Déjà vu all over again: GOP blows up special session

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

I know I have explained this before, but apparently some people up at the state capitol need a refresher course. The way a special session is supposed to work is that the Governor and House and Senate leadership get together and craft a bill that they can all agree upon. Then leadership shops it to the Republican and Democratic caucuses for feedback and a straw vote to know whether they have enough votes to pass the bill. If they do, then and only then does the Governor call for a special session. The House and Senate each convene,do the requisite reads and votes, and everybody goes home. In and out in a few hours.

The Accidental Governor and the GOP insane clown posse leadership are the gang that can't shoot straight. I have never seen such incompetence. Once again, "it's Déjà vu all over again," as Yogi Berra would say. The fourth special session of the year was blown up by Senate Republicans who would not go along with the deal agreed upon by the Accidental Governor and their GOP insane clown posse leadership. Apparently know one took a straw vote before the Accidental Governor called for the special session.

For the record, I was right and Howard Fischer was wrong. Howie said the votes were there and I said the GOP was at least one vote short.

The trouble began almost immediately on Wednesday when the deal between the Bankers Association, the Arizona Realtors Association and the GOP insane clown posse leadership to add deficiency judgments to a foreclosure law the legislature had repealed in an earlier special session was blown up by home builders and their GOP allies. Senate tosses foreclosure-liability bill:

Last spring, legislators approved the foreclosure law in the form of Senate Bill 1271.

Under its original provisions, any homeowner who lost a property to foreclosure – and hadn't lived in it for at least six months – would be liable for the difference between the foreclosure sale price and the original loan.

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Reacting to panic from Realtors and others, legislators repealed the law during a special session over the summer, but that move resulted in a lawsuit by the banking industry against the state. Representatives of the lenders, Realtors and homebuilders hoped to reach accord on a compromise this week, but that deal has remained elusive.

So, Senate lawmakers voted Wednesday to wipe the board clean, tossing both SB 1271 and its subsequent repeal.

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"We will be dealing with the issue again, in all probability in December," said Senate President Bob Burns, as the Peoria Republican foreshadowed a future special session rumored for next month.

GOP senators showed the love for real estate speculators, allowing them to walk away from their bad home investments. Senate votes to let speculators off hook Arizona's anti-deficiency laws remain in place, for now.

On Thursday, Senate Republicans blew up the rest of the deal agreed upon by the Accidental Governor and the GOP insane clown posse leadership.

The usual suspects, Sen. Thayer Verschoor (reportedly exploring a run for state Treasurer should Dean Martin opt to run for governor) and that wild and crazy guy Sen. Ron Gould would not go along with the deal. Gould, Verschoor won’t support budget plan:

Sen. Ron Gould, R-Lake Havasu City, said he actually supports the main piece of legislation, which would trim $300 million in state spending. In fact, Gould said he wants to slash more from the budget.

But Gould and Sen. Thayer Verschoor, R-Gilbert, are opposed to another part of the package that would give agency directors the power to raise fees without getting legislative approval.

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The pair, however, were unable to block approval of that measure when it came up for a vote, as a majority of both Republicans and Democrats support the fee hikes. So Gould then refused to vote for the separate bill with the budget cuts; Verschoor did not show up to vote at all.

That left Republicans short of the necessary 16 votes for final Senate approval, as no Democrat supports the spending cuts and one Republican, Sen. Barbara Leff of Paradise Valley, has been away all week on a cruise.

Senate President Bob Burns, R-Peoria, then sent lawmakers home until Monday.

True to form, Sen. Ron Gould was unapologetic for bringing the process to a halt. “Sometimes extreme times take extreme measures,” he said.

Sen. Thayer Verschoor's staying away from the floor vote did not sit well with his colleagues. Budget agreement fails in Senate

A visibly angry Sen. Carolyn Allen, R-Scottsdale, pointed to Verschoor's absence: "We call that being a coward."

Allen, the septuagenarian lawmaker who has suffered a string of health maladies over the past year, including knee surgery, had to be escorted onto the Senate floor in a wheelchair.

[Senate President Bob "Bluto"] Burns also took a rhetorical slap at Verschoor, issuing a statement calling it "very disappointing and frankly embarrassing that one member of our caucus did not have the decency to show up."

I seem to recall that Sen. Allen used her recuperation from knee surgery as an excuse to be absent from the special session earlier this summer to deny the Accidental Governor the vote she needed for her "Sham-Wow!" budget deal. A bit hypocritical, dontcha think?

The unexpected collapse came with this year's budget as much as $2 billion in the red and Gov. Jan Brewer 1,000 miles away at a meeting of the Republican Governors Association in Austin. Brewer already had been the subject of criticism for calling lawmakers into special session while jetting to Texas for a partisan political conference. Her absence Thursday intensified the scrutiny.

The Accidental Governor tried to spread the blame around for her own failed leadership:

Brewer said in a statement. "Unfortunately, every single Democrat and a couple of Republican extremists have, once again, thwarted this effort to slow government spending.

"It is time to put self-interests and personal agendas aside and do what is in the best interest of the state. Our citizens deserve that, and Arizona's future depends on it."

Apparently the Accidental Governor is still suffering from the delusion that she has divine authority to govern Arizona. Governor Jan Brewer Says She Was Chosen by God to Lead Arizona She expects Democrats to acknowledge her divine authority and to simply do as she says because, well, God says so. Mental hospitals and prisons are full of people who believe that God tells them what to do. I'm just saying.

Democratic legislators continue to insist on a more comprehensive budget approach that would lump spending cuts with mechanisms to raise revenue, such as a tax increase.

This latest epic failure of a special session occurs against the backdrop of the state of Arizona having to borrow money this week for the first time. State, for 1st time, forced to get a loan:

As lawmakers convened on Tuesday to start chipping away at a $2 billion budget deficit, the state is preparing to turn to outside lenders for the first time in Arizona history.

The borrowing is needed to give the state enough cash to carry it through ongoing revenue shortfalls, state Treasurer Dean Martin said.

He estimates the state will need to borrow $700 million to see it through the June 30 end of the fiscal year. As of Tuesday, Martin said, the state had exceeded its threshold of $500 million in IOUs and would need to turn to institutional lenders. To date, the state has been borrowing against internal accounts.

"This is a record," Martin said. "We've never been over $500 million (in IOUs) before."

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Martin said the state has reached the limit of how much it can lend itself and needs about $700 million as the bills continue to come in at a faster rate than tax collections.

This miserable failure of a legislature has already established a first in being the first legislature to fail to enact a balanced budget by July 1, a constitutional requirement with which the legislature has yet to comply.

Arizona survived the Great Depression. I question whether we can survive the ideological extremists of the GOP insane clown posse. After all, their lord and master Grover Norquist commands them to shrink government to the size that they can drown it in the bathtub. When you approach governance from the perspective of hostility towards government, rational and practical solutions for good governance are unlikely to result. The lunatics have taken over the asylum.