Budget or Bust!

We are hours away from the ONE deadline the Legislature is constitutionally obligated to meet. The House republicans are still in caucus about the budget. Nothing released yet, you can watch the proceedings live at http://www.azleg.gov/, click watch live proceedings.

Meanwhile, over in the Senate: The Senate Rules Committee rejected the measure that would refer a temporary sales-tax hike to the ballot. The 1-5 vote was a serious monkey wrench in the whole process with less than 14 hours left before the deadline to enact a budget for fiscal 2010.

In case you haven’t been following the progress until now, last night the budget bills were all re-referred from the Senate Appropriations Committee to the Senate Education Committee. This morning Republican Senators Gould, Harper and Steve Pierce all voted against the first general appropriation bill along with the one Democrat who was present, Paula Aboud, defeating the main budget bill.

In Senate Education, the various budget bills passed along a party-line vote. The Republicans voted in support (Senators Huppenthal, Linda Gray, Paton and Sylvia Allen). The Democrats opposed the budget (Senators Aboud, Landrum-Taylor and Lopez).

There are still not enough Republican votes to pass the sales tax referral. The Governor has publically stated that if the budget gets sent to her without the sales tax referral, then she will veto the entire budget package.

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Party Politics the Size of the Grand Canyon

Saturday was quite the day in Arizona politics. Hotly contested races for party chairs resulted in no change for the state Republican Party and a surprising shift in the Democratic Party.

As a nonpartisan organization we followed these races closely to see what changes, if any, Arizona might see especially on the heels of national and statewide races that left a cavern the size of the Grand Canyon between the national mood of hope and optimism and in Arizona a dramatic conservative shift in the legislature.

At statewide meetings held on the same day text messages were flying fast. Randy Pullen the controversial Chair of the Arizona Republican Party was re-elected to another term. In a stunning turn of events Don Bivens was unseated as the Chair for the Arizona Democratic Party by veteran organizer Paul Ekerstrom. Ekerstrom who did not decide until the morning of the meeting to place his name in nomination electrified the room with a speech reminiscent of John Kennedy.

Even before taking office now Governor Brewer-R signaled her agenda would include repeal of many progressive gains made over the past six years under Democratic Governor Janet Napolitano. True to form the first bill introduced at the start of the 49th legislature proposes to take away a women’s right to make health care decisions for herself.

Under attack are domestic partner benefits for state employees, safe schools, education budgets, full-day kindergarten and many other policies that provide safety and quality of life for Arizonans.

This shift in politics signals a wake-up call not just for the LGBT community but for all those who believe in protecting our constitution, right to privacy and our Libertarian way of governing. With an unstoppable majority in the House, Senate and Executive office Equality Arizona will work across both parties to enact pro-family legislation while mitigating any attempts at regressive policies which would only serve to undermine Arizona’s LGBT families.

For more information and articles visit;

http://advocacy.equalityarizona.org/NewsMedia/tabid/87/Default.asp