By Jeremy Duda, Ben Giles and Hank Stephenson | Arizona Capitol Times
After a bitter and prolonged debate that ripped apart Republican majorities in the House and Senate, Arizona lawmakers approved Gov. Jan Brewer’s Medicaid expansion proposal and sent it to her for her signature.
Five months after Brewer announced her Medicaid plan, Republicans joined with Democrats in a special legislative session to approve the measure by a margin of 33-27 in the House and 18-11 in the Senate.
Republican opponents warned that a vote in favor of expansion would affect their colleagues for the rest of their political careers and possibly beyond. Brewer praised the bipartisan coalition who backed the plan for their courage.
Lawmakers also approved an $8.8 billion budget for fiscal 2013.
The Senate votes occurred after the marathon, 12-hour session in the House, which worked into the early morning hours on June 13 before the final vote came at 3:39 a.m.
Brewer said she was grateful to lawmakers for their “landmark votes” for Arizona’s most sweeping health care legislation in decades.
Meanwhile, Brewer’s sales tax reform passed.
The governor offered to modify her original proposal, and after a few tries, Brewer’s office and the League of Arizona Cities and Towns settled on a compromise.
“The prime contracting [provision] right now is probably one of the least of our concerns,” Ken Strobeck, the league’s executive director, said before news broke that the two sides had reached a compromise. “The issue is admin and auditing.”
