Upcoming this week...

As usual, all info gather from the websites of the relevent political bodies and subject to change without notice...

Kind of a full week, so an early start is called for.

Plus the game between the Yankees and the Red Sox is on ESPN tomorrow night. :))


...Congress is in session, and is expected to have a loud week.

Over in the House, while the agenda is populated with the usual post office namings, college sports championship congratulations, and memorials, there are three items scheduled for consideration that could create a furor.

- H.R. 1913, the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009. AZ Dems Gabrielle Giffords, Harry Mitchell, Raul Grijalva, and Ed Pastor are among the cosponsors of the bill. The House Rules Committee will consider the bill and proposed amendments to it on Tuesday at 1:00 p.m. EDT.

While the Republicans will want to look like they support law enforcement, they will make every effort to hamstring this bill. They "hate" hate crimes legislation.

It'll pass, but with some Reps 'tut-tutting' over it.

- H.R. 627, the Credit Cardholders' Bill of Rights Act of 2009. AZ Dems Grijalva and Giffords are cosponsors. House Rules at will hear the bill on Tuesday at 10:30 a.m. The Christian Science Monitor has a summary here; CRS summary here.

This one *will* have some serious Rep opposition because of its restrictions on credit card issuers and other lenders.

- However, any angst over H.R. 627 will pale in comparison to that associated with consideration of the conference report for S. C0n. Res. 13, "Setting forth the congressional budget for the United States Government for fiscal year 2010..."

Again, it'll pass, but with major posturing from the party of no, who probably haven't gotten the message from their loss in NY-20.

Should be a good week for watching C-SPAN, especially on Wednesday and Thursday.

...In the AZ lege, the House COW calendar for Tuesday is posted already. The most controversial seems to be HB2136, a bill to expand the membership of the State Fire Safety Committee by adding a petroleum retailer/distributor to the board. It passed the House Military Affairs and Public Safety Committee on February 11 by a party line 5 - 3 vote (Reps supporting, Dems opposing).

- In committee activity, House Rules is meeting on Monday at 1:00 p.m. in HHR4. Over in the Senate, Senate Appropriations is scheduled to meet on Tuesday at 1:30 p.m. in SHR9. As with last week's agenda, they *may* consider some budget-related bills. Or, as with last week, they may not.

Only two other Senate committees are scheduled to meet; they are hearing presentations or considering executive appointments.

...The Arizona Corporation Commission will be meeting on Tuesday and Wednesday at 10:00 a.m. Hearing schedule here.

...The Arizona Board of Regents will be meeting in the U of A Student Union on Thursday and Friday. The agenda includes a number of items to impose a $1K+ surcharge on students at the state's universities. In a bit of less-than-perfect timing, the Board will also be considering an item to extend the contract and boost the pay of U 0f A' s head football coach, Mike Stoops. If approved, his regular pay will go from $685K to $1 million/year starting this year, escalating to $1.4 million by 2013.

The item write up stresses that "Stoops’ salary will be paid entirely from revenue generated by the Athletic Department" and no taxpayer monies will be used, but it still doesn't look good to hold up the universities' students at the beginning of the meeting doling out a generous pay raise a short time later.


...The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors has no meetings scheduled at this point, but as we saw last week, that is subject to change due to one or more of the many lawsuits that the supes are involved in.

...The Board of Directors of the Maricopa Integrated Health has a special board meeting that is focused on its budget (capital budget here).

...The Governing Board of the Maricopa County Community College District will meet Tuesday evening at 6:30 p.m. in the Governing Board Room, 2nd Floor, 2411 West 14th Street, Tempe.

The agenda for the meeting seems to be pretty mundane (to my untrained eyes, anyway), but given the past behavior of some board members (i.e. - Jerry Walker's intimidation of a student while visiting the U.S. Capitol) and the ongoing budget process, this one could be interesting.

...The Citizens Clean Elections Commission is scheduled to meet on Thursday at 9:30 a.m., but no agenda has been posted online as yet.

Edit on 4/26 -

Hat tip to commenter Zelph for reminding me (and all of us) that the CCEC will be considering the case of current Rep. Doug Quelland. He's been alleged to have committed some serious campaign finance violations. If found guilty of the violations alleged, he could lose his office.

End edit...

...The Scottsdale City Council will meet on Tuesday. A regular meeting with a short agenda follows an executive session to interview candidates for the vacant City Auditor's position (Brian R. Biggin, Alan G. Nixon, and Sharron E. Walker).

...On Wednesday, there will be two "Discover Papago Park" workshops; one at the Phoenix Zoo (10:00 a.m. - noon) and the other at Supai Middle School, 6720 E. Continental, Scottsdale (6:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m.)

Later...