Just when you thought it was safe to go back to the lege...

the Budget Plan From Hell is coming back around....

Sanity and reason won an all-too-rare victory in the AZ House yesterday with the defeat of House Speaker Jim Weiers' budget plan. HB2781 was defeated by a 27 - 31 vote, with a number of Republicans voting with the entire Democratic caucus to beat the bill back.

However, that victory may be short-lived, as State Rep. Trish Groe, one of the Republicans who voted against the measure yesterday, today moved to reconsider the bill on Tuesday, May 22. The motion passed 27 - 25.

In a budget-related matter, the meeting of the House Democratic Caucus that took place before the vote was broadcast on AZ Capitol Television last night. The best part was during discussion of a related bill (not HB2781). Rep. Theresa Ullmer's (D-Yuma) pointedly asked a question addressed to Rep. Rios and Lopez inquiring about what reasons there were to vote for the bill.

Rep. Lopez answered to the effect that the bill wasn't all that "horrible"; Rep. Rios just said that "you [Rep. Ullmer] can vote on the bill however you want; I [Rep. Rios] can vote on the bill however I want. We have different districts."

The brief exchange occurs at around the 1:01 mark of the meeting; the video archive is available here.

I'll give a little credit where it's due; both Lopez and Rios voted with the caucus when it counted. Of course, they may not have been happy about it.

We'll see how unhappy on Tuesday.

Tedski at Rum, Romanism and Rebellion has been providing solid coverage of the budget-related events at the lege; he does a much better job with the details than I do, and I strongly recommend checking out his posts on the subject.

Later!