ARIZONA’S COPPER DOME (original photo on Arizona Capitol Museum’s Web site)
Today is supposed to mark the halfway point of the regular session of the Arizona Legislature. Senate and House committees have finished their work on the original bills assigned to them and have moved on to measures that started in the other chamber. Lawmakers are engaged in high-minded debate related to hot button issues such as abortion, climate change, protecting gun ownership, right-sizing government and complying with constitutional principles … Huh? What? Oh, sorry. I must have dozed off for a moment and was having the most interesting dream.
Today is supposed to mark the halfway point of the regular session of the Arizona Legislature, and not much is happening at the state Capitol — except lawmakers from all sides continue to heap criticism on Gov. Jan Brewer’s still undefined plan to resolve the state’s budget crisis. Bills are going nowhere, and gambling types are taking odds that lawmakers will be at their desks in August. Things are so quiet that one of the Legislature’s more prominent and active Democrats is taking the week off to travel to the Middle East.
Personally, I’m tempted to declare Brewer’s budget agenda all but dead. Senate President Bob Burns, R-Peoria, said today he can’t support a special election this spring on either a $1 billion temporary tax increase or on repealing portions of the 1998 Voter Protection Act so that lawmakers would have more flexibility to adjust spending formulas for K-12 and early childhood education and health care for the poor. The main hesitation I have is Burns and the rest of Republican leadership have yet to publicly present a budget proposal that eliminates a projected $3 billion deficit without either of those alternative tools. So Brewer’s GOP colleagues possibly still could come around, maybe.
However, Burns has stayed firm to his committment not to allow any bills to be heard in the Senate until the budget problems are solved. So it seems Brewer and anyone who thinks like her (is there anyone at this point?) will have to somehow work around him. That means a budget deal is still weeks or months away. How much can I bet that the session will last until Sept. 1?
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Great! Now, nothing is going to get done. When will these guys learn that that need to do something and they need to do it NOW! If you have $3 billion in cuts, show them now. Hold hearings. Lets see what our state is going to look like after all of these dramatic cuts.
If not, start moving forward with Brewer’s plan. We don’t have time to waste here.
[...] nowhere fast By fixarizona The legislative session is supposed to be half over and nothing is done. Meanwhile President Burns is now telling people that the voters [...]