The Republican-controlled Legislature is advancing a slew of measures that ultimately aim to limit spending by state government.

Efforts to cap spending aren’t novel, but the economic downturn and the ensuing years of painful budget-slashing have given lawmakers a new sense of urgency.

On March 13, the Senate Appropriations Committee approved several of those proposals.

The votes for most of the measures hewed along party lines. Democrats opposed them while Republicans backed them.

One of the proposals would cap spending, beginning in fiscal 2014, to revenues from two years prior, and as adjusted by the average growth during the past 20 years.

As envisioned under HB2791, the rolling average excludes the two highest-growth and two lowest-growth years. It’s designed to ensure that abnormal conditions, such as economic bubbles and drastic downturns, are excluded from the calculation.

House Majority Whip Debbie Lesko, the bill’s sponsor, said the legislation would help to ensure that the government lives within its means.

This is the Glendale Republican’s second attempt to put in place a spending limitation.

Last year, Gov. Jan Brewer vetoed her proposal to limit spending growth to increases in population and inflation. The governor felt it was too restrictive.

Democrats on the committee viewed the current proposal and last year’s bill as essentially the same and raised fears it would produce a litany of ills, which they said Colorado experienced when it put in place similar restrictions.

“It seems to me that when Colorado tried a very similar legislation, it had pretty significantly bad results and the governor pointed that out in her veto last year,” said Sen. David Lujan, a Democrat from Phoenix.

But Lesko said there’s a big difference between the Colorado measure and her proposal.

Her bill would make changes to state law, which means it won’t tie the hands of lawmakers in the same way that a ballot measure would.

But Democrats, including Sen. Paula Aboud of Tucson, remained skeptical.

“Whatever way you call it, Colorado slipped from 35th to 49th in the nation in K-12 funding as a percentage of personal income,” Aboud said.

She added that teacher salaries also dropped to 50th in the nation.

But the committee’s Republican members scoffed at the idea of Colorado slipping to the bottom of the nation in K-12 funding.

“I just find it hard to believe that Colorado was 50th place for education funding because for the last 20 years, everyone has said that Arizona is in 50th place for education funding,” said Senate Majority Leader Andy Biggs.

Some Republicans on the committee said the bill doesn’t go as far as they want it to.

Sen. Rick Murphy, a Republican from Peoria, said while the bill is a step in the right direction, lawmakers could ignore it by passing budget bills that override its provisions.

Others like Biggs worried that using a 20-year growth average to help calculate the spending limit leaves ample room for increases even if current-year estimates show a significantly lower revenue growth.

Here are other measures that received the Appropriations Committee’s nod:

• HCR2005 would ask voters in November to approve a constitutional amendment to require the reauthorization every six years of spending initiatives already approved. This perennial reauthorization would apply to spending initiatives that voters approved in 1998 and after.

The first vote would take place in 2014.

• HCR2036, if approved by voters, directs the Legislature’s budget research arm and the governor’s budget office to jointly determine and publish revenue estimates for the following fiscal year. It compels the two entities to agree on updated revenue estimates before the Legislature adopts a spending plan. It also requires lawmakers to adopt a budget by May 31. Additionally, the referral prohibits deferring obligations from one fiscal year to the next.

• HCR2037 would, upon voters’ approval, only allow lawmakers to dip into the state’s “rainy day fund” if they cut state spending compared to the year before. Also, they would be permitted to only take from the Budget Stabilization Fund an amount equal to what they cut in the budget.