Senate President-designate Bob Burns

The winter holidays are over, a New Year has arrived, and much of Arizona’s political attention now turns the pending opening of a new Legislature followed shortly thereafter by a new governor (unless Janet Napolitano unexpectedly runs into confirmation problems with the U.S. Senate). This could be a legislative session unlike any other in living memory — if incoming Senate President Bob Burns has anything to say about it.

Burns has pledged to prevent any bill from reaching the Senate floor until the Legislature has addressed the state’s massive budget problems. This promise hasn’t really discouraged rank-and-file lawmakers from writing up bills, with House members filing more than 900 proposals and the Senate adding another 550 so far.

Legislative leaders have tried before to halt all business to compel lawmakers to focus on budget matters like a laser. One prominent example was in 2002, when all bills were frozen in their tracks mid-session for about three weeks.

While this tactic makes lots of common sense to outsiders, it never has worked as legislative leaders intend. As a budget deal wasn’t immediately forthcoming, those lawmakers not involved in the closed-door negotiations (and that would be most of them) would get bored and then anxious about their special bills slowing twisting in the wind. They would start linking their support for specific budget proposals to getting their own bills moving again. Legislative leaders couldn’t appear to be giving special treatment, so they turned the spout on again, bills resumed flowing through the legislative session, and the budget would again be rushed to a finish at the end of the session.

However, it could be much different this year. Burns strikes me as committed enough or stubborn enough to withstand psychological pressure for a long time. He will have a loyal ally in this endeavor with his appropriations chairman, Sen.-elect Russell Pearce, R-Mesa, who has pointed out repeatedly that adopting a balanced budget is the only action that the Legislature is required to do by the state constitution.

And at the outset, Democratic leaders Rep. David Lujan and Sen. Jose Luis Garcia have said they support no action on non-budget bills until the fiscal woes are handled. It’s going to hard for them to take back these public statements later and criticize Burns or incoming House Speaker Kirk Adams, R-Mesa, for holding up measures not directly related to spending or taxes.

In January and February, we should see one of the most interesting sets of early days in a legislative session in Arizona history.

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.