The incoming state Senate President, Bob Burns, announced his list of new committees and their chairmen for next year in a news release today. See the complete list below. The most obvious change was Burns’ own replacement as chairman of the Appropriations Committee, Sen.-elect Russell Pearce, R-Mesa. Pearce was in charge of budget appropriations during most of his time in the House, and his experience will be invaluable to Burns as Legislature deals with the on-going budget crisis.

Perhaps the biggest surprise is Sen. John Huppenthal, R-Chandler, taking charge of education issues, as he will chair a committee called education accountability and reform. The title implies that Huppenthal will again take up the cause of school choice and other Republican reform issues. With his background in research and data analysis, I expect Huppenthal to stand toe-to-toe with highly educated school district superintendents and their lobbyists.

Since two education committees will be combined into one, Sen. Linda Gray, R-Phoenix, will become chairwoman of the Public Safety and Human Services Committee.

Here’s the complete list.

Barrett Marson

Tribune writer Mary K. Reinhart’s in-depth profile Sunday of Kirk Adams, the next speaker of the Arizona House of Representatives, revealed the answer to a question being tossed around by journalists and public relations officials alike: Is Barrett Marson in or out as the spokesman for House Republicans? Marson won’t be part of the new administration as Adams looks to replace all of the top staff members from the Jim Weiers administration.

“We’re making a clean break,” Adams told Reinhart. ”This is a good time, especially for Republicans.”

Marson has been the House communications director for more than three years, serving as Weiers’ voice to the media and writing press releases for other House Republicans as well. Marson could be annoyingly aggressive as he tried to get traditional media and bloggers to cover an issue that he believed made his bosses look good or would embarrass Weiers’ most potent foe — Gov. Janet Napolitano. But Marson is generally well-liked for his sense of humor, and always has respected the role of journalists in the politcal system even when some lawmakers didn’t. He also gained extra attention earlier this year during his one-on-one debates with state Democratic Party spokeswoman Emily DeRose on “Horizon,” the local news issues PBS show.

Still, elected leaders who defeat an incumbent, as Adams did with Weiers, typically want new key advisors who don’t have close ties to the prior administration.

A former award-winning print reporter, Marson cover state politics for several years for the Tribune and then the Arizona Daily Star. In 2001, he broke the story of then-Gov. Jane Dee Hull’s frequent weekend flights in a state-owned airplane to stay at her cabin retreat in the White Mountains. That story helped to shape a rather negative image of Hull during her final two years in office.

Graphic illustration by Gabriel Utasi/Tribune

The editorial board of Arizona State University’s student newspaper, the State Press, apparently didn’t like the Tribune’s suggestion that the Arizona Board of Regents postpone any further increases in student tuition or classroom fees for at least one year. The State Press responded with an editorial Thursday that says the Tribune is well-intended but ill-informed, because regents have no choice but to keep raising tuition because the Legislature steadfastly refuses to properly fund the universities.

I can’t say I’m surprised by the State Press editorial. Students attending public colleges routinely believe elected officials don’t understand the importance of such institutions, and so they divert tax dollars to purposes of far less value. I certainly believed that 20 years ago when I was attending the University of Wyoming, and made the exact same argument as the State Press in a column for that campus’ student newspaper.

But the facts are the Arizona Board of Regents has increased tuition and other fees at a rate higher than inflation throughout this decade, while the Legislature has funded student population growth during most of those years. Lawmakers have failed to provide enough funding for building construction and maintenance during the good years. But the universities have made their own mistakes, such as when ASU failed to install enough fire sprinklers when it remodeled the Memorial Union.

Arguments about class sizes being too big or not getting the right professor ring hollow when more students can no longer afford to enroll at a public university in first place, or they have to ring up so much debt that their lives are heavily burdened for years after graduation.

And there’s another issue to consider. Capitol Media Services reported in today’s Tribune that some lawmakers are looking to grab the money that the three universities expect to bring in from this year’s tuition increases. So postponing any additional increases for a year is unlikely to harm the universities, but would be a boon for students in a tough economy and might ease growing tensions between the board of regents and the Legislature.

    REP. DAVID LUJAN

Last summer, a small group of Valley journalists and people from other careers met at the Tempe Public Library to discuss possible ways to make government more transparent to the public, with an emphasis on freedom of information and open records law.s The meeting was organized by the 21st Century Right-to-Know Project as part of a national listening tour for the purpose of developing proposed policy changes for the incoming new president (whether it turned out to be John McCain or Barack Obama).

While most of the discussion focused on federal agencies, state Rep. David Lujan, D-Ariz., spoke to the group about how Arizona law works and where potential gaps might be. The back-and-forth led to the point that while Arizona has a robust open records’ law that most lawmakers support, the Legislature always has been exempt from obeying it. Lujan noted the irony that the Legislature expects other government agencies to follow a statute that lawmakers won’t impose on themselves.

Lujan pledged before the group to draft and introduce a bill next year that would generally include the Legislature under the open records statute. Now, I wouldn’t expect such a bill to get anywhere. Individual lawmakers and legislative agencies actually are quite good about releasing records and other data from their offices, if only to avoid the appearance of trying to hide something from the public. But a number of lawmakers I’ve talked to don’t believe the open records law should apply to the Legislature, to protect those rare instances in which they choose not to share anything. They see such a law as intruding on the constitutional authority of individual lawmakers as elected officeholders (even though the same law already applies to county board of supervisors and city councils).

What’s interesting here is House Democrats decided last week to name Lujan as their new leader, replacing Phil Lopes of Tucson. So if Lujan keeps his pledge, he could give more visibility to a bill that requires the Arizona Legislature to release its records, instead of simply trusting lawmakers to do so.

REP. KIRK ADAMS SPEAKS WITH STATE CAPITOL REPORTERS THURSDAY AFTER BEING SELECTED BY FELLOW REPUBLICANS TO BE THE NEW HOUSE SPEAKER (Photo by Capitol Media Services).

A fair number of people were unimpressed when I wrote a few weeks ago about Rep. Kirk Adams, R-Mesa, seeking to unseat Rep. Jim Weiers, R-Phoenix, as speaker of the state House of Representatives. Few outsiders I talked to gave Adams any realistic chance of winning the House’s top leadership post, unless Republicans suffered a bloodbath in Tuesday’s election.

Republicans actually did better than expected Tuesday, and they have expanded the number of House seats they control. But Capitol Media Services is reporting that Adams defeated Weiers anyway today in a private meeting of incoming Republican House members.

Among the people who should be thrilled by this news is Gov. Janet Napolitano. She and Weiers have developed a rather intense dislike of one another during her six years in office. Napolitano and her Democratic allies tried both in 2006 and this year to knock Weiers out of the House with candidate challenges in his home district. But they failed.

While Adams isn’t any closer to Napolitano philosophically, he’s more likely to have an on-going working relationship with her — if she doesn’t leave Arizona for Washington, D.C., for a post in Barack Obama’s presidential administration.

Here’s Capitol Media Services’ first report:

House Republicans ousted speaker Jim Weiers on Thursday, choosing a Mesa lawmaker who promised a more effective effort to enact `”good Republican policy.” And that, said Kirk Adams, means adopting Republican budgets — budgets that have less spending and are actually balanced against revenues, “not one that has a $1.2 billion hole in the moment that it’s passed.”
Adams said he believes he — and the other Republicans — have a mandate from voters to pursue those policies by virtue of the fact that it appears that the GOP picked up two seats in the 60-member chamber. That gives them a 35-25 edge over Democrats. The lifelong Arizona resident said he is not planning to exclude the minority Democrats.
“They certainly should have a voice and it should be an open and transparent process,” he said.
“It should be respectful of everybody’s opinion,” Adams continued. “But at the end of the day, when we vote on those
bills or we vote on the budget, we also need to respect the will of the voters.”
And Adams said that shift occurred “in a year, in a country, where it wasn’t a good year for Republicans anywhere else, except perhaps in the Arizona Legislature.”

Everywhere I go these days, people tell me they are expecting big things for Democrats on Tuesday, even in the home state of Republican presidential candidate John McCain. They point to polls showing that Democratic candidate Barack Obama is within striking distance here in Arizona, as well as the hefty fund raising that the state Democratic Party has done this election cycle.

But, as counterintuitive as it sounds, the heavy turnout expected for Tuesday plays in favor of Republicans in Arizona, especially incumbent officials in races where name recognition will heavily influence who wins.

Tribune writer Dennis Welch explains some of this in his story today about how the early ballots returned so far reflect the large voter registration advantage that Republicans have in Maricopa County.

In fact, Maricopa County Republicans make up nearly 46 percent of the returned early ballots, while Republicans make up just under 40 percent of the total number of county registered voters. On the other hand, registered voters who fall in the “other” category make up only 19.6 percent of the returned early ballots, while they are 27.8 percent of all registered voters this year.

So Maricopa County Democrats, who must have independents swing their way to take away elected offices from Republicans, will have to count on an even stronger turnout on Tuesday to overcome the Republican early voting advantage. Sure, there are Republicans who will to vote for Obama and perhaps even Democrats in hotly congested congressional races. But history tells us such voters revert to party patterns as they move further down the ballot, especially with candidates that have higher name recognization than the challenger from the other party. That’s good news for Republican lawmakers and other incumbents such as Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio and County Attorney Andrew Thomas.

Greg Patterson, one of Arizona’s most popular political bloggers, has gone out on a limb and predicted that Arizona Republicans will have a surprising number of victories on Tuesday. I’m not going that far, but I do think Republicans will fare better than conventional wisdom is proclaiming on the street. For example, I previously have said I don’t believe Democrats can take control of either chamber of the Arizona Legislature.

Now I know why Arizona Democrats are so enthusiastic about the Nov. 4 election. The Republican Party’s edge in registered voters has slipped to less than 100,000 people, or 37 percent of the total number of registered voters compared to the Democrats’ 34 percent. As reported today by Paul Davenport with The Associated Press, Democrats have moved above 1 million registered voters for the first time ever. Just four years ago, Republicans held a 40 percent to 35 percent advantage.

The biggest swings include the 3rd Congressional District (home of Rep. John Shadegg, R-Ariz.) where Republicans actually have lost about 500 registered voters since 2004, while Democrats have added about 5,000; and in the 5th Congressional District (home of Rep. Harry Mitchell, D-Ariz.) where Republicans have lost a whopping 10,000 registered voters while Democrats have picked up about 9,000. (The GOP still has the largest number of voters in both districts).

Of course, both major parties have lost a huge number of voters to minor parties and unaffiliated independent registrations. The portion of voters registered in the “other” category (which excludes Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians and now the Green Party), has surged from 17 percent in 2000 to almost 28 percent now.

But independents tended to vote for Democrats in 2006, which is why that party unexpectedly picked up additional seats in the Arizona Legislature and Mitchell defeated former Rep. J.D. Hayworth. All signs point to independents doing the same this year. This reinforces my expectation that Arizona will send more Democrats than Republicans to the U.S. House for the first time since 1966. But I still believe there aren’t enough viable Democrat candidates for that party to take control of either chamber in the Legislature.

I recently wrote in a print column that a Maricopa County Superior Court judge had declared unconstitutional a two-year-old Arizona law that allowed disputes between homeowner association boards and HOA members to be addressed by a state hearing officer. This was intended to be a more affordable and homeowner-friendly alternative to fighting an HOA board in court. The point of the column was to outline various possible options if that ruling stands. But the headline of the column was rather provocative, suggesting that I sided completely with the HOA industry in opposing any more government regulation. That brought out some real anger among both local readers and HOA activists across the country. Here’s an example of what they had to say to me from reader Melissa Hill:

“Before you wrote this article you should have investigated further into the issues surrounding HOAs and the folks that live in them. This is not simply a contractual issue. A few members of a neighborhood can band together and change the contract ‘rules.’ or contract terms, at any time without discussion or vote, as has happened in my neighborhood, and use scare tactics to force the neighbors into ‘compliance”’of these new contract terms, as they would be considered by (Scott) Carpenter.  While this is illegal under our existing documents, they do it because they know that the homeowners do not have the money to challenge them in a court of law.  In the real world we call that “bait and switch”, also known as FRAUD.

“The title of your article is downright irresponsible and shows your ignorance of the rampant misdoings in HOAs.  I’m a board member in my HOA, and I know what I’m talking about.  And my board president IS A LAWYER.  Mr. Carpenter has much to gain by leaving the system as it is. This is not a professional opinion that should carry much weight in a story about the true FACTS of the situation.”

And that was among the more polite emails I received (Melissa and I exchanged several additional emails of a more positive nature, and I respect her passion on this issue).

While doing my interviews, it was pointed out that a Superior Court judge doesn’t set precedent. So the hearing officer process might just continue even if it couldn’t be applied to this specific case. But another alert reader let me know that Scott Carpenter’s law firm already has requested that the judge’s ruling be applied to all future HOA cases, which essentially would block the hearing officer route entirely.

We’re still waiting to hear whether state Attorney General Terry Goddard will appeal the ruling.

Forget what’s happening in Washington. Arizonans should be more focused on the escalating budget crisis right in our own backyard. Gov. Janet Napolitano is hoping (praying? tossing pennies into wishing wells?) that the funding shortfall for the 3-month-old fiscal year will be only $320 million, but is willing to consider a worst-case scenario of $850 milllion. That’s after Napolitano and the Legislature adopted a budget in late June that erased a shortfall predicted at the time to be $1.9 billion.

However, state lawmakers were told Tuesday during a special briefing that tax revenues appear to coming in at about $100 million less than state spending every month. That means the potential deficit will surge past Napolitano’s optimistic projection by, oh, well, this Monday.

Unlike a year ago, Napolitano appears to understand the scope and the depth of the budget crisis. She sounds like she’s riding hard on state agencies to limit expenses, although it would easier to see that if her budget office could produce some detailed numbers to demonstrate concrete savings. She’s also working on some rather inventive ideas, such as selling or leasing the Arizona Lottery to a private operator and accepting a chunk of cash from tobacco companies now, in exchange for reducing their overall payments under the 1999 master tobacco settlement.

But those solutions are temporary at best, providing only a one-time infusion of cash. The whole purpose of Wednesday’s special meeting for lawmakers and legislative candidates was to drive home the point that as bad as things are right now, they probably will get worse in 2009. Private economist Elliott Pollack repeated his recent presentation to state business leaders with a blizzard of facts about the economic slowdown and he predicted a real recovery won’t reach Arizona probably until 2011.

The real challenge, according to top legislative budget analyst Richard Stavneak, is Napolitano and the Legislature have crafted a $10.7 billion general fund budget, but the economy seems to be able to only support spending on a stable basis at $8.7 billlion.

The state has $120 million in savings, and then the money tree is pretty close to leafless for this year and next. And more than half of the budget (primarily K-12 education and health care spending) can’t be touched by lawmakers because they are protected by voter-approved formulas and spending mandates. If lawmakers immediately adopted a 20 percent budget cut for every state agency that they do have say over, it would save only $400 million, Stavneak said. And such cuts would have to include state prisons, the Department of Public Safety, universities and community colleges.

That’s why Sen. Thayer Verschoor, R-Gilbert, said Wednesday the Legislature should be looking at a special statewide election as soon as January to ask voters for relief from the mandates. Lawmakers likely would seek permission to temporarily cut back on state spending for school districts and to benefits provided by AHCCCS.

The only other route out of the crisis would be higher taxes. It’s pretty much guaranteed that the temporary suspension of the business personal property tax will be allowed to expire — bringing in $250 million a year starting in 2010. But there likely won’t be any other serious tax proposals, despite complaints from some Democrats and special interest groups, unless or until Napolitano decides to throw her political capital behind such an unpopular move.

I learned this morning that the conspicuous absence of House Speaker Jim Weiers, R-Ariz., from a commission created by Gov. Janet Napolitano to plan Arizona’s centennial celebration was his choice, not the governor’s. In fact, Weiers couldn’t bother to return repeated phone calls from Napolitano’s office inviting him to join the commission as did all living former governors, Senate President Tim Bee, R-Tucson, Senate Minority Leader Marsha Arzberger, D-Willcox, and House Minority Leader Phil Lopes, D-Tucson.

I tried to speak with spokespeople for both Napolitano and Weiers before writing my original blog item, but they didn’t return my phone call until after it was posted. This morning, House Republican spokesman Barrett Marson said Weiers didn’t see any point to serving on the governor’s commission as another already existed. I believe Marson is referring to one or more committees working with the state Historical Advisory Commission, which previously was designated by law to coordinate planning for the celebration of the state’s 100th birthday.

“I don’t think we need two agencies to do one job,” Marson said.

Hmm, Napolitano would have had an opportunity to explain why she was creating a new, more high-profile group to take the lead, if only Weiers had taken her phone call. One important reason, as I mentioned in my previous post, is the state needs to raise private cash quickly because of the state’s budget problems. If Napolitano can’t do it with the group of people she has assembled for her centennial commission, I’m not sure it can be done.

Weiers might have a point about Napolitano bypassing the existing government infrastructure (which she previously supported) and creating something new that she has more control over. But Weiers is supposed to be a state leader, and he comes off as petulant and petty when he couldn’t take five minutes to discuss the issue with the governor or her staff.