Gov. Hobbs touts transit deal; Arizona GOP plan out Monday

PHOENIX — Gov. Katie Hobbs says she has a deal backed by a majority of lawmakers from both parties to let Maricopa County voters decide whether to extend a half-cent sales tax for road and transit issues.

And now she wants the Republican-controlled Legislature to ratify it, saying failure to do so amounts to “holding our economy hostage.”

The outcome could have implications for the rest of the state.

GOP leaders are planning to unveil their own proposal Monday, one that divides up the $20 billion that the levy would raise in the next 20 years in a way different than what Hobbs wants. And while the details have yet to be revealed, House Speaker Ben Toma of Peoria told Capitol Media Services said the governor’s plan, worked out with the Maricopa Association of Governments, is “inefficient.”

And Sen. Jake Hoffman, R-Queen Creek, who has taken the lead among Senate Republicans in crafting a plan, said it is Hobbs and MAG, made up of local elected officials, who should accede to what the GOP wants.

“It’s unfortunate that Katie Hobbs isn’t willing to join legislative Republicans to ensure this important highway and funding source continues,” he said. “It’s becoming apparent that Hobbs isn’t interested in solving complex problems or negotiating issues in good faith, but rather just wants to play petulant political games.”

MAG has made major changes to the plan it submitted last year in response to demands from Republican leaders, with a frustrating lack of success, said Kenn Weise, the mayor of Avondale who chairs the group. Hobbs started taking the lead in negotiations with the Legislature in recent weeks, he said.

“We have compromised on I don’t know how many different levels here, whether it’s 25 year tax down to 20 years, whether it’s fare box monitoring, whether it is lowering the transit number, whether it is removing flexibility” in how the funds can be moved around, Weise said.

“What she offers is the best and final,” he said. “There’s nothing else.”

MAG also has jettisoned any effort to use any of the Proposition 400 extension dollars to extend the light rail system beyond what already is built or funded, which was one of the key bugaboos for some Republicans.

The situation threatens to become a game of political chicken.

Hobbs is signaling to GOP leaders that the only measure she will sign is that deal she made with MAG.

“I’m calling on those legislators to put their partisan politics aside and accept this compromise so that we can keep our economy growing,” the governor said in a prepared statement.

But Senate President Warren Petersen said the Republicans who control both the House and Senate have little interest in what Hobbs and MAG have to offer. More to the point, he said that deal won’t get a vote.

“We will put up the plan that is best for the citizens, not the best for bureaucrats,” the Gilbert Republican told Capitol Media Services.

That drew a sharp response from House Minority Leader Andrés Cano.

“Clearly President Petersen is paying attention to a slim minority of his caucus that apparently wants to hold our regionally approved transportation plan hostage,” said the Tucson Democrat. He called the Republican leadership “tone deaf” to what political and business leaders have worked out with the governor and say they want.

Weise said the governor is right when she says there are plenty of votes in the Legislature to approve the MAG plan.

“I think Republicans are being disingenuous, the few that are holding this bill hostage, when they say they don’t have the votes,” Weise said. “If they put it to the full vote of the Senate and a full vote of the House, the plan would pass overwhelmingly.”

But it’s not that simple: Even if he is correct — which is an assumption — House rules specifically prohibit any measure from getting a vote without the speaker’s OK.

Toma said he remains willing to negotiate with Hobbs and MAG. But he said it is the governor and the regional planning agency, not the GOP, that is endangering a deal on the levy to finance the road and transit projects the state’s largest county for the next two decades to spur economic development.

“Their take-it-or-leave it attitude is decidedly unproductive,” he said.

If neither side blinks, that leaves the future of the sales tax, first approved by voters in 1985 and extended for 20 years twice before, in limbo.

By law, Maricopa County — and only Maricopa County — needs legislative permission even to ask voters to extend the levy beyond its 2025 expiration date. No legislative approval means no vote and the tax goes away.

That creates a risk not only to Maricopa County projects but the chance that the state’s largest county, devoid of local tax revenues, would seek a bigger piece of the state and federal dollars that are now relied on heavily by other counties.

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The heart of the fight comes down to how to divide up the cash.

What Hobbs insists is the done deal — the plan she worked out with MAG — devotes 40% of the $20 billion that would be raised over the next two decades to freeway construction. Another 22% would be earmarked for regional and arterial roads, with 38% for transit.

Not acceptable, said Toma.

“The governor has chosen to be an uncompromising conduit for an inefficient MAG proposal that does not have sufficient votes to succeed in the House,” he said.

What Republicans consider “efficient” is set to be unveiled Monday.

As recently as a week ago, Petersen was proposing just 33.5% for the transit project. That left 47.5% for freeways and 19% for local roads.

He said that is being changed but provided no details.

What has been a key sticking point is how much of the tax revenues raised from sales in Maricopa County should be devoted not just to buses but also operation of the light rail.

Even with no money to build more miles of track, GOP leaders are not willing to give their blessing to a levy that many believe taxes residents too much for the overall mass transit system, a system that doesn’t come close to paying its own way and that most people do not use.

It starts, said Sen. David Farnsworth, R-Mesa, with the fact that fares from riders cover just 7.5% of operating costs.

“When I heard that number, I was shocked,” said Farnsworth, who chairs the Senate Committee on Transportation and Technology. “We just need to get better.”

And there’s something else.

Many Republicans want language that precludes MAG from advancing what are called “road diets.”

These are efforts to encourage people to drive less by installing light rail, lanes reserved for buses and even putting in bicycle lanes. But Farnsworth said that’s not what he would consider merely incentivizing alternatives to cars.

“You make it miserable to drive by taking lanes out,” he said.

“A perfect example of that is downtown Mesa,” Farnsworth said, where the streets were planned to be extra wide, enough to turn a horse- or mule-drawn wagon around. Now, he said, light rail has it down to one lane in either direction.

“And I avoid Main Street like the plague,” he said.

But even if there are no new light rail lines, the issue is not moot.

Scottsdale, for example, is weighing a plan to have “bus rapid transit” on Scottsdale Road from Thunderbird Road all the way to Tempe and Chandler. In essence, it’s like light rail but without the rails: Remove a travel lane and dedicate it just the buses.

Weise said MAG agreed to concessions, spelling out that if cities want to put in bus or bike lanes, they can’t apply to his organization for the funding.

And he said the agreement that MAG and Hobbs is advancing prevents his agency from shifting dollars among the pots of money set aside for freeways, major roads and transit services.

“The concern that the Senate has was they didn’t want to lose road miles, so they didn’t want funds being transferred from freeways to transit.

But he said it leaves in place about $2 billion earmarked for regional programs that could be used for various yet-to-be-defined projects. Weise said, though, there is language that sets some guardrails on how those dollars could be spent.

“There’s nothing untoward, there’s nothing sneaky,” he said, “It’s just a transportation and economic development plan.”