Having served in the legislature, I can tell you the answer is “yes.” At this time of year, columnists like the Arizona Republic’s EJ Montini like to grouse about how the legislature can’t get a budget out because it consumes itself with some side issue he doesn’t like. It might have something to do with vouchers, election law, tax cuts, or some other conservative hobby horse. He misses the point, however, and I’ll tell you why.
True enough, the only constitutional mandate the legislature has in any given year is to pass a budget. The legislature ponders many things, but it must pass a budget by June 30th of each year to keep the state’s machinery going . . . and as I write this, legislators have only 20 more days to get this thing done. So why hasn’t the legislature passed a budget? Duh, THEY DON’T HAVE THE VOTES!
To get any bill passed, much less the budget, it takes a combination of 16 senators, 31 representatives and a willing governor. Right now they don’t have that. So what do House Speaker Rusty Bowers (R-Mesa) and Senate President Karen Fann (R-Prescott) do? They parcel out a couple of bills to go to the floor for a couple days in the week to keep members present while budget negotiations go on and on and on . . . I guess some of these bills Mr. Montini might not like, but until legislators can agree on a budget there isn’t much else to do.
Why are budget negotiations going on and on and on, you might ask. In both the Senate and the House, Republicans have only a one-vote majority. Neither party when it is in the majority likes to negotiate with the minority. In this case, Republicans have held the majority for a long long time, but when I was a member of the senate in the early 90’s the Democrats held sway. Democrats in the Senate passed any partisan issue by a 17-13 vote and they didn’t ask us what we wanted in the budget.
Unfair? Maybe, but politics isn’t always fair. When you don’t have the votes because your majority is ultra slim and Sen. Paul Boyer (R-Glendale) wants more money for education, or for firefighters with cancer, or some other issue . . . perhaps it’s time to swallow your pride and negotiate with the other side. I mean, they’ve got 10 more days, right?
Bon voyage!
Photo by Scott Thomas Photography
Then again, I have it on good authority that at least four members in the Senate will leave in approximately a week for trips they had scheduled much earlier, or in one case, National Guard duty.
As a member of the Senate in 1992, we finally passed a budget and adjourned on a weekend at 6:00 am on July 1st. If we had not passed that budget Gov. Fife Symington was prepared to have only emergency personnel come to work the following Monday. Fortunately, we didn’t have to go there. To use a little Star Trek lingo, however, will the 55th Legislature “go where no man has gone before?”
Where no man has gone before!
Photo by djwudi
Gov. Ducey still doesn’t have the votes for his billion-dollar Arizona Water Authority (AWA). As a lame-duck governor, he knows he won’t have the leverage to get it done after he signs a budget. He needs it done now. Democrats and even a few Republicans, however, are holding out for more water conservation measures inside the AWA bill or to allow the Rep. Regina Cobb’s (R-Kingman) Rural Management Area (RMA) bill to get to the floor for a vote.
To complicate matters (as if they weren’t already complicated enough) House leadership has walked back agreements it made with House Democrats regarding changes to the AWA bill and the possibility of letting the RMA bill go to the floor for a vote.
Image by Cactus Reports
Each day the calendar turns we become more likely to get to the federal version of a government shutdown. Arizona hasn’t done this before, but if we get past July 1st without a budget, Mr. Montini may have something to write about concerning walking and chewing gum.