But that answer really isn’t correct. Some people like to the point to the Continental Congress during the Revolutionary War as the orginator of the office of president. But that position belonged to the presiding officer of a body of legislators, rather than to a head of a separate branch of government that carried out laws and commanded the military.

However, the United States won its independence in 1781 but didn’t ratify the Constitution until 1789. In the interim, our country was governed by the Articles of Confederation. Eight men were selected as president under that system of government, starting with John Hanson of Maryland — who has his own little museum in Ohio.

Why don’t we remember and honor these presidents today? Well, they were each elected to one year in office, and had almost no power to do anything. Their lack of leadership, and the general weakness of the federal government, threatened to tear the young union apart. When Congress drafted the Constitution and started to shop it around for support, some people believed our experiment in a democratic republic already had failed and wanted George Washington to become America’s first king.

Washington refused a throne, and only reluctantly accepted the call to serve as president to keep the states from going their seperate ways. That’s why we prefer to think of Washington as the first president.

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U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano (far left) was part of a White House meeting in February with President Barack Obama in this photo posted at whitehouse.gov by the Obama administration.

With the state budget crisis on hold until Monday, I can take a moment to mention other tidbits that have happened in the past week or so. Here’s a few items that caught my eye:

• Janet Napolitano, one-time governor and now U.S. Homeland Security secretary, was named by President Barack Obama to be his lead negotiator with Congress on immigration reform policies. Obama revealed this after a high-level June 25 meeting at the White House intended to jump-start an effort to finally resolve the nation’s broken immigration system. Napolitano received a huge amount of media attention when the swine flu pandemic was first identified. She seemed to be on my television news every day for weeks. Now, she it’s likely she’ll be back in the spotlight this fall on an issue that, until the economy collapsed, had been one of hottest domestic topics especially among talk radio and television and certainly here in Arizona.
• Have you taken the Tribune’s Fourth of July quiz yet? And you passed, right? Of course you did, that’s why you read this blog! But if you are, say, under 30, you are likely to be in a shrinking minority who actually understand basic American civics. Tribune writer Mandy Zajac used questions from the official test given to all immigrants seeking to become U.S. citizens. The Goldwater Institute used the same test when it recently surveyed 1,350 Arizona public high school students and found nearly 97 percent couldn’t pass the exam! The institute’s Matthew Ladner suggests high schools should require the citizenship test for graduation, or colleges should require it for admission. I’ve got to say, if we expect foreigners in this country to have this knowledge, how we can fail to demand it from everyone else?
• The Associated Press reported on a Republican candidate for Maine’s governor who appears to have “borrowed” the Obama campaign logo from last year. I’m detecting a pattern here, as we noticed a similar concern in April with John Paul Mitchell, a Republican candidate for Arizona governor.

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“I’m telling you, unless we would have hypnotized people, we did everything that we could to convince people to support the governor’s proposal for the tax referral,” Adams said, according to Capitol Media Services. “And short of the body snatchers returning, the votes were simply not there.”

I don’t see where Brewer finds those votes when the Legislature returns in special session Monday to reconsider the $8.4 billion budget that she has whacked with line-item vetoes. Democrats have unified against the sales tax proposal, believing voting for it would validate a budget written entirely by Republicans, even though the additional revenues would mitigate the worst of the budget cuts.

Meanwhile, most Republicans have signed the “no tax pledge,” and the group behind that pledge has informed lawmakers in writing that it considers referring a proposed sales tax increase to the voters (instead of the Legislature just adopting it) to be a violation of that pledge. In many Republican-dominated legislative districts, that pledge figures prominently in primaries.

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Gov. Jan Brewer

Gov. Jan Brewer just made it official. She has line-item vetoed most the state budget adopted by Republican lawmakers early this morning, leaving just enough funding in place to keep government functions operating. And she has summoned the Legislature back into special session on Monday. She included in her call a special request for a temporary tax increase to fund education, public safety and health care programs.

“… I received this morning a fatally flawed legislative budget,” Brewer said in a news release. “The legislative budget ignores my consistently expressed goals and instead incorporates devastating cuts education, public safety, and our state’s most vital health services for the frail. In particular, this package of bills is shortsighted in that it sets up an enormous revenue shortfall that will severely harm our state’s future.”

UPDATE: In reading through the governor’s official veto messages, it appears what Brewer really did was line-item veto much of the $630 million in budget cuts approved by Republicans in the Legislature. That’s puts the budget further out of balance, at least until she reaches some kind of deal with the Legislature.

This move is intended to pressure on conservatives who refused to vote for the proposed statewide sales tax election. The budget deficit will keep growing every day until those cuts are restored or new sources of revenue are found.

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But many lawmakers predicted Gov. Jan Brewer would veto most, if not all, of the budget package and call lawmakers back in a special session as soon as Monday. KJZZ radio reported this morning that the doors to the Senate building where briefly locked while lawmakers were still debating bills, apparently in an attempt to prevent Brewer from sending back a vetoed budget before the Legislature could adjourn at about 7:30 a.m.

Now, the Arizona Guardian speculates that Brewer could sign portions of the spending bills to keep “essential” government services operating while using her line-item veto powers to reject the rest.

A note placed at the top of the Arizona Department of Administration’s home page at 5:30 a.m. urged all state employees to report to work today. The Arizona State Parks agency had claimed it was closing all but two of its parks at midnight, but its Web site this morning implies the agency has reversed that decision.

Meanwhile, we await word from the governor’s office on what happens next…

UPDATE: Arizona State Parks has announced the agency is reopening all state parks this morning.

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Sen. Jorge Garcia, D-Tucson, noted at 11:50 p.m. that the Senate digital floor clock was mysteriously turned off, persumably so there’s no official record that the deadline passed without a budget. Garcia’s Democratic colleagues in the Senate did drag the issue past midnight with a series of amendments intended to reduce various spending cuts.  All were rejected by the Republican majority without comment.

Of course, Gov. Jan Brewer will have little time to decide whether to sign the budget that doesn’t include a requested statewide sales tax election, whenever it’s finally delivered to her. If she doesn’t sign it within a few hours, she will have to figure how to manage a state government that doesn’t yet have any spending authority from lawmakers.

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Gov. Janet Brewer

At this hour, the state of House of Representatives is moving to approve a $8.4 billion budget that would include most of the items requested by Brewer. But the package doesn’t include a statewide election for a temporary 1-cent sales tax increase that Brewer has insisted is necessary to avoid decimating education and health care programs. I suggested earlier today this could happen. The Senate Rules Committee reversed itself and signed off on the sales tax election at 8 p.m., according the Arizona Capitol Times. But I still don’t think there’s the necessary 16 votes in the full Senate for final approval.

According to Capitol Media Services, Brewer has been careful not to repeat her veto threat in public today. Instead, she has tried to sound optimistic that she would reach some compromise with the Legislature. But the Democrats won’t have anything to do with the Republican-drafted budget plan at this point. Neither Brewer nor legislative leaders have been able to swing enough GOP legislative votes for a sales tax election.

The fiscal year ends at midnight, and if Brewer hasn’t signed a budget, presumably a wide swath of state agencies will lack the authority to keep operating. State parks already were closing this afternoon and Motor Vehicle Disivion offices could be locked up tight tomorrow. However, school districts should expect to receive their share of a $600 million payment that’s due, and public higher education campuses plan to stay open because they are funded from a variety of sources besides those monies appropriated by the Legislature. Brewer’s office has yet to disclose how other state agencies will be handled if a budget doesn’t exist on Wednesday.

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Senate President Bob Burns (left) confers Tuesday with Sen. John Huppenthal, R-Chandler, on the final day of the state fiscal year. (Capitol Media Services photo by Howard Fischer).

There’s just six hours left in Arizona’s fiscal year, and there’s plenty of rumors flying around the Valley and across the state about what the Legislature and the governor are doing behind closed doors to finish a budget before a government shutdown (although that already has started). But the calculus comes down to Gov. Jan Brewer wants a sales tax election to offset the deepest budget cuts to education and health care. Democrats and Republicans alike won’t give that election to her (for different political reasons). That leaves lawmakers with two choices:

1. Adopt a short-term budget that covers a few days or weeks, giving all sides more time to negotiate over spending details or,

2. Send Brewer the budget already adopted June 4, with or without the revisions that have moved somewhat through the legislative process in the past few days. Then, start pointing fingers if Brewer vetoes that budget and prompts a partial government shutdown.

I know Republican leadership has draft legislation for a short-term budget. But Senate President Bob Burns and House Speaker Kirk Adams have spent so much time today trying to salvage the budget deal struck with Brewer that they are physically running out of time to get these new bills introduced and approved by midnight. It’s doable now. In three or four hours, it’s far less likely.

By the way, the House and Senate have been doing the special committee dances and bill exchanges that typically signal the last day of the regular session is here. But my guess is if Brewer does drop the veto stamp on the budget, she also calls a special session immediately so lawmakers can’t disappear into the night and leave the governor facing angry Arizonans by herself.

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Lake Havasu State Park

We’re about seven hours away from a real government shutdown, but Arizona state parks already are closing in expectation that the Legislature and the governor won’t finish a budget by midnight.

A news release says park rangers started telling people in state campgrounds at 4 p.m. today to leave. All but two of  the state parks will shut down indefinitely. Parks near Show Low and Lake Havasu City will stay open as part of an agreement to have the local municipalities operate them until the state is back in business.

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Sen. Jay Tibshraeny, R-Chandler, waits to make a point Tuesday as legislators discuss elements of the budget proposal (Capitol Media Services photo by Howard Fischer).

Frantic budget negotiations continue behind closed doors at the state Capitol at this hour. Rep. David Lujan, D-Phoenix, has sent out word by Twitter that Gov. Jan Brewer is directly involved in trying to convince individual Democrats to vote for at least the proposed sales tax election that could minimize the more than $600 billion in budget cuts.

Meanwhile, the Senate took some votes on unrelated bills and, according to the live Web broadcast, several senators used their speaking time to talk more about the budget. Several Democrats decried the funding reductions and policy changes for school districts, with Sen. Paula Aboud, D-Tucson, describing the proposed budget as “an insult to teachers and to all of the work you do.”

Sen. John Huppenthal, R-Chandler and a likely candidate for schools superintendent next year, defended the Republican approach.
“Those comments are partisan and incorrectly describe what has been done as we have wrapped ourselves around the axle trying to limit cuts to education.,” he said.

Sen. Jay Tibshraeny, R-Chandler, wanted to know why they were taking any votes on unrelated bills. After all, there’s only 9.5 hours until the current fiscal year ends. “Let’s get on with the budget,” Tibshraeny said.

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