Here’s Biggs’ deal: Medicaid restoration in exchange for reducing voting rights

By Craig McDermott, cross-posted from Random Musings

Correction added on 5/15 – during my initial perusal of SB1492, it
appeared as if some Medicaid expansion provisions were included in it
already.  While there are some changes to AHCCCS provisions contained in
it, they are minor and *not* part of a Medicaid restoration package.

 

Well, the Senate has introduced its budget package, placing the
Medicaid restoration plan in the budget itself but adding a kicker, SB1493.

It has the rather innocuous subject of "elections; omnibus".

It really should be called "extortion; all-in-one; every bad election-related scheme offered by the Republicans this year".

There's
summarily removing voters from the permanent early voting list (PEVL),
effectively barring most schools from serving as polling places, making
successful recall elections all but impossible, barring organizations
and campaigns from collecting and returning early ballots, elevating
administrative barriers to initiative petition drives, and more.

Any one scheme would render a bill "unpassable" (and has, many times during this session); placing them all in one bill means that the Senate leadership (read: Andy Biggs) expects factors other than the merits of the proposals to influence legislators' votes on the bill.

The other bills in the package are:

SB1483, general appropriations

SB1484, capital outlay

SB1485, budget procedures

SB1486, revenue; budget reconciliation

SB1487, K-12 education, budget reconciliation

SB1488, higher education, budget reconciliation

SB1489, government, budget reconciliation

SB1490, criminal justice; budget reconciliation

SB1491, environment; budget reconciliation

SB1492, health, welfare; budget reconciliation (yes, probably the one that eventually will have the Medicaid restoration provisions.)

 

Senate Appropriations is scheduled to hold a hearing
on the bills tomorrow (Wednesday) at 11 a.m. in SHR109.  If you plan to
attend, plan to arrive early because seats will be at a premium.  Bring
a strong bladder, too – it's going to be a long meeting. 

More later…