Tedski at Rum, Romanism and Rebellion has been doing a great job at covering the defection of Democratic Reps. Pete Rios, Linda Lopez, and Olivia Cajero Bedford over the state budget proposed by Speaker Jim Weiers and the House Republican leadership.
I could talk about the events of the last couple of days, but I'd just be repeating stuff he has already documented.
Plus he has better sources than I do. Most of what I know about this I learned from him; anything that I did learn from my own sources, he's already posted. [Freakin' brothers in the lege...curse grumble swear... :) ]
In order of publishing, his posts on the topic can be found here, here, here, here, and here. Expect more. :)
What I can and will do is to urge everyone to contact their representatives in the AZ legislature (both House and Senate) to urge them to fight against the House budget; it funds a big tax break for corporations on the backs of the state's children and poor.
Member roster f0r the House of Representatives is here; the Senate's roster page is here. The pages contain phone and email contact info for the members. Click on a member's name to go to his/her official page to obtain snail mail address info.
I've been assured by people that know that the House budget doesn't stand much of a chance; even if it gets through the House, it has to get past the Senate AND the Governor's veto pen.
The first (passage by the House) is likely, but not a slam dunk - Weiers ignored a lot of Republican moderates when he ginned up his budget; his own caucus may yet kill his own budget.
The second, passage by the Senate, is extremely unlikely - the Senate has put in a LOT of bipartisan work already on a 'compromise' budget. They aren't going to throw that away on one of Weiers' whims.
The third, avoiding the Governor's veto pen, is also unlikely - it's *her* office that the Senate has been working with on their budget.
However, for all that, people still need to contact their reps and senators; make sure that they know this budget is bad and, more importantly, that their constituents are watching.
Closely.
The Arizona Education Association sent out an action alert urging people to contact both their own legislators and Reps. Rios, Lopez, and Cajero-Bedford (to ask them to reconsider their positions).
Those three are singled out not only for the defection to Weiers' camp, but because they were endorsed by the AEA during the last election.
The AEA had a number of talking points in their action alert, points to bolster efforts to defeat the House budget. These included the tax giveaways to corporations ($48 million on top of $591 million because of last year's budget deal), the negligible additional assistance for public schools ($20 million sounds ok, until you realize that it comes to less than $20/student), the large increase in funding for charter schools ($10 million, $107/student), and the backroom deals to create the public's budget (see above linked posts about Democratic defections.)
When contacting legislators, whether your own or Lopez, Rios, and Cajero Bedford, be direct, concise and above all, BE CIVIL. The threesome may have exercised some profoundly bad judgement, but they're still civil servants worthy of courtesy.
But when you do contact them, in addition to the above points, ask them this:
"It's bad enough to sell your souls to Jim Weiers, but couldn't you at least make *him* pay the price? The money for your pet projects/line items all came out of things that Weiers hates anyway, like school buildings and facilities, state employees' pockets, and AHCCCS. He doesn't care if those areas get screwed; in fact you did him a favor.
Now he gets to blame Democrats for the short funding in those areas.
Bottom line - you didn't sell your souls so much as give them away."
"How does it feel to burn your bridges with your colleagues, your party, and your constituents, for less than nothing.?"
Now, according to one of the Tedski's posts, Rep. Cajero-Bedford has backed off from her support of Weiers' budget, but she still deserves to hear from folks, in case she is considering backsliding.
Later!
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