The Circus Is Back In Town This Week – God Save Us From These Clowns

by

The Circus – that is the GQP-controlled Arizona Legislature – is back in town this week. “No man’s [and especially a woman’s] life, liberty or property are safe while the Legislature is in session.” – Gideon John Tucker.

The Circus arrives at a time when the Omicron Covid-19 variant is surging and slamming Arizona hospitals into crisis management care.

Nevertheless, our criminally negligent lame-duck governor intends to give his State of The State Address in person sans a mask, of course. Ducey will return to in-person State of the State as COVID cases rise.

And our pro-Covid anti-masker and anti-vaxxer GQP legislators? Arizona Legislature does away with COVID-19 restrictions in 2022, even as omicron surges:

With near-record COVID-19 caseloads and hospitalizations driven by the highly infectious omicron variant sweeping Arizona, the state legislature will convene Jan. 10 with almost no restrictions in place aimed at limiting spread of the virus at the Capitol.

Neither the House of Representatives nor the Senate will require masks. Plastic shields that had been constructed around lawmakers’ desks have been dismantled, and there will be no social distancing requirements.

“Our goal is business as usual, with a few additions,” said Kim Quintero, a spokeswoman for Senate President Karen Fann and the Senate Republican caucus.

The only notable difference from pre-pandemic times will be that some legislators will be allowed to vote remotely — but only from their legislative offices at the Capitol, and only if they have a doctor’s note.

House Speaker Rusty Bowers told the Arizona Mirror that legislators who can’t come to the Capitol because they are sick — or for any other reason — will not be able to vote remotely. The Senate is implementing a similar rule, Quintero said.

And in both chambers, lawmakers who are authorized to vote remotely won’t be able to participate in debates or discussions about legislation.

In other words, the Trump Death Cult intends to put the health and safety, and potentially the lives of their colleagues, and staffers, and anyone else with business before the legislature at substantial risk when there are effective mitigation measures readily available, and in use last year.

Among our feckless governor’s top priorities is not addressing the Omicron Covid-19 variant surge currently slamming Arizona hospitals into crisis management care. If you need hospitalization for medical care, other than for Covid-19 (because you are unvaxxed and not boosted), too bad for you. I guess you will just have to die, and decrease the surplus population – the actual GQP healthcare plan.

The Arizona Mirror reports, Ducey says education, water, border security will be top priorities for legislative session, Arizona must “learn to live with” COVID-19, he says:

Education, water and border security will be among the top agenda items Gov. Doug Ducey plans to highlight in his State of the State address on Monday, which will kick off his eighth and final legislative session.

“I think this is going to be as big an agenda as we’ve ever put forward,” Ducey said during an Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry luncheon at Chase Field on Friday.

Ducey rarely provides much advance notice on what will be in his State of the State address, and this year is no exception. But there are some major issues that he and the legislature will be forced to confront. Perhaps the most pressing matter is in K-12 education, where schools will soon run up against a spending cap that could cost them about $1.1 billion.

Reminder: Ducey Packed AZ Supreme Court Temporarily Upholds Prop. 208, With A Roadmap To Gutting It:

Gov. Ducey and our lawless MAGA/QAnon Republican legislature tried to nullify the constitutional right of Arizonans to enact citizens initiatives to improve funding for public education, which they have steadfastly refused to do for many years. Voters approved the Invest In Ed Act (Proposition 208), to impose a small surtax on the wealthy to generate more funding for public education. Wealthy Arizonans and their lickspittle lackeys in the MAGA/QAnon Republican legislature sued to nullify the election results and the will of the voters.

The Ducey packed Arizona Supreme Court upheld Prop. 208 today, but it was not a clear victory as it should have been. The Ducey packed Arizona Supreme Court “split the baby” and gave the plaintiffs a roadmap to eventually gutting this voter approved citizen initiative in the future.

The Arizona Mirror reports, Arizona Supreme Court sets the stage to overturn Prop 208 tax increase for school funding:

The Arizona Supreme Court refused to block a voter-approved tax hike on the state’s top earners, rejecting a challenge brought by Republican lawmakers and a local business, who argued that the tax violated the state constitution.

But the victory for public school advocates is likely only temporary, as the court ruled that Proposition 208’s spending on teachers and school operations is subject to constitutional restrictions on spending — and said it’s very likely that the spending will far exceed the constitutional limits.

Which brings us to this Republican manufactured crisis. Arizona schools face massive budget cuts unless Legislature acts soon. That is far from certain:

School officials statewide are warning they may be forced to impose massive staff layoffs and possibly even close schools unless lawmakers lift a spending cap that would otherwise require a large cut in their budgets this year.

Lawmakers have until March 1 to vote on whether to lift the spending limit, or else the state Constitution requires districts to cut their budgets 16% by April 1.

Last fall, when budget officials calculated that school budgets would exceed the constitutionally required spending limit, legislative leaders said they’d make sure the schools were spared [As if]. But what was originally considered a mundane matter of raising or waiving the limit has turned into a politically fraught game of chicken, with school disruptions hanging in the balance.

A number of Republican lawmakers have said they won’t consider a waiver until Proposition 208, an education-funding matter approved by voters and tied up in the courts, is eliminated. [Screw the will of the voters. We decide and you shall obey!] They are hoping the judge handling the case will rule soon, or, alternatively, the education and civic groups that sponsored Proposition 208 will drop their ongoing legal challenge.

“Surrender or die!” Sacrificing your child’s education on the altar of tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy.

Absent that, state Sen. J.D. Mesnard said he and other lawmakers can’t support any move to waive the limit and spare the schools significant cuts in the final three months of their budget year.

School officials are sounding the alarm, warning that a 16% cut this deep into the school year could severely disrupt operations in a year already bedeviled by coronavirus complications.

“There’s no way that can happen without closing schools,” Tim Carter, Yavapai County school superintendent, said of double-digit budget cuts to the districts scattered across his north-central Arizona county.

That’s because salaries make up most of a school’s budget, from teachers to janitors to bus drivers — all positions that are needed to keep the schools running, he said. He can’t figure out a way to cut the needed 16% yet spare salaries.

“Where else do they think that money is coming from?” he asked, referring to lawmakers.

The four largest school districts in Yavapai County face a cumulative $15.5 million reduction.

“If folks think things are disruptive because of COVID, just wait,” Carter said.

[T]his isn’t the first time school spending has bumped up against the limit. It has happened at least twice before and was resolved with little drama, sparing schools a mandatory cut.

Not gonna happen this year in a radicalized authoritarian GQP legislature.

Mesnard, R-Chandler, said while he’s sympathetic toward the schools’ plight, he can’t contemplate a waiver until he knows Proposition 208 is wiped off the books. [Screw the will of the voters. We decide and you shall obey!]

He’s worried that if lawmakers waive the cap for aggregate school spending, a judge could argue that lawmakers could similarly waive the limit each year to allow Proposition 208 dollars to be spent.

A veteran lawmaker, Mesnard said he is confident there are enough Republicans willing to hold off on a waiver decision until Proposition 208 is stricken from state law.

A waiver needs a two-thirds vote of the Legislature to pass, requiring bipartisan agreement. That means at least nine Republican votes are needed in the House and four in the Senate, assuming all Democrats are in favor of lifting the spending cap. The measure does not need gubernatorial approval.

So it would be politically expedient for Governor Ducey to propose raising the spending cap, knowing full well that he can distance himself from the decision by our radicalized authoritarian GQP legislature not to raise the spending cap, in their never-ending war against pubic education. Ducey’s top priority has always been tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy. So his legacy would be preserved.

As the Arizona Mirror recounts:

Ducey originally ran for governor in 2014 with a pledge to reduce Arizona’s income tax rate to as close to zero as possible. Last year, he was finally able to make good his mission to slash income taxes, reducing Arizona’s top rate to 2.98%, with a 2.5% flat rate for all Arizonans going into effect as soon as 2023 if state revenues hit certain benchmarks.

Which brings us to the latest authoritarian Republican effort to reject the will of the voters and to deprive you of your constitutional right to citizens initaitive and referendum:

Democrats who opposed the tax cuts as a giveaway to the state’s wealthiest residents collected enough signatures to refer the law to the 2022 ballot, which would give voters an opportunity to overturn the cuts.

Ducey wouldn’t comment on whether he supports the repeal-and-replace plan being pushed by Sen. J.D. Mesnard and Rep. Ben Toma, the legislative architects of the tax cut plan. He told the Arizona Mirror that he can’t control what comes out of the legislature and that he’ll work to “control the controllables.” He also said he hasn’t spoken with Mesard and Toma, but that he read an article about their plan “with great interest.”

See previously, Republican Legislators Plot To Deny Voters A Referendum To Repeal Their ‘Flat Tax’ Plan To Benefit The Wealthy.

Another complicaction for our authoritarian GQP legisature. Will they actually comply with this recent Arizona Supreme Court ruling:

A landmark ruling by the Arizona Supreme Court ended the longstanding practice of stuffing budget bills full of non-budget items, which legislative leadership and governors have historically done to win votes from recalcitrant lawmakers. In the process, the court struck down dozens of laws that were included in last year’s budget.

Ducey said some of those laws need to be passed anew, though he wouldn’t say exactly which ones.

Now we’ve come full circle back to where this post began, with our criminally negligent governor’s support for the Trump Death Cult.

[Ducey] told reporters after the Chamber of Commerce luncheon that it’s possible he’ll call a special session to re-authorize several measures pertaining to COVID-19. The court’s ruling invalidated laws banning schools from imposing vaccine, mask and testing mandates.

“I’m open-minded to it,” he said.

“Open-minded” to making the spread of Covid-19 more prevalent by restricting mitigation measures to fight the disease, and slamming Arizona hospitals into crisis management care.

While Ducey wants to ensure that Arizona has no vaccine mandates or school closures due to COVID-19, he signaled that he has no plans to take action to curb the spread of the virus, despite surging numbers in Arizona and across the country.

* * *

“We’re going to have to learn to live with this virus safely and responsibly,” Ducey said.  [This is your definition of responsible?]

Ducey said different states have taken different approaches to the COVID-19 pandemic. His approach has largely focused on keeping businesses and schools open, and rejecting mandates and other requirements related to the virus.

Somehow this Arizona Mirror report does not address Governor Ducey’s other top priorities, Arizona’s dwindling water supplies during a mega-drought due to climate change, and his anti-immigrant posturing on the border to pander to the GQP crazy base as he contemplates running for president (oh dear God, no).

Not listed among Governor Ducey’s top priorites: the MAGA/QAnon cult’s “stop the steal” election “reforms” to make it easier for Republicans to steal elections and to nullify any election results that do not go their way. Remember that Governor Ducey Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey defended election process after Trump attack:

Arizona Republican Gov. Doug Ducey sent a lengthy string of tweets Monday night defending the state’s election process after being attacked by President Donald Trump for his handling of it.

“I’ve been pretty outspoken about Arizona’s election system, and bragged about it quite a bit, including in the Oval Office,” Ducey tweeted in part, praising the state’s election laws and practices as secure and empowering to voters.

Will Governor Ducey continue to defend “the state’s election laws and practices as secure and empowering to voters” now that he is pandering to the GQP crazy base in what will be a failed presidential bid? Doubtful – after all, he did sign the GQP voter suppresion measures included in the state budget that the state Supreme Court voided.