Photo illustration by Jim Small. Photo by Gage Skidmore (modified) | Flickr/CC BY-SA 2.0
GOP leaders, facing the prospect of bipartisanship, are desperate to keep their stranglehold on power
By Jim Small || Arizona Mirror
The Republicans who run our state legislature are terrified.
GOP leaders, facing the prospect of bipartisanship, are desperate to keep their stranglehold on power
By Jim Small || Arizona Mirror
They’re terrified that their policy proposals are deeply unpopular. Terrified of facing even a tiny bit of accountability. Terrified of anyone knowing what they’re doing or who they’re talking to.
They’re terrified of being forced to work with Democrats. Terrified of compromising even a little bit with Gov. Katie Hobbs. Terrified that, if they stubbornly refuse to do so, some pragmatic GOP lawmakers will broker a deal with Hobbs and the Democrats in a repeat of 2004, when Republican leaders were rolled after months of deadlocked budget negotiations.
Republicans are terrified that their nearly 60-year stranglehold on power in the legislature is coming to an end, and they’re desperately trying to maintain control.
That fear is the driving force behind staggering new rule changes passed this week in the Arizona Senate and House of Representatives that stifle debate, muzzle Democratic objections, exempt legislators from the state’s public records laws and greatly expand the power of the top Republican leaders in an effort to preemptively crush any revolt against their rule.
Rather than stand tall in the marketplace of ideas that they supposedly champion, Republicans are running from it with their tails between their legs. Debates on the House and Senate floor will now be limited to 30 minutes, with no exceptions, before voting begins. GOP Rep. Travis Grantham, the House speaker pro tem, decried lengthy debates as a “weapon” of Democrats, which is definitely the position of someone who has confidence that Arizonans agree with his positions and not a thin-skinned politician who can’t stomach criticism of the extremist measures his party rallies around.
