The governor and a bipartisan state Legislature took meaningful steps on the looming water crisis caused by an increasingly arid Colorado River basin and deplenishment of groundwater./PinalCentral
Opinion: An Arizona budget and a water deal passed by Democrats and Republicans? A congressional compromise on gun reforms? Yes, all that and more happened last week.
By Fred DuVal opinion contributor | Arizona Republic
It’s June and – with apologies to Rogers and Hammerstein – bipartisanship is busting out all over. With Arizona at the forefront.
What planet am I on, you ask? Consider this past week:
The GOP-led Arizona Legislature passed a bipartisan budget with a majority of both caucuses in support. It required significant compromise. And they did so leaving the most ideological and partisan critics from the right and left powerless and grumbling from the sidelines.
Arizona Sens. Kyrsten Sinema and Mark Kelly led the crafting of the first major gun safety bill to pass Congress in three decades. And it did so with bipartisan votes in both the House and Senate. The compromise required politically difficult “gives” on both sides.
Thoughtful patriots of both parties testified to Congress regarding the events leading up to the Jan. 6 capital riots and how the Constitution held. A star witness was our own Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers, which was a powerful and necessary antidote to Arizona’s outsized profile in the Jan. 6 matter.
The Phoenix City Council passed – on a bipartisan vote – the largest increase in police pay in memory at a time when too many law enforcement officers are leaving the profession in frustration or being lured elsewhere by better salaries. Credit to Mayor Kate Gallego and the council who heeded the lessons from other cities that foolishly have genuflected to the “defund” nonsense.
