In a decision seen by some as desperation and others as a brilliant strategic move, House Speaker Rusty Bowers has ordered his 59 fellow Representatives back to work Monday to take up 11 stalled budget bills.
Whether Bowers and other House leaders can pull together 31 votes -the same number of the Republican House caucus- is unclear, but House Majority Leader Ben Toma believes it is time for members to put up or shut up.
Amendments are expected to be proposed for all the bills but there is no guarantee any bill will receive the requisite 31 votes for passage. But Toma said last week taking the bills to the floor will force each representative to go on the record with a vote, something that could come back to haunt some lawmakers if the state government is shut down due to no new budget.
Toma spent months on the budget team before the budget bills were put forth last month with the blessing of Gov. Doug Ducey. He said it is a “constitutional duty” for representatives to vote on the bills, but for those who believe what is on the table is “not good enough, they’re going to need to explain why it’s not good enough, to their constituents and pretty much everyone else.”
Among the issues is how much of the more than $1 billion surplus to spend now, how much to turn toward the State’s debt, and how much to give back to taxpayers via tax cuts. There is also disagreement over how to phase in a flat rate income tax that is expected to result in a 10 to 12 percent drop in state revenues.
Much of the opposition to the tax cuts and flat rate tax plan are based on complaints about the expected affects due to the state’s shared revenue agreement with cities and towns. If less revenue is coming into the state, then less revenue will be received by municipalities, unless the shared revenue agreement is amended.
Last week Speaker Pro Tempore Travis Grantham said it was time to look beyond who was at fault with the original budget plan that did not have better support. Instead, he said it was time to work on finding a consensus to get a budget passed so the legislature can adjourn.
But for that to happen, Grantham says some lawmakers need to realize the surplus “is the people’s money, it’s not the government’s money” and move forward with approving tax cuts.
“The issue we’re having is there is so much money in the pot and there is so many people with so many wants and so many needs we’re having trouble staying focused on the finish line,” he said. “We just need to focus on the budget, we need to focus on cutting taxes, and we need to focus on getting out of there.”
There is also the issue of 22 bills, all Republican supported and some with unanimous bipartisan support, which Ducey vetoed out of frustration with the progress being made on the budget bills. Some legislators are insisting that there needs to be assurance that those bills will all be reintroduced and signed by Ducey before they will vote for the budget.
The Senate is currently set to come back June 10, although Senate President Karen Fann could call everyone back on 24-hours. Like the House, Fann has a handful of budget-objectors in the Republican caucus whose votes are necessary for passage of the budget bills.
Some lawmakers say Gov. Doug Ducey had a “a temper tantrum” last week when he vetoed 22 Republican-supported bills over his displeasure with the how long it is taking the legislature to pass budget bills.
But with the House and Senate on recess possibly through June 10, other legislators are focusing on what needs to happen to pass a budget when lawmakers come back.
During interviews with KFYI’s James T. Harris on Tuesday, Sen. Warren Petersen (R-LD12) and Rep. Travis Grantham (R-LD12) agreed there have been problems in how the budget process has been handled so far, but both believe a consensus is possible before the end of the fiscal year on June 30.
Grantham acknowledged to Harris that “some folks” were at fault for how budget negotiations were handled prior to last week’s unexpected recess, but he thinks more lawmakers are seeing it is time to get a budget passed so the legislature can adjourn.
“You know the old saying that ‘nothing good happens if you stay out after midnight?’” Grantham said. “Basically, the Legislature is out after midnight, in fact it’s about 3 a.m. and we shouldn’t be there anymore, and we all need to go home.”
But Grantham says the biggest problem right now is that “too much money” is in play due to last year’s surplus and this year’s surplus. The surplus is there, he noted, because the state is collecting too much money, money he says needs to go back to the people via “a massive tax cut.”
And therein lies the dilemma, Grantham told Harris.
“The issue we’re having is there is so much money in the pot and there is so many people with so many wants and so many needs we’re having trouble staying focused on the finish line,” he said. “We just need to focus on the budget, we need to focus on cutting taxes, and we need to focus on getting out of there.”
Grantham added that lawmakers need to realize the surplus “is the people’s money, it’s not the government’s money” and then move forward with passing a budget that allows for tax cuts.
In his comments, Petersen acknowledged that some legislative leaders “tried to move the budget without the votes” instead of waiting to ensure there were 31 votes in the House and 16 votes in the Senate for passage. Petersen also told Harris he was “surprised” that the budget bills were being pushed without a consensus in place first.
“You can’t ignore people if people say they have issues,” Petersen said. “We had all heard about issues from different members, and if you just keep going I don’t know what other result you could possibly expect.”
Although some legislators are suggesting Ducey call a special session focused solely on the budget, Petersen is not sure that is the answer. Instead, he sees it as a matter of elbow grease and not leaving anyone out of the discussion.
“What we really just need to do is we need to do the work,” the senator said. “You’ve got to get the whole caucus together and you just keep working on the budget from whoever is on the far left of the caucus to whoever is on the far right. We’ve got to get those two to agree.”
Petersen did note another reason the budget is not garnering the support needed is that it includes non-budget bills which previously failed on the floor.
“That’s another bad policy. You don’t put bills that don’t pass into the budget to try to force a vote,” he said.
Meanwhile, Petersen and Grantham told Harris they are hopeful Ducey will work with legislators to ensure the 22 vetoed bills are reconsidered in some way once a budget is passed.
In a surprise reversal, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is suspending its recently announced requirement that employers make a record of an employee’s adverse reaction to an employer-mandated COVID-19 vaccination.
In May, the U.S. Department of Labor and OSHA advised employers it would consider an employee’s adverse reaction as a “reportable incident” if the vaccination was required to obtain or keep employment, or to avoid repercussions such as a negative performance rating.
An adverse reaction would have to involve time away from work, medical treatment beyond basic first aid, restricted work duties, or even a job transfer in order to be recorded by the employer.
But OSHA has already changed its policy, according to new information on its website. The priority now is for federal agencies to encourage COVID-19 vaccinations.
“OSHA does not wish to have any appearance of discouraging workers from receiving COVID-19 vaccination, and also does not wish to disincentivize employers’ vaccination efforts,” the website states. “As a result, OSHA will not enforce its recording requirements to require any employers to record worker side effects from COVID-19 vaccination through May 2022.”
The backtracking by OSHA officials is seen as a response to “unprecedented” political pressure from the White House, according to Liberty Counsel chairman Mat Staver.
“OSHA’s suspension of the recording requirement so as not to discourage experimental COVID shots reveals that the Biden administration could care less about the collateral damage being caused by the COVID shots,” Staver commented last week. “The people can see this biased agenda. They are not stupid.”
Many civil liberties groups point to the fact the current experimental COVID-19 vaccines are only approved under an Emergency Use Authorization and therefore its use is not to be mandated.
Whether an employee in Arizona can seek recourse through the courts or a workers’ compensation claim after falling ill from an employer-required vaccination remains unclear.
The Arizona Court of Appeals issued a unanimous opinion earlier this month on a subject with no prior case law in the state, and the decision could save time and money for Arizonans involved in civil litigation, according to court records.
In 2018, Thomas H. Major II filed a lawsuit in Pima County Superior Court against Set for Set Fitness LLC and company owner Samuel J. Coleman. The nature of the dispute is not addressed in the appellate opinion, only that the parties ran into a problem when they tried to settle the case in 2019.
Judge Cynthia Kuhn refused to accept the terms of the stipulated settlement which called for the lawsuit to be dismissed with prejudice and for the court to retain jurisdiction in the event Coleman defaulted on payment. A dismissal with prejudice typically means all aspects of a case have been adjudicated and no further action is contemplated.
But a provision of the settlement would allow Major to simply file a stipulated judgment with the court if there was a default, and Kuhn would be required to sign it.
The stipulation ensured Major would not have to expend more time nor money to file a new lawsuit simply to enforce the terms of the settlement. However, Kuhn refused to dismiss the case with such a stipulation, ruling the parties’ requested relief “is not consistent with the Rules of Civil Procedure.”
The court of appeals got involved in the case for the first time in February 2020 by issuing an order to Kuhn that Major’s lawsuit should be dismissed without any language about retaining jurisdiction. Once that dismissal was done in June 2020, a three-judge appellate panel then took up the issue of retaining jurisdiction.
“The issue presented here centers on whether a superior court has the authority to issue an order retaining jurisdiction for the purposes of enforcement—allowing the parties to come back to it without having to file a new lawsuit.” Presiding Judge Karl Eppich of the Arizona Court of Appeals noted in the May 5 opinion. “No Arizona case has clearly decided this issue, and we are unaware of a statute or Arizona Rule of Civil Procedure expressly allowing or forbidding the superior court to retain jurisdiction in this circumstance.”
Eppich further noted that without prior case law in Arizona, the panel looked to several other states with similar civil court procedures and case law. “We find the cases allowing a trial court to retain jurisdiction persuasive and conclude their reasoning is consistent with Arizona law,” he wrote.
The appellate panel also reviewed a 1994 U.S. Supreme Court opinion (Kokkonen v Guardian Life Ins.) which allows federal judges to exercise ancillary jurisdiction to enforce the terms of a settlement agreement following a dismissal with prejudice, if the obligation to comply with the settlement was part of the order of dismissal.
“Although Kokkonen does not address a state trial court’s jurisdiction, and is therefore not binding precedent on this court, we find it persuasive as to how to approach this issue,” Eppich wrote.
The result of the research led the court of appeals to conclude there can be compelling circumstances for allowing trial courts the authority to retain ancillary jurisdiction.
“Permitting that authority when the parties have stipulated to it encourages settlement by providing parties certainty about the terms of an agreement and a mechanism to easily enforce performance of the agreement,” Eppich wrote. “Furthermore, this practice promotes judicial efficiency by enabling a trial court to clear the case from its docket until the time arises, if ever, to enforce the terms of the agreement.”
As a result, the case has been remanded back to Kuhn “to afford the trial court the opportunity to determine whether it should, in its discretion, accept the parties’ stipulation to retain jurisdiction to enforce the Settlement Agreement,” the opinion states.
Votes by State Senators on three bills Thursday may have been overshadowed by the struggle to get budget legislation passed, but some legislators say the importance of those votes should not be ignored.
After its passage Thursday in the Senate, SB1074 was sent to Gov. Doug Ducey. The bill introduced by Sen. David Livingston (R-LD22) prohibits the state, as well as any state agency, city, town, county, or other political subdivision of Arizona from using public monies for and requiring an employee to engage in orientation, training, or therapy premised on any form of blame or judgment on the basis of race, ethnicity, or sex.
The 16 to 14 vote banning what is commonly called Critical Race Theory training from government workplaces is something Sam Stone, chief of staff for Phoenix City Councilman Sal DiCiccio, applauds the Legislature for, as it stops what he calls “hate” in its tracks.
“A lot of people who aren’t familiar with it confuse Critical Race Theory with the racial sensitivity training they may have had in the past. Critical Race Theory is not that,” Stone told AZ Free News. “It is a pernicious, racist ideology that seeks to rewrite history, and asserts that every single white person is, by definition, a racist and every person of color a victim.. No one should ever be told who or what they are based on the color of their skin.”
But there is much more to SB1074 than the training prohibition.
If Ducey signs the bill, it will usher in a major change to how cities, towns, counties, and community college districts approve the financial statements related to statutorily-required audits. The approval is often conducted under the radar by a city or town council, county board of supervisors, and college board of directors through the consent agenda of a meeting.
No discussion is allowed of items on a consent agendas, leaving the public with little awareness of any problems identified during an audit. But under Livingston’s bill, Arizona’s cities, towns, counties, and community college districts would be prohibited from shielding a negative audit through a consent agenda vote.
SB1074 also requires the governing body to have the CPA or auditor who performed the audit or prepared the financial statements to make a public presentation of the results. And it must be conducted during a regular meeting of the public body which has been properly noticed.
Another bill headed to Ducey is HB2792 introduced by Rep. Jake Hoffman (R-LD12) to make it a felony for a county recorder or other election official to knowingly mail out an early ballot to a voter who has not requested the ballot. The bill is one of several put forth by Republicans in connection to election reforms, and it passed the Senate on a party line vote of 16 to 14.
One bill that did not make it to Ducey after Thursday’s vote is SB1532, which seeks to prohibit blame or judgment tenets or lesson plans, such as Critical Race Theory, from public schools. It also set rules for how educators can teach controversial topics, and includes a civil penalty of up to $5,000 per incident against a teacher who violates those mandates.
SB1532 has been the focus of many passioned comments from legislators since being introduced by Livingston several weeks ago. It passed the House earlier this month on a 31 to 29 party line vote, and would have needed the support of all 16 Republican Senators on Thursday to pass.
But it was the bill’s provision allowing prosecutors from the Arizona Attorney General’s Office or a local county attorney’s office to sit in classrooms to investigate a teacher’s conduct which led to Sen. Paul Boyer (R-LD20) voting no.
“I’ve been struggling with this bill,” said Boyer, a junior high school teacher, in explaining his vote.
The bill would have died on a 15 to 15 vote, but Livingston utilized a procedural maneuver to change his yes vote to a no vote on his own bill. The resultant 14 to 16 vote ensures Livingston has a chance to work on a possible amendment which would garner Boyer’s support on a reconsideration vote.
