Rep. Eddie Farnsworth, the House majority leader, says the recent legislative session was long and hard because of the challenges posed by the state budget, the Legislature’s internal politics, and an activist governor “who thinks she’s the Legislature and the governor all rolled into one.”

Considering all that, he said, the session was about as successful as could be expected.

Next year, he suggested, will be an even sterner test.

“I think there were a lot of things that led to the session being a challenge,” said Mr. Farnsworth, R-Dist 22, in an interview. “We had a lot of new people come in and obviously that creates a circumstance where you have to deal with a learning curve.”

Voters elected 31 newcomers to the 90-member House in November, and, shortly after the session began in January, two of the veterans — Rep. Robert Cannell, D-Dist. 24, and Rep. Victor Soltero, D-Dist 29 — moved to the Senate to fill vacancies there. Their replacements —Rep. Amanda Aguirre, D-Dist. 24, and Rep. Tom Prezelski, D-Dist. 29 — raised the total of newcomers to 33.

The new Legislature had to deal with two budgets instead of only one, Mr. Farnsworth pointed out, because the fiscal 2003 budget it inherited was already out of balance. Legislators went into a one-day special session March 17 to enact a series of fund transfers and spending reductions that amounted to a $300 million re-balancing of that budget.

“Then we had to work on the [fiscal] ‘04 budget,” Mr. Farnsworth added. “So we actually did two budgets this session. That was obviously a major challenge that historically Legislatures have not had to do.

“The economic downturn and the fiscal situation [with falling revenues] was a challenge.

“Finally, we had a new governor on ninth floor that wanted to spend more and, in my personal opinion, her vetoes showed that she is not worried about spending more or where it is going to come from. She just wants to spend, and I think eventually we’re going to see an encouragement to raise taxes – possibly as early as next year with all the spending that’s in there [in the fiscal 2004 budget] now with her vetoes.

“So, all those things came together to make for a very long and difficult session,” said Mr. Farnsworth.

And balancing the budget next session may be an even greater challenge, he said. The experience gained by putting out two budgets in one session won’t necessarily make it any easier to agree next year.

“I think the $6.4 billion budget [sent to the governor June 11] was pretty much as high as we could go without really having a summit that we can’t climb in [fiscal] ‘05, ‘06 and ‘07,” said Mr. Farnsworth.

“With the governor deciding to use her line-item veto and bring a lot of spending back, I think we’re going to have some major challenges,” he said. “The governor’s actions have made it more difficult because our idea of solving this deficit over three years now has been hurt.

“With the Ladewig case and the money she took, I think we’re starting next year with a $150 million hole on top of the budget deficit. So we’re going to be somewhere close to $600 million now because of the governor’s actions. Instead of $380 million, we’ll be at $600 million.”

With her line-item vetoes, Governor Napolitano took $75 million set aside to start making payments on the $350 million Ladewig court settlement and used the funds to cover nearly $65 million in spending she aimed to restore by vetoing budget reductions.

Court, Caucus Woes And Hope For A Better Economy

Mr. Farnsworth and other Republican leaders have questioned Ms. Napolitano’s authority to affect spending in that fashion and are studying the possibility of taking her to court.

“I expect that next year is going to be very, very difficult on the budget,” he said. “I think we’re going to continue to face the problem that we have faced for the last couple of years. Hopefully, the economy will come back to some degree and our revenue will be up. That certainly would make it easier.”

The task of putting together the next budget may be complicated by the emergence of a strong faction of moderates in the House Republican caucus to challenge the GOP’s conservatives. The moderate faction has become known as the Cellar Dwellers because they meet in the House basement.

The potential of the Cellar Dwellers became apparent June 19 as the House was preparing for final adjournment. Mr. Farnsworth made the adjournment motion and Rep. John Nelson, R-Dist. 12, offered a substitute motion that the House concur in Senate amendments to H2332, the bill to provide state funding for part of the expansion of the Phoenix Civic Plaza.

House Speaker Jake Flake, R-Dist. 5, had pointedly ignored H2332 by calling directly for a final-adjournment motion. But a coalition of Cellar Dwellers and Democrats banded together behind Mr. Nelson’s substitute motion and was able to push the bill through two procedural votes over Mr. Flake’s opposition, and then win final approval of the measure on a 31-21 vote with Mr. Flake and Mr. Farnsworth, the top GOP leaders, both voting against it. Eight members were absent.

“We saw Republicans who aligned themselves with the Democrats to roll the speaker,” said Mr. Farnsworth. “That’s the politics of the place.

“I think that we actually have three groups [in the caucus]. I don’t think that’s unusual either. We have those who would be the conservatives. Those who would be Cellar Dwellers, if you want to use the term, would be the ones who tend to be more moderate. Then you have those who are probably in the middle. You saw them bounce back and forth. There was a handful of them who would go up and meet with the conservatives and then they would go meet with moderates in the basement.”

“What has happened is that like-minded people got together and they started talking about what it was they wanted,” Mr. Farnsworth continued. “And they recognized that if they put their votes together then they would have more power.

“That’s why it was done, and it’s not new. Everything that is done in politics is done based upon combining ideology to try to have a stronger bloc.”

Mr. Farnsworth agreed that H2332 and H2529, the university research-funding bill, illuminated the ideological differences in the Republican caucus.

“There is a big difference in ideology when we talk about what those big money bills were going to do,” he said. “Not the budget; the big money bills — the universities and the Civic Plaza. Definitely there was a split on ideology and belief of what should be done there. You know that happens. That’s the process.”

Mr. Flake was the prime sponsor of H2529 and voted for it. Mr. Farnsworth and Rep. Randy Graf, the House majority whip, R-Dist. 30, voted against it.

‘Process Worked’

On the other hand, Mr. Farnsworth said the caucus pulled together to pass the budget.

“I think all in all the process worked fairly well,” he said. “On two different occasions we had both the downstairs people and the conservatives and those who weren’t a part of either group come together and come to a compromise on issues in the ORBs [omnibus reconciliation bills], issues in the budget and issues in the trailer bills. That was a very positive thing.

“Given the cards we were dealt I think that we did a pretty good job,” he continued. “Having to solve a ‘03 budget with a lot of new faces. A steep learning curve. A hostile governor who thinks she’s actually the Legislature and governor all rolled int
o one. I think that the House came together on many, many occaisions to show they could come together as a body.”

“Next year is going to be a tough budgetary year,” said Mr. Farnsworth. “My only hope is that if we have to come into a special session to tweak ‘04 [the current budget], I hope we can do it beforehand and not have to solve that at the beginning of the session next yar. Then we can get right to work on the ‘05 budget when January comes.” —