Majority opinion among Arizonaโs voters is pretty clear.
So is majority opinion among Arizona legislators.
They want a significant boost in ongoing funding for the stateโs public schools, probably in the range of $500 million to $1 billion per year. Now we even have the money to do so without raising taxes.
Yet it is doubtful that majority opinion will hold sway as the Legislature grinds slowly toward a state budget. Thatโs because this majority opinion in the Legislature is held by all the Democrats and a few Republicans in each chamber.
Since Republicans are the majority party in both houses, even though itโs a slim one-person margin, they have control. So theyโre trying to find a budget that most Republicans will support, not one that necessarily reflects majority opinion in the bodies as a whole.
โThereโs this rule that the majority goes off of,โ said Rep. Morgan Abraham, a Tucson Democrat. โItโs the โmajority of the majority.โ You have to have the majority of the majority caucus in order for something to move forward.โ
โI know for a fact that there is a majority of members in the House who would sign on to a massive investment in K-12 beyond what Prop. 208 would have done,โ he said.
But it might not win the support of the majority of Republicans, so the idea is languishing.
Prop. 208 is the 2020 ballot initiative that would have imposed a surcharge on incomes above $250,000 for single people or above $500,000 for married people. Legislative staff projected it would have raised about $800 million per year for education.
The initiative passed by a 52% to 48% margin, but a Maricopa County Superior Court judge struck down the law this year.
That initiative, of course, included a tax increase โ now, due to the stateโs strong financial position, about the same amount of money is potentially available without raising taxes.
In an April survey of likely Arizona voters conducted by the Center for the Future of Arizona, 82% supported increasing funding for schools, and 65% of the total supported the idea strongly. Itโs a majority view among all political affiliations.
In the upper chamber, Republican Sen. Paul Boyer has asked for a โgrand bargainโ on education funding that replaces the Prop. 208 money with increased state funding. He has said he wonโt vote for a budget without it.
But heโs not the only Republican in that chamber who would go for increased spending on that scale. Sen. T.J. Shope, a Republican from Coolidge, said Wednesday, โI think itโs maybe a half dozenโ of the Senateโs 31 Republicans who would go for such a proposal.
He said he liked a proposal circulated last week that would have raised spending on education by $250 million to $300 million, but he would happily go higher, too.
โIf thereโs (budget) capacity on an ongoing basis, we should go ahead and do more,โ he said.
Rep. David Cook, a Globe Republican, said he is more interested in paying down money still owed by the state to school districts after the 2008-2009 financial crisis. Heโs thinking in the $600 million area, but on a one-time basis.
โLetโs pay off the money we owe them,โ he said. โThen weโll be in a better position next year.โ
Rep. Michelle Udall, a Mesa Republican, has said she wants the Legislature to fund โa pretty big chunkโ of the $900 million Boyer is proposing.
Instead, though, the latest proposal passed in a House committee is to expand vouchers again and make increased funding contingent on expanding vouchers. The voucher proposal is similar to a 2017 bill that passed the Legislature only to be referred to the ballot and rejected by voters by a 65% to 35% margin in 2018.
So, in order for the majority of state voters to get a part of the funding increase they want, they are being asked to swallow an expansion of vouchers that they have rejected thoroughly before.
Trump endorses in AG race
As former President Donald Trump reels off endorsements in Republican primaries around the country, he reached his decision in the Arizona attorney generalโs race this week.
Trump endorsed Abraham Hamadeh, a former Maricopa County prosecutor who has had perhaps the most uninhibited rhetoric claiming that Trump won the 2020 presidential election in Arizona. (He didnโt.)
โAbe Hamadeh knows what happened in the 2020 election and will enforce voting laws so that our elections are free and fair again,โ Trump said in his endorsement announcement.
โBeing endorsed by President Trump is the honor of a lifetime, and I will not let him down,โ Hamadeh said in a statement.
Five other Republicans are running for the partyโs nomination to replace current Attorney General Mark Brnovich: Lacy Cooper, Rodney Glassman, Andrew Gould, Dawn Grove and Tiffany Shedd.
Gould said in a subsequent statement: โI am aware of President Trumpโs recent endorsement of my opponent. My campaign and I are not going to get side-tracked by this announcement.โ
Watkins files complaint on Rogers
The fact that they both occupy the wacky right wing of Arizona politics doesnโt mean they get along.
Ron Watkins, the candidate for Congress implicated in managing the QAnon conspiracy theory, filed an ethics complaint June 10 against state Sen. Wendy Rogers. He asked the ethics committee โto determine whether she is fit for service to the people of Arizona due to a pattern of behavior that is unbecoming a senator.โ
He noted a range of incidents but only one involving him: Rogers, who has already faced ethics complaints this session, posted on her online Telegram channel in February, โDear Groyper army, please hit Ron Watkins. Love, Wendy.โ
โGroyper Armyโ is a name for a loose association of online white supremacists, far-right nationalists and provocateurs whom Rogers has embraced. Watkins and Rogers had been feuding over election issues.
He said in his complaint that the comment amounted to a threat against him. Of course, as the Arizona Mirror noted, Watkins has repeatedly associated with prominent Groypers himself. And Rogers said in response that Watkins had been friendly with her in recent months until she endorsed his rival Eli Crane in the Congressional District 6 race.
Watkins is best known for being deeply involved with, and possibly writing, the posts by โQ,โ an apocryphal federal employee who accused Democrats and โglobalistsโ of being part of a Satanist pedophile ring.
Sen. Sine Kerr, the chair of the Senate Ethics Committee, dismissed the complaint Wednesday.
