Skinny budget, fat drama
Today in legislative theater … That’s our land … And hold on to your drug pipes.
House Republicans doubled down on their plans yesterday to pass a budget that no one likes.
Republican lawmakers slammed a “skinny” budget through the House last night that funds baseline government functions for the next year without all the new spending lawmakers have spent months negotiating for. It comes with a roughly $17 billion price tag.
Democrats let Republicans jump over a procedural hurdle to pass the continuation budget. Although bills usually have to be read on three separate days before they can pass, Democrats didn’t object to a motion to waive the rules and get the whole thing over with.
The skinny budget now heads to the Senate for a vote, then to Gov. Katie Hobbs’ desk for a veto.
After House Speaker Steve Montenegro announced his plans for the skinny budget over the weekend, Hobbs announced her plans to veto it. The state government shuts down on Tuesday if lawmakers don’t pass a budget the governor will sign.
House Republicans are taking that bet.
The House’s budget leader, Rep. David Livingston, said at yesterday’s House Appropriations Committee that if Hobbs doesn’t sign the continuation budget, “the government will shut down a week from today.”
Livingston, who drafted the House’s first budget without the Senate or governor’s input, is exasperated.
“I’ve done my best. I've given you everything I have, guys, I haven't slept much lately,” he said. “This is the only bill budget package I believe we can pass out of this house that the Senate can pass and the governor can sign. I'm gonna do everything in my power to make that happen.”
Senate President Warren Petersen previously said the Senate will vote on the House’s proposal. The Senate passed a budget last week with Hobbs on board, but the skinny budget is a stopgap measure to keep the funds flowing while lawmakers continue to hammer out the extra spending.
Before yesterday’s vote, we asked Montenegro why he’s wasting time with a continuation budget he’s already been assured won’t get signed into law. We got a response, but not really an answer.
“We were elected to represent the people of Arizona. Every member of this chamber was elected to be a voice for the people in their district,” he said.
Unlike the first appropriations hearing on budget version 1.0, only a few lobbyists bothered to show up to yesterday’s House Appropriations Committee hearing to ask lawmakers to fund raises for their causes, like state troopers’ raises and road projects.
Livingston told the speakers he’d love to fund all those things, but “the state of Arizona just can't do that today.”
And the House budget chief acknowledged that after this year’s House monetary meltdown, he may not be the chamber’s top budget negotiator next year.
“It's been my honor to be your chairman … I hope I have the opportunity to be here next year,” Livingston said at yesterday’s committee hearing.
The House speaker decides who chairs committees every year, and Montenegro has started showing his frustration with his Appropriations Committee chairman. At a Republican caucus meeting yesterday, Montenegro awkwardly interrupted Livingston’s long-winded explanation of the skinny budget. Lawmakers usually reserve digs like that for closed-door meetings.
“Chairman, I think we’ve heard enough,” Montenegro interjected.
“Thank you, Mr. Speaker, but I’m not done,” Livingston continued.
Although Republicans moved in lock-step to approve yesterday’s doomed “skinny” budget, the budget battle has bitterly divided Republicans at the Capitol.
Before voting for the skinny budget, Rep. Teresa Martinez called the ordeal “an exercise in nonsense.”
“I wanted everyone to know that there could have been a better way, and I want everyone to know that we keep hearing about how horrible leadership was last year and two years ago, and I can assure you, that is not the case,” Martinez said.
But the House Republican infighting is only the consequence of the budget battle between Senate and House Republicans, who largely still stand behind their separate spending plans.
Freedom Caucus Rep. Alex Kolodin called the skinny budget veto bait for Hobbs so the Senate budget can pass instead, and said anyone who puts that budget version up for a House vote “will be the enemy of the people of Arizona.”
House Democratic Leader Oscar De Los Santos apologized to Arizonans for the “colossal waste of time” and lambasted Republicans for their “political, partisan tantrum.”
He expects the Senate to pass the skinny budget and Hobbs to veto it tomorrow. After that, he thinks House Republicans will put the Senate’s budget up for a vote ahead of the Tuesday shutdown deadline.
Republican Rep. Justin Wilmeth seemed to agree with that assessment when he explained his vote in lyrical format.
“I would like to recite one of my favorite music lyrics from the band The Eagles: ‘You can check out any time you’d like, but you can never leave.’ See you this weekend. I vote aye,” he said.
At the state Capitol, the magic numbers are 31, 16 and one.
That’s the number of votes it takes to get to a majority in the House and the Senate, plus the one governor’s signature on a bill.
But as lawmakers approach the July 1 deadline to pass a budget, they’re also approaching vacation and junket season. And their numbers are dwindling.
Yesterday, four lawmakers in the House skipped the budget vote, including chief budget negotiator Matt Gress, who is in Italy for his wedding. Also out: Republican Rep. Laurin Hendrix and Democratic Reps. Seth Blattman and Lupe Contreras.
That left House Republicans with just 31 members present, the bare minimum needed to pass a (partisan) budget. And they only got to that 31 votes after Republican Rep. Nick Kupper flew home to cast his votes in the nick of time.
Now, the action switches back to the Senate, where Republican lawmakers’ availability is getting spotty.
There are 17 Republicans in the Senate. It will take 16 of them to pass a budget.
We hear that one Republican senator is currently in Florida for a GoPAC junket.
And Republican Sen. T.J. Shope says he’s catching a flight Thursday to attend the Gress wedding.
If it were a junket, he would just skip it, he told us. But he had to pay his own way to Italy.
“(I’ve got) too much personal dollars in this one to cancel or alter plans,” he said.
Not for sale: The federal government won’t be selling off huge swaths of federal land just yet, since the U.S. Senate parliamentarian declared that that provision (and several other portions) of the “big beautiful” budget bill out of bounds. Utah Republican U.S. Sen. Mike Lee says he’ll push a more narrowly tailored version of that provision that limits it to selling off a “significantly reduced” amount of land owned by the Bureau of Land Management — but no Forest Service land, per The Hill. The original plan would have given huge swaths of Arizona and other western states to the highest bidder.
Laura Looner: Nutty online conspiracist Laura Loomer launched an anti-Islamic attack on Democratic U.S. Rep. Yassamin Ansari after Ansari called her out for tweeting that Christians and Jews need to arm themselves against Muslims, per the Republic’s Laura Gersony.
"There’s no such thing as Hate Speech, Muslima. You are a Muslim who came from Iran," Loomer replied to the religiously agnostic, Seattle-born Ansari.
A whole Flock of them: Gilbert is buying more Flock license plate cameras, upping its contract with the company from about $350,000 to $630,000 over five years, the Gilbert Sun News’ Aparna Sekhar reports. Flock’s business model has raised significant concerns about privacy, data security and general effectiveness. We mentioned yesterday that Sedona is putting up a dozen of them, too.
“I do have privacy concerns when it looks at utilizing technology like this, and I want to make sure we have policies in place to ensure those technologies aren't abused,” Gilbert Councilmember Monte Lyons, who voted against the new contract, said.
Correction in the form of a link: Lawmakers sent Hobbs the “ag-to-urban” water proposal that would allow developers to meet assured water supply requirements by buying out farms, the Republic’s Clara Migoya reports. We wrongly reported yesterday that the bill still needed one final vote before it could be signed or vetoed. Hobbs is expected to sign it.
Heading to prison: A year after officials uncovered a $38 million embezzlement scheme that bilked local schools and fire districts, a judge sentenced former Santa Cruz County Treasurer Elizabeth Gutfahr to 10 years in federal prison, the Nogales International’s Daisy Zavala Magaña reports. At the sentencing hearing, federal prosecutors accused Gutfahr of “gluttony” after she made 187 fraudulent transactions over the course of a decade.
We’re not gluttonous, but we really would appreciate your support for this local independent newsletter.
Someday, maybe: The long-dreamed-of train line connecting Phoenix and Tucson took a “big step forward,” per Gov. Katie Hobbs, when the Federal Railroad Administration recently approved the Arizona Department of Transportation’s initial plan for the line. Now ADOT can proceed to make a more detailed plan to submit, which will take two or three years, AZFamily’s Peter Valencia reports.
Don’t (let pets) lick the toads: With monsoons hopefully nearly upon us, KGUN9 is reminding Southern Arizonans to not let their pets lick the Sonoran Toads that appear this time of year. They’re poisonous to dogs, and psychedelic for humans.
A Navajo County Sheriff’s Office lieutenant stamped out a small roadside fire and found a “drug pipe” that had likely started the fire, leading to one of the more memorable statements we’ve seen recently from a law enforcement agency.
"We never thought we’d have to say this, but here we are. Please do NOT throw your drug pipe out the car window," the sheriff’s office wrote.
Republicans never include Dems in budget negotiations. Every two years, I have my hopes crushed, when the far right Republicans gain a majority in the lege. Even if they only have a one or two seat majority, they legislate as if lawmakers from the other side don't even exist.
For over 30 years, Rs have had the majority in the lege. And here we are.
Let's get some toads. Put them on a buffet table. Invite the Legislature for a snack. Throw them in a room. Tell them to hum a few bars of "In the good old summertime".