AZ GQP Extortion Plan For Lobbying Reform Would Result In Giving Them A Huge Pay Raise (Updated)

The GQP culture of corruption in Arizona runs wide and deep, it has existed for decades. One of the most contemptibe characters has long been Rep. David Gowan (R-Sierra Vista).

Back in 2017, the Arizona Capitol Times exposed multiple abuses by Gowan. He was overpaid for travel reimbursements by a cool $12,000. He traveled extensively on the public dime outside his legislative district, but disproportionately in the congressional district he hoped to represent. He made questionable use of state vehicles.

Arizona’s partisan hack Attorney General, Mark Brnovich aka “Nunchucks” (or is it numbnuts?) allegedly conducted an investigation (ahem, coverup), and his “investigation” found massive communications failures between Gowan and staffers assigned to fill out his expense reports. Due to the communications failures, Brnovich concluded that proving an intent to rip off the state or misuse public resources would be difficult to prove. So “Nunchucks” decided its was too hard for him to prosecute, and he failed to file charges. How convenient.

The GQP tribalism voters of Cochise County didn’t care about Gowan’s public corruption on the taxpayer’s dime, and rewarded him with several more terms in the legislature. “He’s a crook, but he’s our crook.”

Maybe the GQP tribalism voters of Cochise County will care about David Gowan’s latest antics: an eleventh hour extortion of the voters of this state who want lobbying reforms with a plan that would result in corrupt Republican legislators like him being able to set their own salaries at a substantial pay increase. Arizona voters have reflexively voted to deny legislators a pay increase every two years like clockwork.

Howard Fisher reports, Plan would give Arizona lawmakers big raises:

A state senator from Southern Arizona is pushing a last-minute proposal to eliminate the requirement that voters set the salary for legislators.

And if the measure is approved and ratified by voters in November, it guarantees that lawmakers would at least double the $24,000 a year they now get — if not more.

The idea is being pushed by Sen. David Gowan, R-Sierra Vista.

But Gowan did not propose the plan at the beginning of the session when bills were supposed to be introduced. That would have ensured at least two public hearings and plenty of time for input.

Instead, Gowan had Rep. Regina Cobb, R-Kingman, to let him strike the new language onto another, unrelated bill [a “Striker”] and have it scheduled to be heard at 9:30 a.m. Monday in the House Appropriations Committee which she chairs.

If the proposal is approved there, it goes to the full House and then the Senate with no further hearings.

It also is crafted in a way to pull in Democratic support, and not just because some Democratic lawmakers are likely interested in bringing home bigger paychecks.

The proposal expands the Commission on Salaries for Elective State Offices from five members to seven, giving the House and Senate Democratic leaders each a chance to choose members.

That commission decides how much is paid to other elected state officials, from governor on down.

Members of the legislature, however, are excluded. They get a raise only when approved by voters. And the last one — to $24,000 a year — was last approved in 1998.

Gowan’s measure is set up so lawmakers would no longer have to seek voter approval for a pay raise. Instead, they automatically would earn 60% of whatever the governor gets paid.

So even if the panel does not recommend changing the $95,000 salary of the governor, that immediately would translate to legislative pay of $57,000.

And there’s something else in the proposal: It would give senators four-year terms, though House members would be limited to just two. And it would allow both House and Senate members to serve up to 12 years in the same chamber, up from the current eight.

So basically this is an entrenched power grab by long-serving legislators who make a mockery of term limits by flipping seats between chambers every 8 years.

Still, lawmakers won’t get the last word on how their salaries are set.

It would be up to voters in November to decide if they want to give up the right to determine how much state lawmakers are paid.

And that might require some convincing, given the results of prior ballot measures to increase legislative pay.

That fact of voter sentiment has not escaped Gowan who was first elected to the legislature in 2008. But he argues that the current salary — the one set by voters in 1998 — puts the hourly pay at $11.54, less than the minimum wage of $12.80.

“The process for salary increases, even for cost of living, is broken and limits the number of people who can run for office,” Gowan said.

But what Gowan does not say is that the framers of the Arizona Constitution set up what was supposed to be a citizen legislature, where people would come to the Capitol, enact laws and the budget and then go home to other jobs.

Gowan himself is a martial-arts instructor. And he has sold fireworks during the days their possession here is legal.

As to the change in term limits, Gowan said in his statement that it allows lawmakers “to gain a better depth of knowledge on the increasingly complex policy issues facing the legislature.

Excuuuse me? Gowan has been there since 2008 and has developed no credible policy chops during that time. What he has learned is how to game the systen for his own benefit, the very thing that voters say they hate about politicians.