Special Session update: Sine Die without taking action on extending unemployment benefits

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

I am watching the live proceedings of the Arizona legislature. The Senate came into session around 2:12 p.m., and immediately moved to form a committee for sine die and to inform the House. They debated and passed the motion, and are now in recess. The House is debating and will be voting on a similar motion shortly. [Update: Motion aproved around 3:08 p.m., House is adjourned.]

The Arizona legislature is the rare state legislature to fail to act to extend the federal emergency unemployment insurance benefits for an additional 20 weeks by making a one word amendment to the Arizona unemployment insurance statutes. This is an epic moral failure.

The reason is purely ideological extremism: Tea-Publicans tried to hold the unemployment insurance benefits hostage for a corporate welfare tax cut package that Governor Brewer vetoed at the end of the regular session. Governor Brewer refused to expand the call of the special session to include the Tea-Publican corporate welfare tax cut package. She wanted a "clean" unemployment benefits bill.

There is a serious question of mismanagement and incompetence by Governor Brewer and her office. Several legislators stated it was their understanding that Governor Brewer had an agreement with leadership on a bill that could have been passed on Friday. It is possible that legislative leadership reneged on a deal with the governor, but there does not appear to be any evidence to support this theory. Brewer called the special session at the eleventh hour the day before the extended unemployment benefits were set to expire without any agreement.

Governor Brewer will say, "Oh well, I tried, but the big bad Arizona legislature would not go along. So sorry (not really)." It was all just a charade.

No legislator should receive their per diem for this special session as a penalty for their failure to act for the benefit of their constituents. This is a sad day in Arizona.

UPDATE: From an press release by the House Democratic Caucus:

“It is disappointing that after four days of the legislature being in session and collecting per diem we have done nothing to create jobs or to help Arizona’s jobless,” said Senate Minority Leader David Schapira, who introduced a bill to waive the “per diem” pay this session. “While legislators got a bonus this week for doing nothing, many of Arizona’s jobless will go empty-handed.”   

But state lawmakers will take home cash for doing absolutely nothing — they earn $35 per diem if they live in Maricopa County and $60 per diem for living outside of Maricopa County. The amount collected per diem in this session by out-of-county representatives — $240 — is more than one week of unemployment insurance payment.