Journalists’ Roundtable: 2-3-22

Feb. 3, 2023

This week’s Journalists’ Roundtable covered:

Republican lawmakers in early budget battle with Governor
Democrat’s input on budget
Nominations for agency heads

Why did the budget come out faster than normal?

“As quickly as it gets sent to the Governor’s desk, it will get sent right back to the legislator. She’s already said she’s planning on vetoing this budget; this is not a budget in a typical sense. Basically what Republicans are doing in the House and the Senate is they are taking the current budget, and stripping out about 2 1/2 to 3 billion dollars worth of the current spending,” said Small.

The goal is to make sure the government doesn’t shut down by June.

Why is there no input from Democrats?

“In the committee, at least in the Senate, the Democrats could speak a little bit, but their only input was that this was a phony budget. This is last year’s budget tweaked a little bit here and there, negotiated by a governor who’s not in office anymore, negotiated by a lot of lawmakers who aren’t around anymore. It doesn’t reflect the current reality where we have a Democratic governor who has different ideas,” said Pitzl.

Why are rules changing for nominations?

“We found out right before going to floor that we’re changing the Senate rules again. The Senate, if anyone doesn’t know, is the group that has to sign off on the Governor’s nominations, and the governor has to point people to various positions. The Senators, and by Senators I mean the Republicans, they want those nominations to come to them,” said Sanchez.

Republicans further noted that Hobbs has not officially released these names, further delaying this process.