Budget version 1.0
Gress goes first … A nationwide birthday party … And happy 93rd, Joe!
The budget bills are here.
Republican Rep. Matt Gress made good on his promise to deliver the sprawling pages of confusing numbers yesterday afternoon. The House Appropriations Committee is set to meet at 10:30 a.m. today to go through the budget in (hopefully) digestible language.
As House members voted on a few remaining bills yesterday, Gress made his way to the media table for an impromptu press conference on the budget. He also laid out his budget for KTAR’s Mike Broomhead and gave an on-camera interview to get ahead of the narrative.
We love that Gress is answering questions during a notoriously opaque budgeting process, but can’t help feeling a dash of weariness watching him frame the budget narrative before most lawmakers have seen it.
Plus, the other side of the Legislature is drafting a different budget.
Republican Sen. John Kavanagh is working on closing a deal with Gov. Katie Hobbs’ staff this week. Unlike House Republicans’ plan, it has the advantage of being crafted with the person who has to sign it into law.
But by hammering the media with his talking points first, Gress ensures that anything the Senate releases will be measured against the House’s version.
Hobbs’ spokesperson Christian Slater said Gress’ budget plan “is going absolutely nowhere.” Instead, “The governor is negotiating with Senate Republicans and Democratic caucuses in both chambers,” he told us.
However, some Senate Democrats told us that Hobbs’ staff asked the Senate Democratic leadership team to figure out how many “yes” votes they have, without any insight into the budget they’re being asked to vote for.
Democratic votes for the budget are crucial for Hobbs because she doesn't want to sign a purely Republican budget, and they're crucial to pass the budget at all because some Republicans will vote against it.
If Senate Democrats don’t play ball and round up those votes, they’ll never get a seat at budget negotiations, the governor’s budget director Ben Henderson told leadership, per several Democratic senators.
“We have been told something like that, but I would also say that in response … we are here to play ball, we are interested in finding the path forward, and we need more information and more context on what all is in the budget in order to be able to find that pathway,” Senate Democratic Leader Priya Sundareshan said.
Sundareshan and Democratic Sen. Catherine Miranda released a video Tuesday night outlining their caucuses’ priorities, like funding the non-emergency 211 hotline and public schools.
Sundareshan told us the video was meant to inform the public amid a “closed-door” budget process.
After Gress told the Capitol press corps about his budget, House Democratic Leader Oscar De Los Santos held his own impromptu press conference on the House floor — just a few feet from where Gress was pitching his plan to reporters — to counter-message to reporters that his caucus' negotiations are “proceeding at a good pace.”
He said the Republican budget is “pathetic” and “harmful to the working families of the state of Arizona.”
But he added that he’s not “going to negotiate (the budget) in the press.”
In case you missed it, we turned the indigestible budget process into an easy-to-follow recipe.
Right now, we’re on step 6: serving up the budget bills.
The budget shows up through two types of bills:
The General Appropriations Act is the meat and potatoes of the budget meal.
It supplies state agencies with their operating money from the state General Fund and comprises most of the budget’s allocations.
You can find the House Republicans’ general appropriations act here. But if you want something halfway understandable, check out the Joint Legislative Budget Committee’s analysis of the budget bills instead.
We explained how to read those “budget docs” here, in case you need a primer.
Budget reconciliation bills, or BRBs, are like the sides of the budget banquet.
They cover more policy-specific areas connected to how the state spends funding buckets, from K-12 to criminal justice.
You can find those bills on this list.
And that one bill that’s not at all related to the budget but to a special election to raise sales taxes in one very specific town in Democratic Rep. Myron Tsosie’s district?
Well, that’s the desert.
Putting legislation like that up for a vote at the last minute is one of the many ways Repulican leaders sweeten the deal and convince reluctant Democrats to support their budget bills.
His majesty requests no presence: President Donald Trump isn’t expected to have a quiet birthday this weekend as those opposing the MAGA agenda prepare for ‘No Kings’ protests around the country. The demonstrations on Saturday were planned to oppose a military parade marking the U.S Army’s 250th anniversary, which also happens to be Trump’s 79th birthday, Republic reporter Maritza Dominguez writes. But, with continued tensions between law enforcement and pro-immigrant activists, protests across Arizona are likely to draw big crowds. Meanwhile, ASU professor and Substacker Steven Beschloss interviews Ezra Levin from Indivisible — the organizer of the protests — about the importance of protests in this moment.
“When we heard he was going to run tanks through the streets of DC, we said … he can have downtown DC for the day, he can have his pathetic little parade, fine. We’ll organize everywhere else,” Levin said.
Californiaing our Arizona: Protesters and ICE contractors clashed in Tucson yesterday afternoon after more than a hundred protesters started marching toward private security at the local ICE office. The contractors fired pepper balls, and protesters slung rocks and fireworks. Tucson police showed up and pushed back the crowd, detaining several protesters, but not before protesters spray-painted the building and smashed a few windows, per KOLD’s Sean Mahoney, who was on the scene. Also, check out Daily Star photographer Kelly Presnell’s incredible pics of the fracas. Tucson Mayor Regina Romero and the police chief put out a statement distancing the city from ICE, saying they’re ”monitoring recent federal immigration enforcement actions” and “recognize that these activities cause concern and uncertainty for members of our community.”
Hello, is it me you're looking for?: Longtime Maricopa County voters may see a request for proof of citizenship after a state error that lasted nearly two decades. Last summer, the Secretary of State’s Office disclosed that the state had once failed to properly collect documentation from people when they registered to vote, per Votebeat’s Jen Fifield. Requests for proof of citizenship are expected to reach around 83,000 Arizonans who obtained their state driver’s license before October 1996 and registered to vote in the state at some point after 2004.
Mayes says ‘no’ to 23andWe: Attorney General Kris Mayes joined a multi-state lawsuit against 23andMe, aiming to stop the sale of private genetic information, KTAR News’ Roxanne De La Rosa reports.
“My office is fighting to ensure that deeply personal genetic data isn’t treated like a used car or office furniture and auctioned off to the highest bidder,” Mayes said.
Adult content could rise in cost: Rep. Nick Kupper’s bill requiring age-verification on adult content websites is pulling a page from the Project 2025 playbook, according to Lookout reporter Tori Gantz. The bill, which Gov. Katie Hobbs signed into law, will require users to provide a form of digital identification or utilize a commercial age verification system that may use either government-issued identification or transactional data, according to the bill. After the Arizona legislative session ends, consumers will have a 90-day free-for-all before they have to prove their identity… or at least their age.
Can’t have inflation without statistics: As President Donald Trump’s Department of Labor scales back reporting of key economic data that businesses rely on, like monthly inflation estimates, Senate Democrats, led by Ruben Gallego, are demanding answers from Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer and Bureau of Labor Statistics Commissioner Erika McEntarfer, Politico reports.
Speaking of economic data, your paid subscription would really help keep us in business.
Double miss: The Wall Street Journal’s Mene Ukueberuwa put Hobbs on the “misses” list of their weekly “hits and misses” roundup for her veto of the anti-Chinese-government land ownership legislation this week. Apparently, he hasn’t heard about the new anti-China bill she announced but nobody introduced and no lawmakers have any plans to pass.
Make Alcatraz Disappear People Again: As Trump says he plans to reopen the notorious island prison, Alcatraz, KJZZ’s Gabriel Pietrorazio explains that the original prisoners were 19 Hopi men. The Hopis were charged with sedition for refusing to send their children to Indian boarding schools in 1895.
“Some may think [of] Alcatraz Island as a place that movies and novels have described, where prisoners were kept in cells and tried to escape. But for me, and for many Indigenous people, this land tells another story,” former Interior Secretary Deb Haaland told Pietrorazio.
No freedom, no food: An Iranian man seeking asylum because he’s Christian, and who was recently picked up by ICE even though he has a work permit, is launching a hunger strike, demanding to be let go or sent before a judge, the Republic’s Jimmy Jenkins reports. Mehrad Asadi Eidivand has no criminal history, has followed every proper step to claim asylum, and a judge had accepted his asylum claim.
“Someone knocked on his apartment door claiming that his car had been hit in the parking garage,” his sister-in-law said. “When Mehrad rushed to check, ICE agents arrested him. There was no damage to his car, and the setup appears to have been a ruse.”
If Saturday’s “No Kings” protests of President Donald Trump’s military parade/birthday party isn’t your bag, we have another local birthday party you could visit.
As former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio loves to note, he shares a birthday with the president.
In case you’re wondering, he’ll be 93 on Saturday.
