Democrat legislators for weeks have banked on disputes in the Senate Republican caucus — or if the GOP held firm, a veto by Governor Napolitano — to force GOP leaders eventually to include them in writing the fiscal 2004 budget. When two Republican senators refused to support the party’s spending proposals, the door opened to the minority party on May 21.

After Senate President Ken Bennett, R-Dist. 1, and other Senate leaders failed to convince Linda Binder, R-Dist. 3, and Slade Mead, R-Dist. 20, to vote for the $6.2 billion budget package passed by House Republicans — just one of their votes would have provided the necessary 16 for Senate passage — the session was recessed over the holiday weekend and a bipartisan group of senators sat down to negotiate spending increases beyond the small overall increase approved by the House.

Senate Minority Leader Jack Brown, D-Dist. 5, told Arizona Capitol Times that his assistant minority leader Sen. Linda Aguirre, D-Dist. 16, and Senate Republican Majority Leader Tim Bee, R-Dist. 30, had actually begun talking about a budget compromise on May 20.

The Democrat negotiators are Mr. Brown, Ms. Aguirre, Sen. Pete Rios, D-Dist. 23, and Sen. Robert Cannell, D-Dist. 24. The Republicans are Mr. Bennett, Mr. Bee, Sen. Marilyn Jarrett, R-Dist. 19, Sen. Bob Burns, R-Dist. 9, and Sen. Carolyn Allen, R-Dist. 8.

The committee held its first session May 22. The meeting was described by Mr. Bennett as “congenial” and merely laid groundwork for the negotiations.

How long the negotiating might take is anyone’s guess. Ms. Binder, who left May 22 for a three-week wedding anniversary trip to Australia, predicted it still will be going on when she returns.

200 Attend Rally

On May 21 Ms. Binder and Mr. Mead held a rally to promote increased spending. The rally drew a crowd estimated at between 150 and 200 people, most of them supporters of expanded education or social-service programs, and it was evident that in that group the two senators had strong support for their campaign to restore or increase spending for various education, health care, social services, law enforcement and public safety programs.

State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne, Attorney General Terry Goddard and several public education officials were on hand to say House Republicans were not spending enough on education and law enforcement.

Mr. Horne called for restoration of $45 million in spending he wants for public education, and Mr. Goddard said his office cannot sustain further budget cuts, particularly considering that Arizona now ranks first among the states in crimes against persons and seventh in crimes involving identity theft, which, he said, is the fastest growing crime in America.

Bravery Or ‘Bidding For The Executive’?

Governor Napolitano was quick to weigh in with support for Ms. Binder and Mr. Mead.

“They are standing up to incredible pressure for what they believe in,” said the governor, who added that she had met with the two senators at their request.

The holdout senators, however, had drawn fire in a Republican caucus on May 19.

Sen. Allen said Ms. Binder “has been used by the House, the Governor’s Office and Mead.”

Sen. Jay Tibshraeny, R-Dist. 21, said the caucus was in a “precarious position” because “our members are doing the bidding for the executive.”

Sen. Toni Hellon, R-Dist. 26, described as “unconscionable” Ms. Binder’s and Mr. Mead’s absences in the caucus and during the Senate’s debate on the budget. “It’s very sad that the process has deteriorated to this,” she said.

Defeating a barrage of 25 Democrat floor amendments to add spending to the House-approved budget, Republican senators, minus Mr. Mead and Ms. Binder, gave preliminary approval on May 16. But debate approval does not require the outright majority necessary for passage.

Mr. Brown told the Democrat caucus on May 21 he was not sure the fresh round of budget negotiations would reach an agreement, calling the House budget “pretty sick.”

Ms. Aguirre was more positive, saying she believed the Republicans were “sincere” in extending an olive branch to Democrats, and a negotiated budget could garner as many as 20 votes in the Senate.

Several Senate floor speeches on May 21, nevertheless, re-emphasized familiar battle lines on the budget. Sen. Jim Waring, R-Dist. 7, who rarely speaks on the floor, declared the Democrats’ spending proposals have no revenue sources. Mr. Waring is vice chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee.

For the Democrats, Mr. Rios said more than $400 million is available to pay for social services supported by the Democrats, including a $120 million surplus budgeted for the current fiscal year.

Fragile Balance

Mr. Bennett says any sizeable spending increases could upset what already is a fragile balance of votes in the Senate on the budget. Conservative senators who feel the House budget is too large but nevertheless have agreed to vote for it could turn against a bigger-spending budget.

One of those senators is Thayer Verschoor, R-Dist. 22. He was against the House-passed budget himself, and the focus of considerable leadership pressure to change his mind, until Ms. Binder announced she had switched her position and now would vote no. At that point he agreed to support the House budget. It was one of several moves over the past two weeks that that at times had Senate leadership seemingly frozen in its tracks.

When the House in straight party line voting passed its fiscal 2004 budget in the early morning hours of May 16, it was thought there were enough votes in the Senate to pass an identical budget package. But House cuts in funding for some education and health care programs turned Ms. Binder, up to then a yes vote, against it, leaving the Senate one vote short of the 16 needed for passage.

Ms. Binder, a former House member and first-term senator from Lake Havasu City, said the House level of spending for community colleges, public safety and community health was unacceptable and that the House’s approval of continued funding for the state’s sexual abstinence program “put me over the edge.”

When she failed to show up for a vote on the budget on May 16, the Department of Public Safety was dispatched to her Lake Havasu City home but later was told to stand down by the Governor’s Office. Ms. Binder had earlier in the day failed to meet a lobbyist’s plane that had been sent to transport her back to Phoenix.

Since her defection, Ms. Binder and Mr. Mead have teamed up to demand the restoration of millions of dollars to the budget for social and educational programs and to push for action on three other major bills that had been set aside during work on the budget — a bill to fund research facilities at the state’s three universities, another to provide state assistance for expanding Phoenix Civic Plaza and a third to enable new funding for Maricopa County Health Systems.

Mr. Binder and Mr. Mead were assured those three bills will be given a chance at passage, but as of May 21, they still were against the budget.

Late introduction of the Phoenix Civic Plaza bill was approved by the Senate Rules Committee on May 21. (See report on new bills, Page 13.) The university research facilities and special hospital district bills have not worked their way through Senate committees.

In addition to the Binder-Mead developments, the budget took some other political twists and turns in the Senate.

On the evening of May 12, Democrat Sen. Gabrielle Giffords, Dist. 28, requested a quorum call as the Senate was about to introduce and first read its budget bills. After a 45-minute wait, only 11 senators had come to the floor, and introduction of th
e budget had to wait until the next day.

Explaining her quorum request before she left for a Democratic Leadership Council meeting in Washington, D.C., Ms. Giffords said the budget should not be introduced “when it’s dark outside” and she complained that rank-and-file members had not had a chance to go through the bills.

When the bills were taken up by the Senate Appropriations Committee on May 15, Mr. Verschoor, who at the time was still against the budget, was not present for the voting. The committee defeated Democrat amendments for increased spending and gave do-pass recommendations to the bills by one-vote margins, 6-5.

The Senate on May 21 did manage to pass and return to the House a budget related bill, H2195. The bill requires the State Compensation Fund and the state Department of Administration to submit a plan for the sale of $250 million in state property. If the proposed sale does not reach $250 million, the difference, up to $125 million, would be transferred to the general fund from the compensation fund, and the Department. of Administration would be required to give the compensation fund state property worth at least 125 per cent of the amount taken from the compensation fund.

H2195 extends the deadline to June 30 for transfer of $50 million to balance the fiscal 2003 budget, and provides for sale of $250 million of assets for fiscal 2004. —