Photo by Gage Skidmore (modified) || Flickr/CC BY-SA 2.0
Still, there’s optimism that a budget agreement is just around the corner
By Jerod MacDonald-EVOY || Arizona Mirror
As the Arizona legislature reached its 100-day mark on Tuesday, lawmakers have yet to reach a budget deal and it has proven to be one of the most trying legislative sessions for Capitol veterans and newcomers alike.
Not since the administration of Democratic Gov. Janet Napolitano, who took office in 2003 and resigned in January 2009, has the legislature and executive been controlled by different parties.
But now, with a more conservative legislature and Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs, the politics at the Capitol have been upended. The result has been the one-vote GOP majorities sending a slew of bills to Hobbs, knowing she’ll veto them. After 99 days, she had vetoed 52 bills — only a handful shy of the record 58 bills that Napolitano vetoed in 2005. Tuesday afternoon, she announced 11 more vetoes, giving her the most bill rejections in Arizona history.
“I’ve heard a lot of people say it is the most impersonal, angry session that many people have ever experienced,” Chuck Coughlin, president of public affairs firm HighGround, told the Arizona Mirror. Many lawmakers have been “generally unwilling to listen” and “personal ideology” has gotten in the way.
“It is a harder session than it has been in the past because of that,” Coughlin said. Even veterans of the legislature have been saying the same thing to him, he added.
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