from Gov. Janet Napolitano to erase a $2 billion shortfall.
   According to the Associated Press, the Senate proposal includes only $361 million in actual cuts, compared to $501 million offered by a House Republican proposal released Monday. A large portion of the difference here comes from the fact that the Senate plan includes a $380 million education “rollover.” This is a frequently used borrowing trick to make it look like the state has more money than it really does. The “rollover” delays payments to school districts normally made in May or June until July, after the start of the next fiscal year.
   Since the House proposal doesn’t have the “rollover,” that’s another $380 million that has to be squeezed out somewhere else. The House also would sweep in $50 million more from special funds than the Senate plan. Such sweeps are often treated as budget cuts by the agencies they affect.
   But the most interesting move in the Senate plan is to boost the Arizona Lottery to fund $1 billion in debt for university building repairs and new construction. Capitol Media Services is reporting that lottery director Art Macias Jr. believes the state can get people to spend more on gambling by increasing the amount of prize money, adding more games and dropping any restrictions on advertising.
   A couple of concerns come to mind. First, does Arizona really want to commit any direct funding of a core function of state government to the vagaries of scratch-off cards, the Pick and the Powerball? Would it make more sense to shift other functions not required by the constitution – state parks, housing subsidies, airport subsidies and the entire Department of Commerce are just four examples — to gambling proceeds and use the tax funds of those programs for constitutional functions such as universities?
   Second, the state can’t sell bonds based just on lottery proceeds; it will still have to pledge tax revenues in case people suddenly find other means of gambling more appealing. Arizona taxpayers still would be responsible for this unless our fellow citizens throw away more of their dollars on this “entertainment.” (Full disclosure: I usually spend a few dollars every month on the Powerball).
   Finally, is anyone in the Senate worried that expecting to make more money from state gambling during tougher economic times makes it appear that lawmakers are taking advantage of the poor and those in desperate straits?
Six days left until the constitutional deadline to have a budget in place. Senate and House hearings on the competing plans will be Wednesday morning. No word on what happens afterward.

(Note correction at bottom of post)
   With seven days left until the July 1 deadline, the state Legislature finally seems to be interested in getting a state budget done. My earlier post today was about a House Republican leadership plan for the 2008-09 budget that’s headed to an appropriations committee meeting Wednesday.
   Well, Capitol Media Services is reporting tonight that Senate leaders are planning to unveil their own proposal Tuesday. This is supposed to be a bi-partisan plan with fewer true budget cuts and an approach Gov. Janet Napolitano is more likely to approve.
   Assuming the Senate does have a deal, this could be a repeat of June 2007. Last year, a breakdown between Senate and House Republicans (which hold a majority of legislative seats) prompted then-Senate President Ken Bennett* to cut a deal with the minority Democrats, in turn who were working in tandem with Napolitano.
   House Speaker Jim Weiers, R-Phoenix, tried to hold his party together. But a handful of House Republicans linked up their Democratic colleagues to pass out the Senate plan. In fact, a majority of House Republican lawmakers voted against the budget that went into law. Weiers took a lot of grief and there was some grumbling about electing a new speaker for 2008.
   In the end, Weiers pledged it would be different this year. But is Weiers trapped in a bad political version of “Groundhog Day”?

*Correction: As a commenter noted, Tim Bee also was president of the state Senate in 2007, not Ken Bennett. I haven’t changed the original post so that the commenter’s post still makes sense.

HOUSE SPEAKER JIM WEIERS (at podium)  OUTSIDE STATE CAPITOL (original photo at www.jimweiers.com)
   After working in private all weekend, leadership of the state House Republicans are unveiling today their plan for a new state budget – without the support of the Senate or Gov. Janet Napolitano.
   A news release from House Speaker Jim Weiers, R-Phoenix, says the budget proposal eliminates a $1.9 billion shortfall (some estimates have placed it at $2.2 billion), mostly through budget cuts and by taking money from special funds (which usually are counted as cuts as well by agencies that depend on those special funds). The budget would borrow $500 million for new primary schools, a serious bone of contention for some Republican lawmakers. But the leadership plan apparently would avoid most of the other options proposed by Napolitano to avoid deeper cuts.
   Details will be forthcoming in the next two days, as Weiers said during a news conference broadcast on the Legislature’s Web site that the bills were still being written.
   The news release provides just a handful of highlights:
** K-12 education will receive $4.6 billion or $200 million more than the current year. There wouldn’t be any cuts to basic student aid to school districts, but the news release hints the proposal includes cuts elsewhere that would affect school districts.
** The plan would cut $106 million used to clean litter from highways and landscape maintenance.
** Language in the budget would forbid the governor from applying any funding cuts for Department of Economic Security to one of its divisions – Child Protective Services.
   With a constitutional deadline just seven days away to adopt a new budget, Weiers said it’s time to stop talking behind closed doors and to do something to deal with the issue.
   “Shutting down the government is not an option,” Weiers said in the news conference. “Shut downs constitute failure.”
   But Weiers admitted he doesn’t know if he has enough votes to pass the leadership plan out of the House, much less get very far with the Senate and the governor. Napolitano already has hinted she won’t accept the budget cuts likely included in this plan. And Republicans can’t override any vetoes as long as Democrats remain united behind her.
   Weiers said the House Appropriations Committee will consider the budget bills Wednesday; the same day that the Senate Appropriations Committee is scheduled to hear a proposal for an emergency 30-day budget if comprehensive version can’t be adopted by July 1.

    With eight days left, they still rested.