PHOENIX β Following up on her promise, Gov. Katie Hobbs on Thursday vetoed the $15.1 billion basic budget plan sent to her by the Republican controlled Legislature.
And the veto β actually 13 in all given how the budget is prepared β portend more to come.
In a letter to legislative leaders explaining her action, Hobbs said the $17.1 billion proposal she made last month would make βmeaningful progressβ on issues like addressing the housing crisis, making colleges more affordable, putting more money back in the pockets of working families and investing in public education.
βUnfortunately, despite my call to take on these difficult choice and protect our stateβs future, the budget approved by a slim, partisan majority in the Legislature takes another path,β the governor wrote. Hobbs said she was not willing to sign the plan, but that it can open the door for a bipartisan discussion of a spending plan for the state.
House Majority Leader Leo Biasiucci, R-Lake Havasu City, rejected the governorβs contention that what lawmakers sent to her is not a bipartisan budget. He noted that it is the same budget β with inflation adjustments β that Democrats voted last year to approve for the current fiscal year.
Thatβs not entirely true.
What was approved last year also includes expansion of the voucher program so that any student can attend private or parochial schools using public funds. That was enacted outside the budget on a partisan vote.
And the governorβs proposed budget also recognizes that the state currently has a surplus β estimated at $1.3 billion β that Hobbs says she wants used for things like a tax credit for low income parents and eliminating the state sales tax on diapers and feminine hygiene products.
Biasiucci, however, said that enacting the GOP-offered budget would ensure that schools would be kept open, law enforcement paid, healthcare continued and the stateβs southern border protected if there is no deal by June 30.
βInstead, she wants $40 million for illegal immigrants to attend universities,β he said.
That refers to Hobbsβ plan to create a scholarship for βdreamers,β those brought here illegally as children, who are ineligible for other federal and state aid.
And the governor defended the plan, saying it is in line with voter approval last fall of a ballot measure to allow these students to pay the same in-state tuition as other Arizona residents.
Hobbs still has a long way to go to topping the record of 58 vetos set in 2005 by Janet Napolitano, Arizonaβs last Democratic governor.
