Special Session Alert: Trouble Brewering – Accidental Governor Ready to Blink?

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The House Appropriations Committee approved the conformed version of the state equalization property tax repeal bill on Tuesday. Arizona lawmakers miss deadline for property-tax repeal According to several news sources, Senate President Bob Burns says he cannot find support for the Accidental Governor's temporary sales tax increase, and he will transmit the Senate budget package, sans sales tax referral, to the House for final action. Sen. Burns did not specify when but it may be as early as today when the House and Senate reconvene this afternoon.

This budget is almost identical to the July 1 budget that the Accidental Governor vetoed as "fatally flawed." This is a game of brinkmanship to see whether the Accidental Governor will blink this time.

The state equalization property tax repeal poses an interesting problem for the GOP insane clown posse leadership. The suspended law automatically went back into effect on Monday. Boards of Supervisors have already acted to set the tax rates for assessment. County Treasurer's are preparing to send tax bills to the printers later this week.

If the GOP insane clown posse leadership wants any repeal of the state equalization property tax to go into effect immediately upon the governor's signature, the bill must contain an emergency clause and be passed by a two-thirds vote of each chamber. Unless Democrats are willing to provide the necessary votes, this just isn't going to happen. The legislation will take effect 90 days after the Legislature adjourns sine die (from the Special Session). Your property tax bill is due October 1.

All of this, of course, presupposes that the Accidental Governor will actually sign the state equalization property tax repeal, which she has consistently linked to the Legislature referring her sales tax measure to the ballot. She agreed to forgo the revenues from the property tax only in exchange for the sales tax referral.

Republican lawmakers are talking about a new game plan: Send the budget bills to Brewer, convince her to sign them in the interest of giving state agencies clarity, then deal with the tax-increase referral. Arizona lawmakers miss deadline for property-tax repeal

Such a move would free the budget from being weighted down with special provisions designed to win a legislator's vote on the sales-tax hike, these lawmakers argue.

"Special provisions" like Sen. Jack Harper's package of four amendments to the "Sham-Wow!" budget deal in the Senate which is now off the table.

The Accidental Governor will be under tremendous pressure to go along. State Treasurer Dean Martin, who has already indicated that he may run against Jan Brewer in the GOP gubernatorial primary, said on Monday that Arizona is on track to running out of money to pay its bills and its employees in the middle of October — if not sooner — if lawmakers don’t adopt a new budget plan quickly. State could run out of money by mid-October:

Martin said by Tuesday the state’s books would already be in the red to the tune of about $360 million. The only thing that’s keeping Arizona afloat is about $500 million in accounts that belong to specific state agencies, money that is being loaned, with interest, to the general fund.

[The state's line of credit will be "maxed out" in October.]

That, however, doesn’t mean Arizona has until then to adopt a balance budget.

Martin said that, no matter what happens, the state is going to need to borrow money, even on a short-term basis, to pay its bills.

He said, though, it takes six to eight weeks to set up such a line of credit. And Martin said banks have told him they won’t even consider extending credit until the state has a balanced budget.

That, he said, makes this week or next the drop-dead deadline for lawmakers to approve a spending plan. Martin said if there is no action soon, Arizona “will be in exactly the same position that California was, sending out IOUs or not paying people or doing emergency furloughs.”

“We’ve already informed the governor’s office last week that they need to start creating a list of who gets paid and who doesn’t get paid,” he said. “Physically, there will be no money to cover those checks.”

That presumes things don’t get worse before the line of credit is in place: He said the money available internally to loan the general fund could run out as early as next month.

“If that’s the case, we’re already screwed,” he said.

The Accidental Governor has not yet backed off her demand that any budget must include putting a measure on the ballot asking voters for a temporary hike in state sales tax.

“The governor has made it very clear to the legislators for many weeks now that if they were not to send a budget that was acceptable to her that a financial crisis of order and magnitude the state has never seen would ensue,” said gubernatorial press aide Paul Senseman. He said any problems that result are the fault of legislative leaders, not the governor.

Senseman said Brewer “remains committed to securing additional revenues to protect those three core areas of education, public safety and health.”

* * *

“The Legislature could adopt her entire package and send it to her with what she’s proposed,” he said.

However, Jim Nintzel of the Tucson Weekly, who tends to have unimpeachable sources, reports "Our Capitol sources tell us that Gov. Jan Brewer may be ready to sign a GOP budget without a tax referral, if certain changes are made." Nintzel is not revealing any details at this time. If his sources are correct, events could unfold quickly over the next couple of days. The Accidental Governor will have been the first to blink and agree to sign a budget that she previously vetoed as "fatally flawed" on July 1. She will have suffered the first political defeat of her long career, that I can recall.

Sen. Burns' promise to continue working to separately round up votes for the Accidental Governor's sales tax referral is disingenuous. If the Governor signs the GOP insane clown posse's fatally flawed budget, there will be even fewer GOP votes for the sales tax referral because there will no longer be any linkage to other elements in the budget.

When senators like Ron Gould (R-Lake Havasu City) are displaying the Gadsden flag in his office and saying "I consider Jan Brewer a tyrant," there is no room for further negotiation. Rum, Romanism and Rebellion » Sic Semper Brewer?

Finally, I am uncertain whether this revived July 1 budget also contains elements of the "Sham-Wow!" budget deal, i.e., the referral to the ballot of the suspension of the Voter Protection Act (Prop. 105), and the TABOR-Lite spending freeze, both of which the Accidental Governor wanted along with her sales tax increase. These measures would be referred to a Special Election ballot on December 8 if these measures are still included in the budget.