Bee called ‘bold’ Senate President Tim Bee is momentarily reflective in his final GOP caucus for the 2007 regular session. He is credited for creating a cooperative atmosphere in the Senate. Photo by Bill Coates

Senators wrapped up their work after 164 days of a session that was marked by more cooperation between the majority and minority caucus than has been seen in previous years, leaders and members agree.
Senators point out that a confluence of events, including the change in the majority-minority ratio and the good relationship between caucus leaders, helped shape the direction that the 30-member body struck.
It was certainly a “bold” attempt on the part of Senate President Tim Bee, R-30, to negotiate with Democrats early on for a state budget, said one majority member. At 17 Republicans and 13 Democrats, Bee was being pragmatic, a minority member said.
On-the-record criticism of Bee’s decision to negotiate with the Democrats was scant. But a number of people on and off record expressed disappointment that the budget accord contained too few tax cuts. One columnist even said the Republican leadership under Bee did not have the stomach to fight for meaningful tax cuts when revenues are tight.
The decision to reach a budget accord with the other party was also coupled with less bickering on and off the floor, a stark contrast to what took place at the beginning — and some say what happened at the end of session — in the House. Bee said while there were certainly passionate debates over issues, there were no — or few, if any — personal attacks.
In fact, some barbs were exchanged at times, and the harshest remarks included one that was directed at a fellow Republican over the holding up of gubernatorial appointees.
Senators say they largely succeeded in being polite and civil toward colleagues on either side of the political spectrum.
“Most of the committee chairs were even handed in their approach,” says Sen. Debbie McCune Davis, D-14. “Good examples would be seen in a review of floor amendments that were adopted or rejected. The Senate has seasoned members who can easily identify the difference between a quality work product and political gamesmanship.”
Bee: Find solutions
Senate Minority Leader Marsha Arzberger, D-25, says the Democratic staff was specifically instructed to stay away from partisan tit-for-tat. Bee told the majority staff to “work cooperatively with the other staff” and find solutions instead of “fighting each other all the time.”
In a recent interview, Arzberger minced no words when she said Bee’s decision to fire key staff members helped set a tone for the GOP caucus.
“They would have been an impediment to our process, and he knew that immediately. That was part of the contentiousness of the prior budget negotiations and he eliminated that,” she says.
What fueled the move was his belief that the former staff, because of their longevity, had come to wield more influence in the process than senators did, according to Bee.
“It was my goal to restore the power to the members,” he says, and adds that he wanted it clear to the new staff that they are to play a support role to members.
Sen. Carolyn Allen, R-8, agrees with Bee’s decision.
“He proved straight out of the box that he was going to have his own style and he wanted his own staff and I think it shocked a lot of people,” Allen tells the ~Arizona Capitol Times~. “And that set the tone that he is a courageous person.”
Cooperation’ most important achievement of year
Arzberger regards the atmosphere of cooperation in the Senate as the most important achievement of this year.
“It was demonstrated here in the Senate that it is possible to abandon partisanship and cooperate in a business-like fashion and get the business of the state done,” she says.
Insiders also credit the warm relationship of Bee and Arzberger as one of the keys to the success of the budget negotiations. The two senators are from the southern part of the state. Both represent the interests of rural Arizona. Both came to the Capitol at the same time — in 2001, when the Senate was evenly split between Republicans and Democrats, creating a condition where every measure had had to have a coalition vote to pass.
For Arzberger, that rare majority-minority ratio allowed lawmakers a glimpse of how a less partisan body might work.
“But I did not experience the level of cooperation in that environment that I’ve seen in this one,” Bee says. “Our members had very civil debates. We tackled some very tough issues and we had tremendous accomplishments because of the cooperation.”
The idea to work with the Democrats on the budget was approved early on by Republican caucus members, confirmed Senate Majority Leader Thayer Verschoor, R-22.
Members wanted to send only one budget to the governor. They wanted to end the session sooner, he says.
The view also seems to find validation in remarks by Sen. Karen Johnson, a conservative Republicans from District 18, who says in an e-mail she had not been opposed to bringing Democrats to the table.
“The Legislature is supposed to put out a budget for the whole state – not just for Republicans. This was a bold move on President Bee’s part and both the Democrats and Republicans in the Senate worked countless hours on crafting the budget, which involved a great deal of compromise from both sides of the aisle,” she says.
Johnson says her eventual opposition to the budget centered on the inclusion of an “international education” provision in it. She had wanted more time to study the issue, she says.
Everyone has to agree eventually, anyway
The way Bee puts it, sooner or later Republicans would have to get the Democrats to agree on a budget. They would be sending it, after all, to a Democratic governor, Janet Napolitano.
“I’ve been in leadership now for five sessions,” Bee says shortly after the session ended on June 20. “In each of those years, we went through a process of negotiating with just one caucus but… ultimately we ended up negotiating with both caucuses. And the net result of that is we’ve always ended up with a very high budget.”
“The price went up,” Bee adds.
Sen. Paula Aboud of District 28, a ranking Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, was part of the budget talks in the Senate. She agrees that the two leaders’ relationship played a role in the decision to negotiate a budget. But she also thinks the political reality of Democrat Sen. Charlene Pesquiera’s victory in District 26 was another overriding reason. The November elections saw Democrats make significant gains at the state and federal levels, culminating in taking control of the U.S. Congress.
Sen. Jack Harper, R-4, said as much when he once remarked that an election changes things, and if people want a budget that reflects conservative values more, they should address those changes during elections.
Pesquiera’s election, Aboud says, “locked” the Senate in a potential 15-15 vote, assuming that moderate Republicans would vote with the Democrats on the budget.
“The key was District 26,” she says. “He (Bee) was left with a split vote of 15-15. He couldn’t get any budget out of the Senate. He had to negotiate with us.”
Bee: Initial suspicions gave way to ‘high level of trust’
Both sides were initially suspicious of each other at the start of the negotiation. This distrust was particularly apparent among the staff of the Democratic and Republican parties, as well as the Executive Office, according to Arzberger.
Even when positions were presented, staff would wonder what the other side was really planning, she says with a laugh.
Once past early doubts, Bee says they “ended up with a very high level of trust amongst our negotiating team.”
Aboud recounts how senators took a break from negotiations so the Republican senators could brief their House counterparts. In the end, she says, Senate Republicans were more than relieved to be back negotiating with Democrats.
The net effect of the negotiated budget was that everybody was content with it — not necessarily “happy” with it. Sen. Jorge Luis Garcia, D-27, might have summed up the feelings of negotiators when he said: “Sen. [Robert] Blendu asked me how I liked my votes, I said you know, up there it says ‘yes’ but my heart says ‘no.’ Those are the realities. You got to go there. You are put into a situation… and you do the best, and if your best is not what you want, you got to accept it.”
Take the issue of tax cuts and school choice, items where Democrats and Republicans traditionally clash.
Aboud says one of the more difficult things for her during negotiations was to give up dollars that could have fully funded children’s health care or senior care even as tax cuts remained a priority for Republicans.
Verschoor, on the other hand, would have wanted more on school choice.
“While we were able to get $3 million more for charter schools, we weren’t able to move on the April 15 deadline or the payroll deduction,” Verschoor says.
“There was a lot of give and take. An example is bonding for the School Facilities Board. This was a big issue. The governor and Democratic caucus wanted to bond. The Republicans did not. We were able to get around that without bonding or rollover, and were able to meet the needs of the whole state,” Verschoor says.
For Republicans, what was crucial was that they got a budget with “no gimmicks” to balance it.
“With only 2.3 percent growth, we were able to meet the needs of the state. This includes pay raises to teachers, 6,000 more prison beds, 2,000 of them private; and we were also able to give state employees a pay raise,” Verschoor says.
What seems to be clearer is that both sides now talk of employing the same strategy next year, with a major change: They want the House leaders to negotiate with the Senate leaders early on.
Allen says that because of what Bee did this year, it will be expected to be again next session.
Sen. Linda Gray, R-10, feels that House and Senate Republicans should have worked more together right from the start.
In any case, what is apparent is the accolades that Bee appears to be getting from many quarters for his work on the budget. There’s talk of the possibility of his running against U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in the 8th District.
People might have underestimated Bee in the beginning, according to Allen.
“I do think that people thought that he was going to be very mild mannered and not perhaps show the backbone that he has shown. And I think the first thing he did when he let go of the staff, and replaced it with a staff of his own, kind of blew their socks off,” Allen says.
“He has already exhibited that he can work as they say, across the aisle,” Allen says, when asked if Bee’s work in the last session would help him in his career move.
Verschoor says, “I think Senator Bee has demonstrated the kind of leadership in the Senate as president that will help him in anything he decides to do in the future and will be a boost to his success.”
Bee’s decision runs afoul of Pearce
But not everybody agreed with Bee’s decision to seek out the Democrats.
The powerful chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, Rep. Russell Pearce, R-18, was critical of it.
“The Senate, in my opinion, is a huge disaster on the budget,” Pearce had said.
Throughout negotiations, GOP members had to repeatedly ask, on and off the floor, for details from leadership. One member said they had complaints about how the process had been, particularly about how they were not getting briefed about the progress of the budget talks. The same member said Bee was only paying lip service when he said he wanted input from members on the final budget accord.
It was a take-it-or-leave-it proposition, the lawmaker said.
“This is essentially what you’re going to vote on,” the insider described his sense of the agreement after members were briefed on the final budget accord. “They’re not going to take input,” he said, adding there was also no offer to make changes to the deal.
He complained that caucus members were given little time to pour over the budget details before they had to vote on it.
Allen, who supported the budget, was at one point irked that the details were leaked to the media when they were promised the members would know about them first.
The final budget accord received huge Democratic support in both chambers. But the main budget or “feed bill,” H2781, was rejected by majority of Republicans in the House; 21 GOP members voted against it, compared to 12 who backed it.
In the Senate, five GOP members opposed it, compared to 11 who supported it.
The vote was 38-21 in the House, and 23-5 in the Senate.
Aboud says next year will prove if the spirit of cooperation shown in the budget accord this session would be translated to, for one, the hearing of Democratic bills. One Democratic senator’s bills never made it to the committee this year. Another Democrat had more luck sponsoring a major bill, which got out in the Senate, but died in the House.
“Does that collaboration extend to the rest of the Senate members≠” she asks. “We’ll see.”