PHOENIX — Efforts to enact a $12.8 billion state budget and plans for $1.78 billion in tax cuts, to mainly benefit the most wealthy, sputtered Tuesday as House Democrats refused to come to the floor, leaving the Republican-controlled chamber short of a quorum.
The maneuver came as Majority Leader Ben Toma, R-Peoria, said he had finally lined up all 31 House Republicans to support the modified plan.
Only thing is, four GOP lawmakers were absent. And while House rules allow them to vote remotely, Toma said the Arizona Constitution mandates there be 31 people physically in the building to get a quorum in the 60-member chamber.
House Minority Leader Reginald Bolding, D-Laveen, is not suggesting that Democrats have the votes to block the plan.
But he said Republicans presented new amendments just 90 minutes before the session. That didn’t give Democrats enough time to fully research what the majority was trying to push through at the last minute, without sufficient public oversight, Bolding said.
House Speaker Rusty Bowers, R-Mesa, claimed the Democrats’ maneuver puts state government operations at risk.
While the new budget year doesn’t start until July 1, the current payroll period ends this week for checks that would be produced next week.
Bowers said if there’s no budget in place by the end of this week, that could mean state employees won’t be paid for what they do next week. That would lead to ripple effects as government would have to be shut down, he said.
“So if you’re planning on a July 4th weekend at a state park of your choice, that won’t be available,’’ he said.
Republican Gov. Doug Ducey dismissed questions of what happens if the budget stalls, saying he is confident that it will pass — eventually. He was a bit more guarded when pushed on the question of having a contingency plan to ensure that basic state services, like prisons and public safety, continue after July 1 if there is not an approved budget.
“We do have a backup plan,’’ Ducey said. “You present that plan when you need a backup. Right now it’s full speed ahead.’’
Even if the House approves the budget, there may not be the votes in the Senate.
Sen. Kelly Townsend, R-Mesa, said Tuesday it is “up in the air’’ whether she will support the spending and tax-cut plan. And with no Senate Democrats willing to vote for the plan, Senate President Karen Fann, R-Prescott, needs her vote.
In the meantime, the Senate gave the plan preliminary approval Tuesday on a voice vote, something that defers actually putting Townsend on record.
Democrats’ amendments rejected
But the Republican-controlled Senate first beat back a series of amendments offered by Democrats.
For example, Rep. Kirsten Engel, D-Tucson, proposed that inmates who serve fighting fires or clearing vegetation earn additional “release credits’’ that could cut their sentence. It was defeated.
Engel had no better luck with a proposal to create a Natural Resources Resiliency Planning Group of people from various industries and organizations to study the state’s greenhouse gas emissions and come up with a plan to help Arizona deal with climate change.
And GOP senators rejected a proposal by Rep. Sally Ann Gonzales, D-Tucson, to have the state’s health-care program for the needy provide dental coverage for pregnant women.
Changes to the tax-cut plan
The most controversial part remains the tax cuts.
The original proposal by GOP legislative leaders and Ducey would have collapsed the state’s four tax brackets, with rates from 2.59% to 4.5%, into a single 2.5% levy.
But that drew opposition even from some Republicans amid concerns that, coupled with relief for wealthy taxpayers proposed as a counter to voter-approved Proposition 208, it would permanently reduce state revenues by $1.9 billion a year.
Some lawmakers question whether the state has an artificially inflated surplus due to federal COVID-19 grants. At the same time, they said if the state does have extra money, some of it should be used to pay down debt on which the state is paying interest.
The new plan cuts the immediate size of the tax cut to $1.3 billion. But it’s complicated.
As approved by the Senate, it would create two tax brackets next year of 2.55% for earnings below about $54,000 a year and 2.98% for earnings above that.
Then, if revenues hit $12.78 billion, the rates would decline to 2.53% and 2.75%, going to the flat 2.5% rate once revenues hit $12.98 billion.
That would take the tax cut to $1.78 billion by 2025.
Loaded with other issues
But the budget has been loaded up with other issues, too.
One of those would effectively put an end to “civilian review boards’’ to oversee police activities. The proposal would not only require certain training, but spells out that members must be currently or previously have been certified by the state Peace Officer Standards and Training Board.
“In order to be part of a civilian review board, you essentially have to be a police officer,’’ Bolding said. He complained this would cover not just the state, but would override existing local policies.
“As cities and towns make policies that work for their communities, the Legislature continues to interfere,’’ Bolding said.
The governor defended the provision.
“We see in so many other parts of the country and hear from people that sit on city councils here in Arizona some of these wrongheaded ideas like ‘defund the police’ and ‘we need less police officers’,’’ Ducey said. “I think we need more police officers.’’
He brushed aside questions about having only current and former officers on these boards.
“I want to make sure that these oversight boards that are being brought to the fore are ones that can add value, can provide accountability, are not folks that want to defund the police,’’ he said.
Then there’s COVID-19.
One Republican amendment would require employers to provide “reasonable accommodations’’ to employees whose “sincerely held religious beliefs, practices or observances’’ preclude them from being vaccinated.
The same provision would also bar the health department from requiring school students be immunized with any vaccine that has only “emergency use authorization’’ from the federal Food and Drug Administration. For the moment, that means the COVID-19 vaccines.
Fann inserted language into a bill about funding of K-12 education to ban the teaching of anything that suggests one race, ethnic group or sex is superior to another, is inherently racist or oppressive, or that an individual bears responsibility for the actions of others of his or her same race or ethnic group. It also would subject those who violate the law to losing their teaching certificates.
And, on the subject of COVID-19, the same measure would bar school boards from requiring students and staff to wear masks.
Also tucked into one bill is a measure changing the legal definition of a “newspaper.’’ That is key because Arizona law requires that certain notices of things like meetings and requests for bids be published in newspapers.
John Moody, attorney for the Arizona Newspapers Association, said this is a new version of what he called “anti-newspaper legislation’’ promoted in the past. He said it would permit local governments to publish the required legal notices not only in start-up publications but also in “flyers, circulars, advertisements, newsletters, bulletins and catalogs.’’
It is unclear when the Senate will seek a final roll-call vote on the tax cuts and spending plans. Much of that depends on Townsend. She is holding out because she wants Ducey to rescind his executive order giving him emergency powers in the pandemic, among her other concerns.
