The Chicken Little Award goes to…

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Buried in the Arizona Republic coverage of the Arizona senate's passage of the budget early this morning was this little gem Arizona Senate overnight passes $8.2 billion plan:

Sen. John Nelson, R-Litchfield Park, was a late-night holdout, snagged by Senate leaders as he was trying to leave via a back staircase. After about an hour of closed-door meetings with Burns, as well as Adams, Nelson threw his support behind a budget that, he said, resulted from a deeply flawed process.

Sen. Nelson first gets caught trying to sneak out the back door so that he would not have to vote on this turkey of a GOP budget, and then he caves in to threats and intimidation from the GOP clown possee leadership to go along, abandoning any pretense of having principles:

He said he was troubled by the speed with which changes to the spending plan were made, often without any notice to lawmakers, and certainly without a chance to review the bills, which collectively run for dozens of pages of technical language.

"We're going from here to the floor without any time for people to read the bills and understand what's in there," said Nelson.

He said he does not know "as much I would like to know" about the budget package, but ultimately supported it because of the looming deadline to have a state budget in place.

Dude, grow a pair!

For his singular lack of courage under fire, the Chicken Little Award goes to Sen. John Nelson (R-Litchfield Park). We will be sending you via mail your polo shirt with a chicken little emblem on the left breast and a big yellow stripe down the middle of the back (although I doubt he has the courage to wear it proudly).

To borrow a term coined by Rep. Matt Heinz (D-Tucson) this is "legislative malpractice." There was certainly no "informed consent." It is a safe bet that most of the Republicans who voted for this package of budget bills had little or no idea exactly what was contained in these bills. (At most they had staff summaries.) The truly frightening part is, these Republicans really didn't give a crap.

Sen. Nelson should have stood his ground and demanded his right as a legislator to have sufficient time to review and consider these bills. What was the rush?

It turns out the Senate leadership was in such a rush because they were about to lose one of their votes on Thursday. Sen. Thayer Verschoor (R-Gilbert) had booked a cruise on the Love Boat for this weekend. Budget vote won't delay Sen. Verschoor's trip

First of all, anyone who serves in the Arizona legislature knows that you do not make vacation plans in the month of June. If that is not a writtem rule somewhere, it ought to be. You do not schedule vacations until after July 1 (and maybe not even then, this year).

If Sen. Nelson had stood his ground on principle, this post would be praising him for his courage. I could be spending the next few days mercilessly mocking Sen. Verschoor with dispatches from the Love Boat (with fake interviews from Julie, Isaac, Doc, Gopher and Captain Stubing). Your'e a buzzkill, Dude!

You had to go and cave in to the threats and intimidation from the GOP clown possee leadership, and for that it is you who deserves to be the butt of jokes, and the object of public ridicule and scorn – at least for today.