Republican legislative leadership has set goals to have a new budget on the governor’s desk by March 7 and adjourn by March 31.

Were business completed by the target date, the second regular session of the 47th Legislature, which starts Jan. 9, would be 82 days, the second recent shortest session since the 99 days of 1997.

“This will take some effort to accomplish,” said Senate President Ken Bennett in a Nov. 23 memo to senators and staff.

“It’s a starting point,” said House spokesman Barrett Marson. “We started talking about what would be a great scenario.”

Sen. Karen Johnson, R-18, said, “It sounds like a good goal. Maybe even the Democrats will cooperate,” she said, noting next year is an election year, and legislators will be eager to get on the campaign trail.

Explaining a line in his memo, Mr. Bennett said Governor Napolitano has “hinted” in conversations with him and Speaker Jim Weiers that she has no problem with a long session. Referring to the meetings with Ms. Napolitano, Mr. Bennett’s memo said, “There are those who would like to see the session linger on and feel that they may somehow gain from that.”

At her news briefing Nov. 30, Ms. Napolitano said funding for the English learning program, which is tied up in court, and the budget are her two priority issues for the session.,

“We can do it very quickly or we can take a lot of time,” she said, adding that she thinks the session will go longer than 82 days.

“It’s up to leadership. They can either come up here and start negotiating now with me or not. There are reasonable areas to compromise on, or they can play games,” the governor said.

Some legislative Republicans are calling for tax cuts given the state’s surplus revenues, and that is an issue that could take the session beyond March.

“I’m not against tax cuts — we cut business taxes last year— but we don’t have tax cuts until we pay off our long term debt, until we pay for our schools and put some aside for the rainy day,” Ms. Napolitano told reporters.

She also said Mr. Bennett and Mr. Weiers did not inform their caucuses of the session timelines before the memo came out.

Bennett: Prefile bills

In his memo, Mr. Bennett encourages senators to pre-file as many bills as possible. Even though bills cannot be officially assigned to committees before opening day, Jan. 9, “I will do my best to provide you with bill assignments for pre-filed bills so that you can have an agenda out the week before session,” he wrote.

The legislative timeline calls for same-chamber bills to be heard in six weeks, and alternate chamber bills to be completed four weeks later, March 17.

One-and-a-half weeks would be allowed for conference committees.

Since 1999, the 2003 session was the longest at 158 days, with the average session extending 127.4 days over the past six years. The 2005 session lasted 124 days, 24 days longer than leadership’s goal.