When Gov. Doug Ducey vetoed 22 bills last week, it was intended to serve as a wakeup call to Arizona’s 90 legislators -or at least the 47 Republicans in the majority- to get serious about passing the budget bills, including a significant tax cut and a transition to a flat rate income tax.
Ducey’s veto of heavily Republican-supported legislation came after House Speaker Rusty Bowers and Senate President Karen Fann realized their respective chambers were at a stalemate last week and recessed through June 10, even though lawmakers could theoretically be called back sooner.
But despite the positive spin put forth by supporters of Bowers and Fann that the hiatus will help everyone come back fresh and ready to deal, several lawmakers tell Arizona Daily Independent the Legislature is no closer now to working out myriad disagreements about budget priorities than one week ago.
After Bowers announced the recess, Rep. Ben Toma, a key House budget negotiator, stated he hoped the House would reconvene this week. Instead, dissension appears to be growing among the 60 representatives, particularly the 31 Republicans who could pass a budget in the House without any votes from the Democrats.
One reason given for why Bowers did not call his chamber back this week was that one Republican was unable to attend. That would leave only 30 Republicans, one short of a majority to pass any bills. However, that representative said Wednesday he was surprised to learn of his unavailability, casting more doubt about who is in charge of the House budget process, and the House itself.
And according to some lawmakers, things are not much better next door at the Senate where Fann is the subject of growing grumblings amid the Republican Caucus for not paying enough attention to senators who have openly expressed concerns for weeks about what priorities would be featured in the budget bills.
Fann does have three Republican senators whose leadership positions involve keeping the caucus together. The three -Sens. Sonny Borrelli, Rick Gray, and Vince Leach- have not been able to wrangle a compromise among the 16 Republicans in light of publicly expressed concerns that Fann may not have the power to ensure the 22 vetoed bills and other priority legislation can get passed once a budget is approved.
And there appears to be no serious effort by House or Senate leadership to garner support of a few Democrats to reach the necessary 16 votes. Instead, it appears those negotiations are occurring between Ducey’s staff, the Democrats on the budget council, and the leaders of the Democratic caucus.
One lawmaker pointed to Borrelli’s preoccupation and frequent media interviews related to the senate’s audit of Maricopa County’s election process as a sign that he is not focused on the budget. On Wednesday, Borrelli was once again at Veterans Memorial Coliseum where the audit is being conducted, this time as a host to three Pennsylvania lawmakers.
Sen. David Gowan is another key Republican involved in the budget process as the chair of the Senate’s Appropriation Committee. Gowan also spent time Wednesday meeting with the Pennsylvania contingent instead of engaging in budget discussions.
Other Arizona lawmakers who met with the Pennsylvania delegation included Sen. Wendy Rogers as well as Reps. Leo Biassucci, Joseph Chaplik, and Jacqueline Parker.