A hot summer of limbo is stretching out in front of Arizona legislators.
They’ve only been in session a couple of days in the last month, and they aren’t scheduled to convene again until July 31.
A few meetings are happening, but the lawmaking appears to be over. It’s just the formal session that won’t end, thanks to the state Senate’s Republican leadership.
That sounds bad, and it is annoying, but even a session characterized by vetoes and malaise has its political benefits, and its financial ones.
Despite a tiny margin in both houses, Republicans have managed to pass a slew of bills that would tackle the state’s biggest issues, such as discrimination against “a firearm entity or a firearm trade association.” Yes, I kid: That bill would have forced any company doing business with the state to certify that it isn’t boycotting or discriminating against the NRA or Smith & Wesson.
Passing the bill undoubtedly pleased the GOP’s supporters in the gun industry. They’re worried that anti-gun bank policies could make it hard for the firearms industry to do business if the banks stop dealing with them.
In passing the bill, the GOP legislators also gave Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs an opportunity to please her supporters.
“This bill is unnecessary and, if enacted, could result in banks leaving Arizona’s market,” she wrote in her veto letter. “This would limit competition and increase costs for local governments, costs which ultimately fall on taxpayers.”
Multiply this two-step move by more than 100 times: The GOP passes a bill that they know will be vetoed, reaping the political benefit from their supporters, and the governor vetoes the bill, reaping the political benefit from her side.
Nothing much gets done, but each side can say they’ve done something.
Now, the Legislature passed a state budget in May, and the governor signed it — usually the sign of the end of the session. But instead they continued this dance deep into June. On the 16th, Hobbs vetoed four bills attempting to restrict drag shows.
Legislators such as Rep. David Cook, a Republican from the Globe area, have been disappointed that some of their earnest work on real issues went unrewarded. He noted that his bill to support rural hospitals died for no good reason he could see, but said he’s pressing on.
“I just keep working, doing my job and whatever day they gavel in, they gavel in,” Cook said.
The way this session has dragged on has annoyed many legislators, including freshman Democratic Rep. Nancy Burke Gutierrez, of Tucson. Her day job is as a yoga teacher at Tucson High.
“I’m getting ready to go back to school July 31,” she said, noting the scheduled date to reconvene. “Many of us have other jobs we have to do.”
“It’s been frustrating to be kept on hold for so long. I’m not sure why we have not sine die’d,” she said, referring to the Latin phrase, sine die, for the end of the session. “It feels wasteful, for time and money.”
Ah yes, money.
While it is a drag to be nominally in session, it at least pays. Legislators make a small salary of $24,000 per year for their service, but they also make a per-diem when they are in session, which may help pay for rent on apartments or hotel rooms. The extended session extends the per-diem, although most legislators are presumably home or on vacation somewhere.
The amount of per-day pay depends on where the individual legislator lives — in or out of Maricopa County — and the stage of the session — before 120 days or after. You get more if you live outside Maricopa County and if it’s before the 120st day of the session — ideally, a built-in incentive not to prolong things.
Alas, it hasn’t worked out that way. So now, the outstate legislators, who were collecting a $238 per diem earlier in the session, are collecting $119 per day as they wait to return. The Maricopa County legislators, who were collecting $35 per day, now get $10.
Nobody is getting rich off of this, but the $5,593 collected by non-Maricopa legislators during the current, 47-day lull eases the pain of the perpetual session. Members of the House have been told they can opt out of this payment, but if they do, they will not get paid a per-diem during next year’s session either. None have taken the option.
On the Senate side, the interpretation of the law has been different: Members may stop getting the per-diem now and resume later. Only three senators, all from Maricopa County, have opted out: Sine Kerr, John Kavanagh and Warren Petersen.
It is Senate President Petersen and others in that chamber who have chosen to keep the session limping along. The stated reasons are to consider Hobbs’ nominees to run state departments, and possibly to work out a compromise on a transportation measure, known as Prop. 400, for Maricopa County.
The unstated reason is that it gives Republicans a measure of leverage over Hobbs if she does something they don’t like. Once they close the session, she would have to call a special session to bring them back.
So, nothing significant is likely to happen as the session lingers. The big housing bill negotiated by Republican Sen. Steve Kaiser and the League of Cities and Towns crashed and burned in the last few active days of the session when far-right Republicans came out against it. Kaiser, thereafter, resigned.
Solving problems, it seems, is not really on the agenda. Scoring political points, and getting paid a little along the way, is.
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