Special Session to begin Tuesday

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The Special Session will begin Tuesday afternoon. My sources say that the Republicans are still short a vote and will have to play "Let's Make a Deal." Howard Fischer, however, says the GOP has the votes and maybe some Democrats to spare. Budget, Rio Nuevo on agenda (Republican legislative leaders said they have the necessary votes lined up, with even some Democrats agreeing to go along.)

The Special Session is expected to last three days, concluding Thursday at the earliest.

The primary goal of the Special Session is to correct some agency funding issues. The plan on the table is to reduce "soft capitol aid" to public schools by $144 million (e.g., computers, books, school buses). Another $148 million is to come out of the budget for the Department of Economic Security. Leadership will try to find another $160 million in savings through technical corrections to agency budgets, and restore funding to the Arizona Corporation Commission and the Department of Revenue.

Also on the Special Session agenda Brewer to call a special session:

• Reform the Rio Nuevo redevelopment district in downtown Tucson.

The proposal on Rio Nuevo is designed to wrest control of the redevelopment project's board away from the Tucson City Council. Instead, board members would be appointed by the governor, the speaker of the House and the president of the Senate.

Lawmakers previously approved that change. But it was part of a larger bill that included provisions that Gov. Jan Brewer did not like, leading her to veto the entire measure. Budget, Rio Nuevo on agenda

• Provide $18.5 million to Science Foundation Arizona from the state's risk-management fund. A Maricopa County court ruled in June that the state owed the organization the funding, which the state had pledged as part of a public-private effort to spur the state's research and technology industry.

• Change the state's foreclosure law. An amendment signed into law in July was intended to protect small banks from real-estate speculators who purchase new homes they're unable to sell later for a profit.

But the provision was repealed in August after Realtors and other critics of the law realized that it made many homeowners in foreclosure liable to lenders for the difference between their mortgage and what a lender could recoup by selling the home.

Lawmakers undid the changes in a special session, only to find themselves sued by the bankers, who questioned the constitutionality of the move. Budget, Rio Nuevo on agenda

The deal being worked out late Monday partially restores what the bankers want.

The cuts may put Arizona at the limit of what it can cut from K-12 education under the "maintenance of effort" restrictions that were a condition of accepting federal stimulus funds. Legislators must skip ideology, rescue the state

Sen. Russell Pearce, head of the Senate Appropriations Committee, has suggested Arizona defy the federal government and ignore "maintenance of effort" limits.

This is not an honorable or reasonable position. The governor and lawmakers should say so.

The Special Session will not take up the Accidental Governor's temporary sales tax increase referral to the ballot. As reported previously, the Accidental Governor is still trying to negotiate a Special Session between Thanksgiving and Christmas for her tax hike plan. Fearless prediction: it ain't gonna happen.