ARIZONA TREASURER DEAN MARTIN, LEFT, AND GOV. JANET NAPOLITANO COULDN’T AGREE TODAY ON WHETHER MARTIN’S OFFICE NEEDS TO START NEGOTIATING WITH BANKS FOR A LINE OF CREDIT IN CASE THE STATE RUNS OUT OF OPERATING CASH BEFORE A NEW BUDGET IS ADOPTED. (Photo by Capitol Media Services)

The most interesting news to come out of a special meeting today of something called the state Loan Commission was that Gov. Janet Napolitano attended and put on a rather fiesty performance. There’s been a lot of spectulation that Napolitano has basically checked out of her state job as she prepares for hearings next week on her nomination to be secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. Napolitano has stopped holding weekly media briefings and her last scheduled public appearance here in Arizona was on Dec. 9.

But there she was today, live and in person, fulfilling her duties as chief executive — although she apparently thought the meeting called by state Treasurer Dean Martin was a waste of time. Her actions to prevent Martin from setting a maxium possible interest rate on any borrowing for operating cash, well, that has to raise expectations for the proposed budget her office is expected to release late next week. For Napolitano to be true to her words (”If the Legislature adopts the budget plans that I have proposed … there will be no need for borrowing.”), she’s going to have to come up with a rather compelling approach to fixing a $1.5 billion deficit with more than half of the fiscal year already over.

BILLY SHIELDS (LEFT), FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE PHOENIX FIREFIGHTERS UNION, ESCORTS GOV. JANET NAPOLITANO AT THE FORMAL 2006 DEDICATION OF THE ARIZONA 9/11 MEMORIAL (Original photo at azgovernor.gov).

Randy Pullen, chairman of the Arizona Republican Party, made an interesting point today about the news that Gov. Janet Napolitano is about to sign an executive order granting “meet and confer” status to unions that represent employees at most state agencies. Pullen points out Napolitano had six years to unilaterally recognize unions, but she’s doing so only now that she’s poised to resign as governor and become director of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

“Arizona is a right-to-work state and the governor is changing a long standing policy because she knows it won’t matter to her political future in Arizona,” Pullen said.  “The Legislature has repeatedly refused to pass similar bills.”

I would add that Napolitano no longer would have to deal with the budget implications of granting state employee unions some direct negotiating power. So it’s easier for her to give these unions something they have long desired and could score her points with Democrats in other parts of the country. However, I wonder if the unions shouldn’t be somewhat insulted that Napolitano waited so long. Tribune writer Mark Flatten reported in 2002 that the firefighter unions played a key role in her first campaign for governor by gathering many of the $5 contributions that she needed to qualify for public campaign funds. Unions also have been large fundraisers for state Democratic Party efforts, and Napolitano certainly has been aware of this.

Pullen goes on to demand an official investigation, essentially claiming that Napolitano is consciously rewarding union campaign contributions with the “meet and confer” status, ala what’s going on with the Illinois governor right now. However, if Pullen has any actual evidence of such quid pro quo with the specific unions involved, he should be filing a criminal complaint instead of hoping some prosecutor reads his comments and is inspired to act.

GOV. JANET NAPOLITANO (LEFT) ANSWERS A QUESTION MONDAY AFTER CERTIFYING THE NOV. 4 ELECTION RESULTS WITH SECRETARY OF STATE JAN BREWER (RIGHT). (Photo by Capitol Media Services).

There’s a growing drum-beat among Republican activists and bloggers that Gov. Janet Napolitano should step down immediately now that she has been formally selected to run the Department of Homeland Security when Barack Obama becomes president. The cheerleaders include radio talk show host Austin Hill on the Tribune’s Opinion 2 page,  Len Munsil, who ran against Napolitano for governor in 2006, Greg Patterson at espressopundit.com, and the team of pro-life activists at Sonoran Alliance.

The consistent theme is that if Napolitano truly cares about Arizona’s future, she will give Secretary of State Jan Brewer an opportunity to get up to speed on all of the challenges facing state government before the start of the 2009 legislative session in January. There’s also talk in practical terms that state lawmakers and other politicians will simply ignore the Napolitano administration for the next few weeks as they wait for Brewer to take charge.

There’s a tiny flaw with this analysis. Napolitano likely will call the Legislature into special session within the next few days to start addressing this year’s budget deficit that already has reached $442 million. In the past when things didn’t get done on budget issues, Napolitano was a master at shaping public opinion and media coverage to make it appear that the Legislature was almost exclusively at fault. Republicans always cried foul because Napolitano and her Democratic allies usually worked behind the scenes to delay or trip a majority plan that Napolitano wouldn’t support.

But many people who don’t work at the Capitol look at the process this way: it’s the Legislature’s job to pass a budget for the governor to sign or veto. If lawmakers can’t approve a package for her to even consider, it’s their fault, not hers.

And when Napolitano does veto a budget, she always makes sure to pin her action on protecting hot-button issues such as education and health care. That way, it’s still the Legislature that tends to looks bad if it doesn’t meet her demands.

So, if Republicans go into a special session expecting to ignore Napolitano’s agenda in her waning days, they could be the ones who end up looking foolish.

GOV. JANET NAPOLITANO ANSWERS MEDIA QUESTIONS MONDAY IN PHOENIX ABOUT HER PENDING NOMINATION TO BE SECRETARY OF U.S. HOMELAND SECURITY (Photo by Capitol Media Services)

The Tribune Editorial Board spent a long time today discussing the implications of today’s formal announcement that Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano will be nominated to lead the U.S. Department of Homeland Security after President-elect Barack Obama takes office Jan. 20. I learned from those chats that I’m holding on to an antiquated idea: that elected officials make a contract with the voters when they run for office to serve a specific period of time for a specific purpose. Apparently, it has become a given among many people that smart, ambitious politicians will, and should, jump into higher office when the opportunity arises.

But I heard from one friend today who said she definitely would have voted differently in 2006 for secretary of state, or at least considered the candidates more closely, if she had known that Napolitano would leave in the middle of her second term and voluntarily turn the governor’s office over to Jan Brewer. I’m not one of the people who subscribe to the notion of Arizona is somehow doomed with Brewer as governor. When it comes to the state budget crisis, this change might be exactly what Arizona needs right now.

But I understand the widespread angst among Democrats and even independents that the governor’s office likely will see a sharp change in focus and philosophy with Brewer in charge. Many voters elected Brewer solely on her qualifications to manage the state’s elections and to administer business filings, and not as a potential chief of state.

I’m not comfortable with the notion of the governor’s office as a political stepping stone. The job’s just too important, and too difficult to perform if the office-holder isn’t committed heart and soul. I don’t know anyone who thinks this year was among Napolitano’s best as she devoted a significant portion of her time and attention to help Obama win. At the very least, I think the failure of the initiatives on a transportation sales tax and state trust lands to even qualify for the election ballot can be attributed to Napolitano’s focus on other issues.

By the way, I’ve been fairly consistent on this point of view. In 1998, I was working for the daily newspaper in Wichita Falls, Texas, when then-Texas Gov. George Bush was running for re-election. He already was positioning himself to run for president but wasn’t saying so publicly. On at least two occasions, I directly asked Bush to explain if he would run for president or not, so Texas voters had that information when they voted for governor. Bush blew off the question, as I’m sure he did for other reporters, and the only people who seemed to care assumed he would be campaigning for president in 2000.

But my concerns might have more resonance here than in Texas, where the governor and lieutenant governor run for office as a team. My guess is proposals to create a similar system in Arizona will get more serious attention here in the next couple of years.

Incoming Arizona Senate President Bob Burns, R-Peoria, and Rep. Steve Yarbrough, R-Chandler, talked publicly Tuesday about a painful political subject that has been obvious to budget watchers for months — the state will have to cut K-12 education funding to deal with billion-dollar deficit woes.

K-12 education is the state’s single largest expenditure out of the $10 billion General Fund. At $4.25 billion, K-12 education takes up nearly 43 percent of everything spent from state taxes and is twice as much as the next highest expenditure, the state’s portion of Medicaid health insurance.

Wipe out the “rainy day” fund, crank up agency fees and pull all of the accounting gimmicks you want. The scope of the Arizona’s deficit problems are so big — $1 billion last year, $1.2 billion this year, more than $2.2 billion next year — there’s no way to stop the red ink while declaring K-12 education untouchable. (Unless you are talking about tax increases, but you’re going to talking to yourself because no one else will be listening.)

But K-12 education largely avoided any budget cuts earlier this year because of a lingering public perception that Arizona leaders didn’t commit enough resources in the past, a political backlight that Gov. Janet Napolitano used to great advantage to protect such funding. There’s also the sales tax for education approved by voters in 2000. One provision of that law says the state must increase basic state aid to school districts by 2 percent each year. Technically, the law says the increase must be applied to basic state aid OR transportation funding (a far smaller cost). But Napolitano and the education establishment have successfully argued the Legislature would face a backlash hurricane if it adopted a narrower interpretation that says basic state aid can be slashed.

However, a new budget summary from the Joint Legislative Budget Committee says at least $2.2 billion in K-12 education funding isn’t protected in any way by that 2000 law, if you include the property taxes collected by local school districts. Unless someone gives a compelling legal argument otherwise, that would give state lawmakers quite a bit of discretion to temporarily roll back education spending.

Napolitano would fight such cuts to the bitter end. But everyone expects her to be going to Washington soon, and Secretary of State Jan Brewer to move into the governor’s office. So Brewer’s fellow Republican leaders can talk more openly about what they believe inevitably has to happen to meet their constitutional mandate to balance the state budget.

                      DEAN MARTIN

How often does a government official who’s being sued immediately agree with the plaintiffs and ask a judge to revoke a policy? I can’t think of a recent example. But State Treasurer Dean Martin says he’s doing just that in a lawsuit filed by the Arizona League of Cities and Towns to stop a provision of the current state budget that requires municipalities to pony up a total of $30 million. This odd demand was among several ways to increase revenues to the state without raising general taxes sought by Gov. Janet Napolitano and endorsed by the Legislature. Other examples include allowing state agencies to increase their licensing and public access fees, even in the midst of a likely recession, to replace funds cut elsewhere in the budget.

Napolitano and legislative budget negotiators used some strange fundraising methods to bypass what’s called Proposition 108, a voter-approved constitutional amendment that generally requires any attempt by the Legislature to bring in more money to pass by a two-thirds majority. Too many Republicans opposed Napolitano’s approach to hope for such support in this budget.

The League of Cities and Towns claims Prop. 108 still applies, and so the budget’s demand for $30 million is unconstitutional. The lawsuit was filed against Napolitano as head of the executive branch (which generally carries out state laws) and Martin as treasurer because his office would physically receive the cash for deposit. Martin’s involvement is almost perfunctory. But this politically ambitious Republican has been given an opportunity to put more pressure on Napolitano, a Democrat who might soon leave Arizona to be secretary of Homeland Security in President-elect Barack Obama’s administration.

Along with his opposition to sending the cities a bill to help balance the state budget, Martin wrote a letter telling his lawyer to seek court intervention on those other fundraising methods as well.

Depending on how quickly the Arizona courts act, Martin’s move could affect a upcoming special session to again address a budget that’s still not balanced.

ARIZONA GOV. JANET NAPOLITANO (left) AND JAN BREWER, THE NEXT CHIEF OF STATE? (Capitol Media Services file photo)

The national media are acting like they are engaged in a massive competition to get the first news scoop on specific, top-level appointments to the incoming Barack Obama administration. But have you noticed the remarkable regularity in which these stories are coming to light? One person or office each day, with one media outlet posting the news first and then most of the other print and broadcasters quickly confirming the rumor with two or more anonymous sources.

My guess is the Obama team is deliberating leaking names and positions on a set schedule. Each potential appointment gets around 24 hours of focused news attention, providing an opportunity for key lawmakers, Washington insiders and the public at large to react to the choice without Obama publicly putting his credibility on the line. If some problem with the potential nominee’s background emerges that the transition team didn’t uncover, another person’s name will suddenly pop up and the previous candidate will be dismissed as unfounded speculation by the media.

Pretty clever, actually, if you think about it.

Granted, Wednesday night’s news that Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano is the leading contender to be secretary of Homeland Security came out only several hours after former Sen. Tom Daschle was “rumored” to be the choice for Health and Human Services. But that could be easily explained as a slip up in timing, with the Obama transition team intending for the public to learn about Napolitano this morning.

Let’s see if this pattern continues for the next few days, shall we?

Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano keeps a close eye on the “river” during a friendly game of poker on Veterans Day 2008 at the Arizona State Veterans Home. (Photo by Capitol Media Services)

The future of Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano remains quite as a mystery, as President-elect Barack Obama hasn’t announced any Cabinet-level appointments yet. Numerous media reports say Napolitano is a leading contender for attorney general or homeland security. But some Arizona Democrats are openly saying Napolitano could turn down any offers to join the Obama administration, to avoid elevating Secretary of State Jan Brewer to the governor’s office.

Even if Napolitano doesn’t leave Phoenix for Washington, she has firmly established herself as a national-level politician that bodes well for her future. Her successful efforts since 2003 to get noticed by both print and television news operations meant recent profiles by the New York Times and Washington Post carry a tone that Napolitano already is a known quantity. And then there was that parody of Napolitano on Saturday Night Live last weekend. (Sorry, no video link as of this post, as SNL didn’t rush to put a link on its Web site and NBC already has filed copyright challenges at YouTube to other clips from the show). When Hollywood comedy writers pick out someone new to mock, that person has arrived in some fashion.

UPDATE: Azfamily.com has embedded the key part of the SNL video as part of a news story from KTVK-TV (Channel 3). Hat tip to Eye on the Ninth Floor.

GOV. JANET NAPOLITANO SPOKE IN JANUARY ON BEHALF OF FELLOW DEMOCRAT BARACK OBAMA, WHO IS NOW PRESIDENT-ELECT (Capitol Media Services file photo).

The countdown clock has begun on how long it takes President-Elect Barack Obama to name Arizona’s own Gov. Janet Napolitano to a Cabinet post. Unlike the presidential race of 2004, Napolitano backed a Democrat relatively early in this year’s primary season and her gamble has paid off. Just about everyone involved in Arizona politics expects Napolitano to be tabbed for a prominent position such as attorney general or homeland security secretary.

My only hestitation is Napolitano didn’t deliver Arizona to Obama either in the primaries or the general election. In fact, Sen. John McCain won his home state by a larger-than-expected margin. So there might be less pressure on Obama to offer Napolitano a critical position in his administration.

On the other hand, given that Arizona’s governor will face a nightmarish budget and a more conservative, Republican-controlled Legislature next year, Napolitano might be happy to accept even an obscure post in Washington, D.C.