This means war

The firing squads are circular … #WW3 … And all junkets all the time.

“What we’ve got here is a failure to communicate.“

We couldn’t help think of those immortal words from the “Cool Hand Luke” warden as we watched the slow motion train crash of a budget process playing out from dusk to nearly dawn on Friday morning, and the ensuing weekend war of press releases from all interested parties.

This weekend’s budget meltdown highlights not only a breakdown of basic communications among state leaders, but also the level to which egos, cliques and petty personality difference drive policy — or fail to drive policy — at the Capitol.

First, let’s get our bearings:

A little more than a week ago, House Republicans passed a state budget and sent it to the Senate.

The governor said she had already been negotiating with the Senate, and she declared the House budget dead on arrival to her office. The Senate never voted on the House budget and proceeded crafting its own budget with the governor.

On Thursday, lawmakers in both the House and Senate returned to the Capitol expecting to work through the weekend to hash out a compromise both chambers and the governor could accept.

It seemed they were close. Then everything fell apart.

So what happened?

Well, it basically amounts to a longstanding failure to communicate among even allies at the Capitol, and a bunch of egos wanting credit for passing a budget that hasn’t actually been passed yet.

The widely believed plan was for the Senate to approve its negotiated budget on Thursday, and kick it to the House to approve over the weekend.

But on Thursday evening, Speaker Steve Montenegro, who had been left out of those negotiations with the governor and the Senate (or chose not to have his budget leaders attend, depending on who you believe), abruptly closed down the House for the weekend.

Senate President Warren Petersen accused Montenegro of “throwing a temper tantrum.” Then he threw his own tantrum by adjourning the Senate “sine die,” meaning for the final time this year, after the Senate had finally completed its business around 2 a.m. Friday morning.¹

Montenegro says he doesn’t have enough votes in the House to pass the Senate budget, and the House will instead return today to pass a “continuation budget” (essentially a short-term budget with no changes in spending from the current budget) to ensure government doesn’t shut down as they negotiate past the July 1 deadline.

Freedom Caucus types are siding with the House, calling the Senate budget “the Hobbs dream budget” that is “stuffed full of pork and Democrat policy victories.”

Petersen essentially said fine. If the House can even get the votes for a “continuation” budget, he will also put it up for a vote and watch the governor veto it.

Gov. Katie Hobbs confirmed she’ll veto the House “continuation” budget, and she took some heavy swings at Montenegro, saying his team refused to engage in negotiations and now they’re threatening to shut down the government.

She also got in some great digs about how the House Republican plan contains a more than 500% boost to lawmakers’ per diem pay.

All of this Republican-on-Republican infighting probably could have been avoided if House and Senate GOP leaders had simply worked together to define their priorities and presented a united front to Hobbs. Instead, each side got caught up in passing their own plan, forgetting that the goal is not to pass a budget out of one chamber, but to get a budget signed into law.

Lawmakers have had six months to craft a budget. Now we’re one week away from a government shutdown, and politicians are still pointing fingers. Each side is blaming another for not engaging, not replying, not showing up to do the work they were elected to do.

And while legislative Republicans look inept, fractured and disorganized, the biggest losers of this budget process so far are once again the people of Arizona — who don’t have a clue what their next state budget will look like, nor do they have any meaningful opportunity to weigh in on spending priorities before their politicians (hopefully) finalize the deal ahead of the rapidly approaching deadline.

We would almost say this is a masterful stroke of politicking by the Governor’s Office, effectively turning House and Senate leaders against each other and sparking a GOP civil war over the budget. Except it seems clear that legislative Democrats are just as evenly divided on the budget that Hobbs negotiated and they appear to be in no position to capitalize on the Republican infighting.

Senate Democratic Leader Priya Sundareshan, for example, voted against the budget, saying she couldn’t support its funding for vouchers and money to fund immigration enforcement. But she’s urging her Democratic colleagues in the House to support it to stave off a government shutdown.

Still, it appears that Hobbs has only rounded up a handful of Democratic supporters of her budget in the House so far.

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So what happens next?

It’s all eyes on the state House today at 1:15 p.m., when lawmakers will return to either begin working on a “continuation” budget or take up the Senate’s version of the budget.

The Senate will have to return on Tuesday, since it can’t actually adjourn for the year without the House’s consent.

And we’ll all be lucky if our politicians can pull it together enough to stave off a government shutdown a week from tomorrow.

Note to political power players: Don’t alienate the person who controls the money.

Arizona Democratic Party Chair Robert Branscomb came dangerously close to sparking a financial meltdown last week after the party’s treasurer threatened to stop cutting checks altogether.

On Wednesday, Treasurer Greg Freeman sent a sharply worded email to party leadership, accusing Branscomb and Executive Director Michael Ruff of bypassing protocol by offering jobs to multiple candidates for a high-profile vacancy — despite the fact that the party has been operating for months without an approved budget.

Technically, Branscomb and Ruff do have hiring authority. But under party bylaws, adding anyone to payroll is off-limits until the full budget is approved by the state committee — roughly 700 Arizona Democrats statewide — and that hasn’t met since its meeting in Tucson two weeks ago.

Another meeting hasn’t been scheduled, although one is expected to be held in the next few weeks.

Freeman warned that jumping the gun on any critical hires could not only violate party rules but also open the party to legal risk if any job offers fall through.

“Whatever part of these actions from the Chair that could be charitably attributed to good intentions or a lack of specific knowledge has long ago faded,” Freeman wrote in the email obtained by the Arizona Agenda. “What we are left with is a clear pattern of behavior by the Chair that damages the finances of the ADP and/or exposes the ADP to increasing amounts of legal risk with no end in sight.”

The following day, the party’s executive committee — Branscomb included — met to put the pin back in the grenade.

They handed Freeman temporary authority to keep paying the bills and agreed to finally set a date for the long-overdue state committee meeting, multiple party officials confirmed.

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Also on the agenda last week: when to schedule a vote on whether to oust Branscomb, who’s been under tremendous political pressure for months to move the party in a new direction ahead of the 2026 elections.

Next year, Arizona Democrats hope to flip U.S. Congressional seats and turn the state Legislature blue, as well as hold onto power in statewide offices.

In April, Branscomb sent a blistering letter to Arizona Democrats accusing Gov. Katie Hobbs, Attorney General Kris Mayes, Secretary of State Adrian Fontes and Sens. Mark Kelly and Ruben Gallego of bullying, intimidation, and outright sabotage.

That didn’t go well.

Within hours, Arizona’s top elected Democrats responded with a joint letter of their own, calling Branscomb a liar and strongly suggesting it’s time for him to go.

A petition signed by party members was successfully submitted several weeks ago, pushing the party to schedule a formal vote.

That meeting is scheduled for July 16, the day after the primary in the Congressional District 7 special election.

Welcome to dystopia: After President Donald Trump bombed three Iranian nuclear facilities Saturday and forced the United States into war in the Middle East without congressional approval, Arizona’s Republican political players say to “trust” the president, while Democrats like U.S. Sen. Ruben Gallego want evidence on why the bombings were necessary, the Republic reports. Our sister ‘sletter, the Tucson Agenda, dives into the candidate reactions in the Congressional District 7 race. Meanwhile, U.S. Rep. Yassamin Ansari, whose family fled Iran during the 1979 revolution, wants her congressional colleagues to vote on the War Powers Resolution to rein in Trump’s military powers. And on Sunday, the Department of Homeland Security warned of a “heightened threat environment” in the U.S.

Hail Mary season: Amid the budget mayhem, state lawmakers sent legislation to Gov. Katie Hobbs’ desk to punish school board members whose districts are placed into receivership after financial trouble, the Capitol Times’ Jakob Thorington reports. HB2610 is a response to the Isaac Elementary School District’s financial mishandling, and it’s retroactive to make sure Isaac’s district leadership gets the boot.

Here’s some other last-minute bills lawmakers advanced last week:

• The Senate passed the Diamondbacks bill to funnel state and municipal sales taxes into Chase Field with some last-minute changes, per Fourth Estate 48. The bill now caps taxpayer funding at $500 million, but increases that limit 3% annually and takes additional dollars from Chase Field employees’ income taxes. The bill awaits a final House vote.

Fund independent local news, not billionaire sports stadiums.

• Republican lawmakers and Hobbs made a deal on an ag-to-urban bill that lets home builders buy water from farmers in Pinal and Maricopa counties as long as the new developments agree to limit how much groundwater they use, Capitol Media Services’ Bob Christie reports. It’s a win for metro Phoenix developers who can’t build because of assured water supplies, but rural Arizona officials feel left in the waterless dust. It also awaits a House vote.

• House lawmakers passed a bill to toughen animal cruelty laws, but it’s a watered-down version of the regulations Republican Sen. Shawnna Bolick originally proposed, KJZZ’s Camryn Sanchez writes. The latest version doesn’t require pet owners to provide species-appropriate, edible food and potable water because Republicans said it would hurt farmers with livestock. It now heads to Hobbs’ desk.

Wall 2.0: U.S. Customs and Border Protection awarded its second contract for border wall construction within Trump’s second term, and the latest $309 million payout will fund 27 miles of border wall in the Tucson Sector, the Republic’s Raphael Romero Ruiz reports. Environmental groups warn of ecological devastation. Meanwhile, the Nogales Port of Entry isn’t seeing as many deportations as locals expected — about 30 to 40 people a day — but immigrant advocates think people are self-deporting or being sent to places like El Salvador instead of their countries of origin, Nogales International’s Daisy Zavala Magaña reports.

The Wright choice?: Fountain Hills picked controversial right-wing attorney Jennifer Wright as its new contract attorney — on an $18,000 per month contract, per the Republic’s Lauren De Young. Wright represented Rep. Abe Hamadeh in his 2023 election lawsuit challenging Kris Mayes for the Attorney General spot that he lost (both the election and the lawsuit), and she’s made an interesting digital footprint for herself.

Right-wing Twitter went crazy after news broke of Secretary of State Adrian Fontes’s trip to Germany.

He met with democracy-related groups, spoke on panels and participated in the No Kings march outside the U.S. consulate in Munich, which Turning Point’s Tyler Bowyer called “insanely radical stuff.” That same day, Bowyer also tweeted, “More Trump = Less War.” Tough week for irony.

Fontes told the Brussels Forum in Belgium that American democracy is in crisis, but he still has hope in the American people, per the Republic’s Mary Jo Pitzl.

We’d ask if that includes Bowyer, but that feels pretty radical.

1. In 2015, then Senate President Andy Biggs adjourned the Senate sine die while the House, at the time led by Speaker David Gowan was still working. It was a pretty unprecedented “F-U” from one chamber to the other. But at least both sides had already passed a budget and the only thing left on the cutting room floor was a bunch of bills.