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Archive for the 'David Lujan' Tag

Brewer burns all kinds of bridges

September 4th, 2009, 6:17 pm by Le Templar

Gov. Jan Brewer blamed “extremists” from both political parties to justify her budget actions today which included vetoing a bill that would have permanently repealed the state property tax and also included line-item vetoes of budget cuts to K-12 education and the Department of Economic Security.

On the Republican side, Brewer’s insult was primarily aimed at Sens. Pamela Gorman of Anthem, Ron Gould of Lake Havasu City, and Carolyn Allen of Scottsdale, lawmakers who refused to support the governor’s proposed sales tax election even when it was linked to bigger cuts in personal and corporate income taxes a few years later.

But on the Democratic side, Brewer was referring to … well, all of them. Not a single Democratic lawmaker ever broke ranks over the past nine months to vote for the temporary sales tax proposal. That’s 12 Senate Democrats and 25 House Democrats that the governor has labeled as so far out of the mainstream that they don’t reflect any significant collection of interests in Arizona.

In blaming the Democrats, the governor was trying to provide herself some cover in rejecting the property tax repeal, which had been the highest priority of most Republican lawmakers. But Republicans aren’t going to buy her excuses for a minute when Democrats can make statements like this:

“We are adamant in our resistance to giving massive tax cuts to special interests and big business at the expense of public education, and the actions taken by the governor indicate that she feels the same way. So why are we sitting here today with the governor trying to blame us is lost on me,”  said Rep. Chad Campbell, D-Phoenix.

“What we are proposing is consistent with what she wants. Where she is receiving resistance is from Republicans in Legislature,” said House Democratic Floor Leader David Lujan.

House Speaker Kirk Adams and Senate President Bob Burns sought to remain diplomatic and measured in their disappointment to vetoes that not only wiped out the property tax repeal, but created a state budget that’s at least $350 million in the red. But House Appropriations Committee chairman John Kavanagh, R-Fountain Hills, said the anger among Republicans would be swift and deep once they understood the full consequences of Brewer’s vetoes.

Kavanagh predicted there’s little chance the Republican majority will support yet another special session before Sept. 30, as Brewer has requested. The bill with the property tax repeal also included other changes to fees and policies for 12 smaller state agencies to help balance the budget. Brewer’s veto will leave the 12 agencies desperately short on cash in the coming months unless the Legislature acts again.

“I can’t conceive of a way that a “clean-up” bill is approved unless it has an amendment to repeal the (property) tax,” Kavanagh said.

Brewer clearly believes she did the right thing for the people of Arizona. But the budget crisis is far from over, and she might find herself running out of allies whenever the Legislature does take the issue up again.

Posted in: Arizona Legislature • Arizona government • Governor • • • • • • • • | 6 Comments »

Senators want to see the budget

June 30th, 2009, 2:28 pm by Le Templar
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).

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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State budget countdown: House near meltdown?

June 24th, 2009, 3:23 pm by Le Templar
House Speaker Kirk Adams

House Speaker Kirk Adams

Tempers flared hot today in the House of Representatives as lawmakers rush to finish work on dozens of bills held up for months because of the budget crisis. House Speaker Kirk Adams, R-Mesa, took the rare step of appointing a new member to one committee at the last minute to keep some of those bills alive, and Democrats went to the House floor to cry “foul.”

This is the last week for standing committees to meet, so any bill still waiting in line for a hearing on Saturday will be lost for the year. Every committee must have a minimum number of its members present (called a quorum) in order to conduct any business. Today, Rep. Ray Barnes, R-Phoenix, was absent from the House Committee on Military Affairs and Public Safety. Democrats on the committee saw a chance to prevent consideration of Senate Bill 1270, which would allow most people to carry concealed guns without a state permit, and other measures they don’t like. All of the Democrats removed themselves from the room as well, leaving the committee without enough members to meet.

So during a committee recess, Adams drafted freshman Rep. David Stevens, R-Sierra Vista, from somewhere in the House hallways to become a new committee member and thwart the Democrats. The committee came back with Stevens to hear the rest of its bills, and several Republicans took some time to bitterly complain about the Democrats’ tactic.

In turn, the Democrats complained Adams had violated House rules with the abrupt change to the committee. But the general consensus by this afternoon was that Kirk’s move was allowed. Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Gilbert, pointed out on the House floor that a number of years ago, former House Speaker Mark Killian, R-Mesa, had gotten so upset with a committee chairman that Killian replaced that person with another House lawmaker while the committee was meeting.

That didn’t stop Democratic floor leaders David Lujan and Kyrsten Sinema from formally objecting. Sinema said the move wasn’t fair to Stevens, to the committee or the public because he had to vote on bills he had almost no time to review. Lujan seemed at least as angry about the verbal barbs tossed at the Democrats.

On the other hand, Rep. Jim Weiers, R-Phoenix (a former House speaker) said Adams was too kind to the Democrats.

“If people don’t want to go through with their responsibilities, then just remove them (from the committee),” Weiers said.

Several House members said things appear to be unraveling as the end of the fiscal year approaches (six days left) without an adopted state budget and the possibility of a government shutdown looms ever larger.

“I think everyone is letting their emotions get the better of them in these last few days down here, and we can’t do that,” said Rep. Chad Campbell, D-Phoenix.

“I have enjoyed the debate,” Rep Bill Konopnicki, R-Safford, added in a dry tone. “But we have to get to work.”

Posted in: Arizona Legislature • • • • • • • | 2 Comments »

All state budget talk, all the time

January 3rd, 2009, 12:30 pm by Le Templar


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.

Posted in: Arizona Legislature • Arizona government • Governor • • • • • | Post a Comment »

New House minority leader pledged to force lawmakers to follow the law

November 10th, 2008, 12:06 pm by Le Templar


    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.

Posted in: Arizona Legislature • Arizona government • Freedom of Information • • • | Post a Comment »
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