Strike Everything

The bipartisanship that was displayed when Senate Republicans and Democrats cooperated to pass the sales tax referral last month appears to have flickered out since then.

Republicans are expected to hunker down to work on the fiscal 2011 budget next week, but Democrats are not involved in the discussions.

“We have to wait (until) the governor’s budget fails on its merit. At that point, we would be ready to talk to President Burns and our colleagues about how we get through this next year,” said Senate Minority Leader Jorge Garcia.

In short, the Senate has gone back to its familiar ways. Senate Republicans will put together a budget proposal and try to cobble 16 votes from their caucus. Democrats will oppose the GOP bills en masse, and they’ll be involved in the budget work only if Republicans switch to Plan B.

“That’s the way it works,” Senate President Bob Burns said. “I don’t think it would work any different if they were in the majority. They would work with their caucus first, and then they would come to the minority.”

Garcia agreed, saying he would do the same thing if he was in Burns’ position.

-By Luige del Puerto

It’s looking more and more likely that the U.S. Supreme Court will have to weigh in on the matter of employer sanctions. Although there has been a school of thought in the couple of years since the law went on the books here that the High Court wouldn’t necessarily want to weigh in on the matter, it may be compelled to.

Although Arizona’s law – the first of its kind in the nation that applies to an entire state – has been upheld by both a district federal judge and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, there is discord in the justice system.

The discord comes from a Feb. 2 ruling by the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals.

A three-judge panel of the Denver-based appeals court ruled that federal immigration law preempts two of the provisions of Oklahoma’s employer sanctions law, upholding a lower court’s injunction against them.

In the challenge to the Arizona law, attorneys for business and Hispanic groups also argued that federal immigration law preempts the state law. Although the provisions challenged are not identical, it is unlikely the Supreme Court will stand idly by as two lower appeals courts have come to conflicting rulings regarding the ability of states to implement immigration laws.

The Arizona case has already been appealed to the Supreme Court, and the court has already asked the Justice Department to file brief outlining the federal government’s position.

It is unclear when the law will have its final day in court, but the likelihood that it will come in front of the nation’s top nine judges has increased.

- by Jim Small

A recent poll that showed Jim Waring was leading the pack of contenders in Arizona Congressional District 3, but only 28 percent of those surveyed had decided who they plan to vote for.

Jim Waring, according to the poll, tallied 50 percent of those who had made up their minds. Pamela Gorman was next with about 27 percent.

But Sam Crump, Vernon Parker and others running for the seat shouldn’t be too disappointed, though, because 72 percent of those polled were undecided.

Chris Baker, Pamela Gorman’s consultant, questioned the validity of the poll’s results. He said he was shocked by the lack of undecided potential voters this early in the race.

“I think the validity of the results is extremely suspect and I think that any established pollster who saw those results would come to the same conclusion I did,” Baker said.

Summit Consulting Group conducted the survey between Feb. 9 and 10 in legislative districts 6, 7 and 11. Pollsters conducted interviews with 300 Republicans in the 3rd District who are likely to vote in the primary election. The margin of error is plus or minus 5.6 percent.

The poll question was: “In August, Republican voters will cast their vote for the new Republican nominee from District 3. If the Republican election were held today, who would you vote for?”

Chad Willems, whose group did the survey, is raising money for Waring’s campaign. He said those surveyed were not pushed into picking a candidate; instead, they were asked a straight question.

“I think that whenever a candidate does not have a strong showing in a poll, that the typical response is to attack the poll,” he said. “If Pamela Gorman was leading, I don’t think he (Baker) would be criticizing the results.”

Waring, the Phoenix Republican who resigned his Senate seat to run for Congress, often says he doubts the reliability of polls. In 2008, he was skeptical of surveys that showed that Obama was just a couple of points behind McCain in Arizona. Waring is a former aide to McCain.

Waring said the poll is a snapshot of time, but it gives his campaign some momentum and some cause to be optimistic.

“Is it over? By no means,” he said. “Nobody in my campaign would say that. There’s tons of work to be done.” 
Here are the results of the voters (excluding undecided respondents):

Jim Waring — 50 percent
Pamela Gorman — 26.8 percent
Sam Crump — 8.5 percent
Vernon Parker — 7.3 percent
Debra Brimhall — 2.4 percent
Ed Winkel — 2.4 percent
Paulina Morris — 1.2 percent

-By Luige del Puerto

The deadline for new legislation has come and gone, as the bill hopper in the House of Representatives closed at 5 p.m. Feb. 8, a week after senators had last call for new bills.

The final day saw a flurry of bills, memorials and resolutions – 105 measures were introduced yesterday, including more than 60 that were dropped in the final minutes before the deadline.

Among those final bills are measures that are sure to advance and generate robust debate – Rep. John McComish’s H2376 aims to partially finance a new Spring Training stadium in Mesa for the Chicago Cubs – and those which are almost certainly fated to die a quiet death, like Rep. Ben Miranda’s bill to extend the state sales tax to soda and other soft drinks.

In all, lawmakers filed 1,230 bills and another 152 memorials and resolutions, for a grand total of 1,382 measures. That amounts to nearly 97 more bills and almost 150 total measures more than last year, but it’s still a far cry from recent years in which legislators filed more than 1,300 bills.

-By Jim Small

After 10 months of debate on the issue, Attorney General Terry Goddard, the presumptive Democratic nominee for the governor’s race, said he doesn’t know whether he’ll vote for the temporary one-cent sales tax increase that will go before voters on May 18.

Goddard said he hadn’t made up his mind yet on the tax vote Feb. 5 while attending Arizona StandDown 2010, an event held to benefit homeless veterans. The comments came one day after the House followed the Senate in approving a special election and a ballot measure on the proposed tax hike. Goddard said he is trying to find out what other options may exist for closing the state’s massive budget shortfalls, which are estimated to be $1.4 billion for the current fiscal year and $3.3 billion in 2011.

“That’s been one that’s sort of been crammed down our throats, isn’t it?” Goddard asked. “(The Democrats who voted for it) did so with real concern that is probably the worst possible option.”

The attorney general filed his paperwork in January to officially become a candidate for governor, but said he will not release his plan for balancing the budget until he makes his official candidacy announcement in March. “We’ll do that in due course,” he said.

The issue could put Goddard in a tight spot. The ballot measure passed on a bipartisan vote, with support and opposition spread out pretty evenly among both Republicans and Democrats, so no party consensus on the issue existed on either side of the aisle. Furthermore, publicly supporting the tax hike would force Goddard to give a de facto endorsement of its biggest advocate, Gov. Jan Brewer, whom Goddard may face in the November election.

Though both chambers of the Legislature approved the special election, Goddard said there were questions as to whether the special election could be held on May 18 because neither chamber could must the two-thirds vote needed to give the bills an emergency clause, which would allow them to take effect immediately.

- By Jeremy Duda

While Sarah Palin’s latest political maneuvering has her headlining the National Tea Party Convention beginning today (Feb. 4) in Nashville, Tenn., and speaking at a Center for Arizona Policy “Family Dinner” event in April, the GOP establishment must be considering what the former vice presidential candidate’s future plans really are.

After all, she’s already published a book and went on a nationwide tour to promote it. Most of her followers are hard-line conservatives who like her straight-talking style, her views on social issues and her criticism of big government.

Perhaps she’s angling to become the new leader of the Tea Party Party.

According to this Huffington Post article, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), who serves as the head of the Republican Senate campaign operation, said the GOP is faced with a daunting choice regarding Tea Partiers: Either attempt to absorb them as a wing of the Republican Party at the risk of pushing away critical independent voters, or push them into forming a third party, which would then allow Tea Partiers to siphon votes from GOP candidates.

This article on Politico.com, directly questions Palin’s motive for not only speaking at the Tea Partiers’ relatively small political gathering, but doing so while shunning a much larger offer. Reportedly, she blew off a speaking offer from the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), which drew 9,000 people last year, for the Tea Party Convention, which expects a measly 600 people.

The answer, offered by Erick Erickson, founder of the conservative blog RedState.com, is simple. She’s carving out part of the conservative segment as her own.

I’ll take it a step further. She’s “going rogue” without “going off the GOP reservation.” She wants to be seen as an alternative for “mainstream” conservatives – still conservative, but not your grandpa’s conservative. A candidate can’t accomplish that by speaking at traditional conservative events, like the one held by CPAC.

So with the early stages of the she-maverick’s potential campaign message, what will her message be at the CAP event on April 24?

Cathi Herrod, CAP president, said this about having Palin speak during her organization’s event: “She’s the most sought-after speaker in America today. She’s a trailblazer for the conservative movement: She’s an articulate, pro-life, pro-family woman who stands for her values and doesn’t back down.”

It looks like the “trailblazer for the conservative movement” is getting her ducks lined up.

Click here for info on CAP’s event featuring Sarah Palin.

-By Josh Coddington

After 10 long months of urging the Legislature to put a temporary one-cent sales tax increase on the ballot, Gov. Jan Brewer finally got her wish. After the House approved a May 18 special election and a ballot measure on the proposed tax hike, Brewer issued a statement applauding the votes.

“Today, members and leadership of the Arizona House of Representatives joined with their colleagues in the Senate and demonstrated their faith in the judgment of Arizona voters,” the statement read. “At long last, the voters get a voice. It is a voice key members of the Legislature and I have fought for, a voice for our children and our future, and it was worth the effort.”

Brewer said the day should be marked down as the Arizona “began its recovery in earnest,” though she said there is still a lot of work to do. First on the agenda will likely be the four special session budget bills the House did not vote on before it recessed. House Majority Whip Rep. Andy Tobin told the Arizona Capitol Times that the votes weren’t there yet, but Brewer spokesman Paul Senseman said the governor isn’t concerned.

“I don’t think it will be an issue,” Senseman said.

-By Jeremy Duda