3:17 - House sets up sine die committee to inform Senate that its work is done. House in recess.
3:16 - Bill passes 51 -4.
3:16 - Barnes going now. He may be what Antenori looks like in 30 years or so.
3:15 - Antenori still going.
3:13 - Antenori going after the Tucson City Council over Rio Nuevo. What does this have to do with anything?
3:09 - Getting Democratic support on this one. The few "no" votes seem to be from Rs.
3:07 - SB1003 up.
3:06 - Farley says Dems ready to negotiate and work with Rs, just as soon as Rs are actually ready to work with the Ds.
3:05 - Speaker Adams criticizes Dems for not supporting "cuts-only." Bill passes 35 - 20.
3:02 - Carl Seel offers to "re-educate" the House on how much money K-12 has to spare. Nice choice of words there, Comrade Carl. (Sorry, I couldn't resist. :)) )
3:01 - They're still at it on SB1002.
2:49 - SB1002 up.
2:47 - Barnes states that unless there is a bisexual teacher somewhere, schools now have separate principals for both the boys restrooms and the girls restrooms.
He's yelling now.
I seriously believe that he may have had a beer or two at lunch. Or maybe three or four. :)
OK, I think that he's sloshed.
Drunk or sober though, he's definitely the most entertaining member of the House today.
2:45 -Passes with 35 votes. Ray Barnes excoriates Ed Ableser for saying that bipartisanship doesn't exist in the lege.
2;43 - Murphy states that tax cuts aren't the problem, and fewer tax cuts would have made the deficit worse. Newspeak, Republican-style.
2:42 - Still at it.
2:33 - Blathering still continuing. Antenori at bat now. Wants to cut taxes on business to raise revenue.
2:28 - Rep. Lesko is bemoaning the fact that Dems haven't supported any budget cuts, blaming them the lack of bipartisanship.
2:25 - OK, he's covering it at length. :)
2:23 - Now Rep. Farley is covering the same ground.
2:20 - Rep. Sinema calls "cuts-only" approach "foolhardy".
2:18 - SB1001 substituted for HB2001. Not going to be unanimous.
2:17 - Passes 53 - 0. Bill conveyed back to the Senate.
2:16 - This is going to pass unanimously, but they are still gabbing.
2:14 - Approps chair Kavanagh says that the fix will come up during the next regular session.
2:11 - Had to step away for a few minutes. Substituting the measures that the Senate passed for the identical House measures. Currently on SB1004, repealing the anti-deficiency statutes. (An actual fix is tentatively planned for the next special session.)
4 comments:
How 'bout Rep. Seel suggesting that the $500 million in carry over cash being amassed by public schools "year after year, after year" be used for that which the tax payers pay it, say teachers' salaries? Okay. I'll support that. And I'll also support Rep. Yarbrough and his STO cronies taking all of the millions (and the interest) THEY'VE amassed over the years and using it where the legislation INTENDED it to go: to pay for LOW INCOME KIDS TO GO TO THE COUNTRY CLUB SCHOOLS THEIR STOS SUPPORT. :::whew::: had to get that off of my chest. thank you.
Seel was pretty bad, and the Rs are completely hypocritical regarding the public ed/STO funding conflict.
However, Seel's performance has nothing on Barnes'.
That one was a gem. He makes Sylvia "5000 Years" Allen look like a liberal intellectual.
We need to get the video out on YouTube, and maybe forward it to folks like Rachel Maddow or Keith Olberman at MSNBC.
The extent to which far too many people believe that bipartisanship is an idea that should be strived for. Democrats and much of the media advocate this when it furthers their agenda.
Why Republicans think think is a good idea when the purpose of bipartisanship in this case is that needed spending reductions are avoided and that tax and fee increases be adopted.
Thane,
I can't speak to what any of the members of the lege (R or D) mean when they talk about "bipartisanship" but what I mean when I talk about it is the willingness to step away from partisan ideology and craft policy that is in the best interests of Arizonans.
No Democrat is arguing that cuts are unnecessary; hell, most know that cuts are unavoidable. They also know that "cuts only" won't get the state out of its budget hole. Arizona already has one of the leanest public service infrastructures in the country. There's extremely little fat left to cut (though after the last year, one could argue that the money spent of the lege and the governor is wasted).
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