This week’s top stories in Arizona politics were covered with Jim Small of the Arizona Mirror, Mary Jo Pitzl of “The Arizona Republic” and azcentral.com and Camryn Sanchez of Arizona Capitol Times.
This week’s Journalists’ Roundtable covered:
- Republican lawmakers in early budget battle with Governor
- Democrats’ input on budget
- Nominations for agency heads
Why did the budget come out faster than normal?
Jim Small: “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 $2.5 to $3 billion dollars worth of the current spending,” adding, “The goal is to make sure the government doesn’t shut down by June.”
Why is there no input from Democrats?
Mary Jo Pitzl: “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.”
Why are rules changing for nominations?
Camryn Sanchez: “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.” She added that Republicans further noted that Governor Hobbs has not officially released these names, further delaying this process.
