House Speaker Jim Weiers says rhetoric and politics will have to take a back seat this session, considering the immediacy of a budget deficit economists estimate will reach upwards of $1 billion this year — that is, if lawmakers and the governor hope to be able to agree on a solution before the budget becomes virtually impossible to repair.
To that end, he has said Republicans in the House, who were characterized by some as obstructionists in last year’s budget negotiations, will work early with legislative Democrats and Gov. Janet Napolitano to address the shortfall.
And though the political landscape right now is dominated by the deficit, the six months since last year’s legislative session ended have been defined by the battle over an employer sanctions law. Weiers’ backing of that law has upset many in the business community.
Just before the start of the legislative session, Weiers spoke with Arizona Capitol Times about the budget, employer sanctions and the impact this session will have on the 2008 elections.
What does the state need to do to best position itself to recover from the current deficit, and those projected for the next two fiscal years, as quickly as possible?
We need to stop spending more than we are taking in. That’s the bottom line.
If we have the fortitude and the belly to do that, it will be done. I’m hoping the members and the executive will understand that we have a huge problem here that can’t be corrected by borrowing and bonding, but also by making the decisions of reducing spending.
Should this problem have been addressed sooner? Forecasts were coming out in September and October showing a rather large shortfall.
You can’t say what you should’ve and could’ve and didn’t. I’d rather talk about what we will and what we have. At this point, I want to talk about going into session. We’ve got six months before this (fiscal) year is up. Every minute is, obviously, very precious to us because it doubles itself.
It would have been nice if we weren’t here, but we are. The next step is: What do we do to correct the situation? I believe we’ve gone a long ways by getting started (a week before session begins) and I’m hoping to work with the governor and get as much input as we possibly can.
The governor’s plan relies pretty heavily on borrowing and using the Rainy Day fund to balance the budget. What kind of situation would her plan leave Arizona in going forward?
It doesn’t help a whole lot. If you borrow and bond, you haven’t corrected the problem of spending, which is at the baseline of what the problem is. The governor has her way of thinking and there’s a number of people down here who look at things a little bit differently, and that’s what the process is all about, to see if we can’t meet somewhere (in the middle) that makes sense. But we’ve got to remember it’s not what we want, it’s what the public deserves.
The House and Senate Appropriations committees met jointly and both chambers are going to spend the entire second week of the session focusing on the budget instead of hearing bills in committees, but a deal won’t get done until you and Senate President Tim Bee begin to meet with Governor Napolitano. When will those meetings begin?
That’s not entirely true, either. Even if all three of us are in agreement, that gets us three votes.
Maybe, but it does give you the ability to go to your caucus and say, “We’ve got an agreement. Here’s what it is.” That’s what you do every year. It’s unlikely that the Legislature will craft legislation without her input that will be signed into law.
That’s certainly not the plan and I would hope that would not happen. This takes a joint effort on everybody’s part. Because of the immensity of the problem, this should, if nothing else, cause us to come closer together and work better than we ever have to safeguard the economy of the state and not put us further in debt. That’s doing the thing that’s right, not expedient.
So, when do you plan on beginning meetings with the governor?
We don’t do anything until after the State of the State. She’s pretty busy at this point, as I understand it, and we’re kind of swamped down here with getting ready for session. But as soon as session starts, I wouldn’t mind if we met every single day.
You talked about how the fiscal year 2008 budget affects the fiscal year 2009 budget, and I know you are hoping to work on both at the same time. Will there have to be an agreement on both plans before you’ll act on fiscal year 2008?
There’s no formal agreement on anything. Everybody knows that one can’t really go forward without having an impact on the other. So, whatever happens in ’08 is going to have a positive or negative effect on ’09. If we don’t resolve the problems in ’08, it just pushes it off, what, another two, three, four weeks? It’s kind of like pushing the broccoli off to the side of the plate and being told you don’t leave until you eat it. Well, you’re going to eat it some time. You might as well go ahead and get started at the same time you’re eating the bread and the meat.
There was a lot of dissatisfaction in your caucus at the end of last session, as evidenced by two-thirds of your caucus voting against the budget. Are there going to be any changes to the process this year to alleviate the complaints that House priorities were neglected in the final product?
The House priorities are my priorities, and you can only do what you can do when you get the votes to get to the final solution. What happens down here is, when you do get to that collective amount of 31 and 16 and one, because of this (shortfall), it’s pretty much black and white. It’s debt, deficit, (or) good financing. What’s right? There’s a lot of different ways that you can do it and people may argue as to how to get there, but in the end, you’re going to have to, under the Constitution, come up with a balanced budget.
So, will there be any specific process changes when it comes to crafting the budget? You’ve talked about working with the Democrats and the governor sooner.
We’re going to meet with the governor a lot more, and the Senate and the House are going to work a lot closer together this year. The four caucuses, I think at this point — and we have met — are going to be getting input from their members, as we are from ours, and find out where we can come up with a solution that can satisfy as many people as we possibly can.
In this case, when we’re looking at the budget, we’ve got to look at first reducing the debt that we have by reducing the expenses that we’re paying. It comes down to two things: If you’re going to constitutionally be right in the end, we’re either going to reduce expenses or we’re going to have to increase the income. And that increase in income comes normally in one way, and that’s to raise taxes. If people at this point are reluctant or resistant to looking to reduce expenditures, then maybe somebody should be proposing that we increase taxes.
Aside from the deficit, the legacy from last session certainly is the employer sanctions law. Explain your reasoning for forming an ad hoc committee to examine business concerns a
nd what you think of some of the changes proposed in the committee.
I believe we’re going to try to get one more meeting (of the committee) so we can have closure and get those recommendations out to the body as quickly as possible.
The idea is that we did something within session. This was supposed to be the counter to the initiative that was out there. A lot of people — including myself — were not hesitant to vote for a legislative solution because you always have the ability to change (the law) if the will is there. Going to the ballot, your options close very quickly. So, this is the nice part, especially with the delayed enactment, as we did it.
Taking the people and putting them on that committee — the vast majority of those people were not real excited about the workplace enforcement to start with, so these are the people you want to hear from. When you’ve made a decision and people agree with you, you don’t go ask them why they agree with you. You go and ask the (unhappy) people why they’re unhappy and what they have problems with.
As we went through and looked at (the law), there’s a lot of areas that can be tweaked. What cannot be compromised is the underlying element of why, in fact, this piece of legislation was passed: We’ve got a huge problem with illegal employment within the state. It’s already against the (federal) law and there are people who have been flirting with just ignoring the law altogether. The constituency has spoken loud and clear — they wanted something done.
What are some of the specific changes suggested in the committee that you support and that would improve the law?
There are so many, and I was very, very glad that the spectrum was run from A to Z on this thing. We’re talking about complaint forms, the complaint process, sanctions against those who have false and frivolous complaints, the way this works on third parties, the way this works on critical infrastructure.
We’re talking about (the exemption for) “professional” (licenses), and that’s not even defined within the statute, yet we somehow used that within the legislation, which has a lot of people confused. Even trying to get a clear, defined definition for myself as to what (a) professional license is — everybody I ask, I get a different answer from, so there’s confusion there.
(We’re) looking to finding how this works with 15 counties. You can’t find uniformity as to the counties coming together and agreeing how they’re (enforcing) it. Good golly, this is probably the most important thing that we’ve taken on since I’ve been down here. If you’re asking for a state law to be enacted, you certainly have to have uniformity and you have to have clarity.
And that’s what the business community says: “There’s a lot of things that we just don’t understand. If we don’t understand this, then how can we have the confidence of operating businesses when the future’s uncertain?” That’s what makes businesses come to Arizona, the certainty of what tomorrow’s going to bring. That’s very important when it comes to economic development.
What about the issue of retroactivity? Does the law apply to people who were hired before Jan. 1 and are still on the payroll? What was your view of that issue as the bill was moving through the process last year?
The law is retroactive as to it’s illegal to hire illegals from a federal (perspective). That is not prospective; that’s retro, because the (federal) law already exists.
It was my understanding, as far as the state law kicking in, that it would be prospective. That’s how I look at it. There seems to be some confusion. Even the judge (in a federal suit challenging the law) did not have clarity because it can be interpreted both ways. I have asked legal opinions and I even get differing opinions there.
Again, this is not a bad thing. When you have a piece of legislation this important, you have time to be able to look through this. We want to make sure that it’s as good as we can possibly make it, that it’s as fair as we can possibly make it, but then we never lose sight of why we did it: to punish the bad actors, the people that bring down the economy and to underscore the importance of following the law.
I’ve spoken with Representative Russell Pearce, and he’s said in the past that he’s worked on the sanctions law for six years and calls it “his law.” He also says he deserves to have final determination on changes. What are your thoughts on one lawmaker having the ability to give a thumbs-up or thumbs-down to prospective changes to the law?
Russell has a great deal of investment on this because it was his legislation. It is now a state law. People are going to have ideas (to change it) and those ideas are going to be vetted. The outcome of those ideas and if they’re going to work is going to be by majority. That’s how the system works.
Would I like to see Russell happy at the end of the day when it comes to a piece of legislation that he introduced? Sure, as I would any other legislator that took ownership and sponsorship of any piece of legislation. In this case, I’m sure there’s lots of ideas floating around here, and I suspect that a lot of the ideas that came out of the ad hoc committee would even be ideas that Russell would entertain and support.
But is Pearce’s happiness with the changes a condition of their approval?
I don’t know how you make it a condition. If legislation is going forward, how do you stop it? Once a bill is introduced, it becomes the property of the body, not the sponsor.
What are the non-budget priorities of the House Republican caucus?
To make Arizona a better Arizona. Leave it better than how we found it. Get out of this budget crunch that we’ve got. Prove to the people that we’re worth the money that they pay us and we deserve their votes — not for the upcoming election, but for the ones that they already gave us. The only way we can do that is show responsibility and make right decisions.
How do the actions of a legislative session affect an election later in the year?
The second year is always going to be a little bit different than the first because of that. You see people act a little bit different. I think tempers flare a little quicker. Attitudes change. Hopefully, with the budget deficit, people put partisan politics (aside) and understand we’re not Republicans and Democrats, but we’re Arizonans, and that should be first and we should do the best job for the people we serve, rather than for the position we seek.
Mr. Speaker, thank you very much for your time.
You’re very welcome.