Sunday, May 03, 2009

Coming up this week...

As usual, all info culled from the websites of the relevent legislative bodies/agencies and subject to change without notice...


...In the U.S. House, the planned agenda is mostly made up of the normal post office namings and such. The highlights of the agenda are -

H.Res. 269, Supporting the goals of Motorcycle Safety Awareness Month. This one makes the highlights list because the primary sponsor is AZ8's Gabrielle Giffords. This bill will probably pass, possibly even by a voice vote.

S. 386, the Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act of 2009. This bill seeks to fight mortgage (and other) fraud by both lenders and borrowers. The bill will probably pass, but since AZ Sen. Jon Kyl was one of four senators to oppose the measure, look for Jeff Flake, Trent Franks, and John Shadegg to join him in opposing restrictions on fraud.

However, the bill most likely to generate some controversy is H.R. 1728, the Mortgage Reform and Anti-Predatory Lending Act. The bill's provisions would implement all sorts of restrictions on mortgage lenders (CRS summary here) and is sure to be opposed by the entire Republican caucus in the House. This one is going to be so controversial there will be *two* House Rules Committee hearings on this one (Tuesday and Wednesday at 3 p.m. EDT)


...In the AZ Legislature this week, only the House COW calendar for Tuesday is posted thus far. The contentious bill there should be HB2177, which, as amended, would allow people to carry firearms into state game refuges.

In committee activity -

House Rules will meet on Monday at 1 p.m. in HHR4. The most eye-catching part of the agenda for that meeting is consideration of HB2466. That measure, if passed, would place upper limits on the taxes imposed by school districts.

Yes, if passed, it would combine the Rep scheme to balance the state's budget by swiping school districts' cash reserves with a prohibition barring school districts from utilizing the one option available to them to balance their own budgets. Nice.

House Water and Energy will meet on Thursday at 9 a.m. in HHR5. On the agenda there? The chairman of the National Propane Gas Association will speak on "cap and trade" and "greenhouse gases". Expect to hear words like "hoax" and "overblown."

A lot.

Over in the Senate, Senate Appropriations is scheduled to meet on Thursday at 1:30 p.m in SHR109. As with that last couple of scheduled meetings, all of the bills on the agenda relate to the Rep budget proposal. However, none of the strikers has been posted online as yet.

All the other Senate committees that are scheduled to meet will do so to consider executive appointments. Some of those folks could be interesting, but it's late and these posts tend to be long enough as it is. If you are interested, check out some of the names and do a little research.



...The Central Arizona Water Conservation District (CAWCD), aka the governing board of the Central Arizona Project, will meet on Thursday at 10 a.m. in the CAP offices. The agenda includes preliminary consideration of CAP's proposed tax rates for tax year 2009-10.


...The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors will meet in "informal" session on Monday at 10 a.m. They'll be receiving an update on swine flu in the county as well as a status report on Maricopa County Regional School District 509. This week's formal meeting of the supes will be on Wednesday at 9 a.m.


...The Arizona Corporation Commission, the Governing Board of the Maricopa County Community College District, the Board of Directors of the Maricopa Integrated Heath System, and the Citizens Clean Elections Commission are not scheduled to meet this week.


...The Tempe City Council will meet on Thursday at 7:30 p.m. at the Harry Mitchell Government Center. The agenda will include consideration and approval of the city's property tax rate.


...The Scottsdale City Council will meet on Tuesday at 5 p.m. in the City Hall Kiva after a 3 p.m joint meeting with the City's Budget Review Commission. The sole item on that agenda is discussion of the Commission's recommendations for the City's budget.

Later...

4 comments:

Thane Eichenauer said...

I'd hate to get known as a reflexive Jon Kyl supporter but is there any possibility that there are reasoned objections to Senator Kyl's objection that go just a little bit deeper than Fraud Bad, Kyl too?

Does that mean that due to Ed Pastor and Ron Paul votes against the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001 that they aren't USA PATRIOTS?

I realize that in depth reviews of all bills aren't possible but I would sure appreciate commentary that goes just a bit beyond the bare title and stated purpose of a given bill.

sanju said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Craig said...

Previous comment removed because it was spam.

Craig said...

Thane -

I actually understand and appreciate the desire for more in-depth analysis of the bill. However, this post and its predecessors are meant to provide a heads-up on what subjects will be in front of various political bodies this week.

It isn't meant to be an exhaustive study. I couldn't do one even if I wanted to - there's too much to cover (the Board of Supes' agenda alone is 50 pages long). That's why I try to link to the agendas for people who want to research more into the matters on them.

As for Jon Kyl, he's firmly in the pocket of Big Business, particularly the financial and insurance sectors. I've learned that when he objects to something, we should just follow the money.

Regardless of his stated reasons.

Lastly, don't get me started on the USA (faux) PATRIOT Act. I expect that is one of the topics we agree on.