Russell Pearce and intellectual integrity - the epitome of "long distance relationship"

From the EV Tribune (emphasis mine) -

Gov. Jan Brewer lashed out Friday at legislators from her own Republican Party for trying to fix the state's budget problems by taking $190 million from cities and counties.

"I think it's irresponsible," Brewer said of the proposals.

{snip}

Legislation approved this past week by the Senate Appropriations Committee would require counties to give $106 million of their share of vehicle license taxes to local school districts. That reduces the state's obligation to fund schools by an identical amount.

{snip}

Sen. Russell Pearce, R-Mesa, said he understands that the cash will mean hardships for cities and counties.

But Pearce, who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee, said this isn't like the state is taking dollars the local governments have collected themselves.

"The truth is, it's a state license," he said. And while the state has been able to share that revenue in the past, Pearce said it has to cut back because of a deficit for the coming budget year that is likely to exceed $3 billion.

Perhaps in this particular situation (vehicle license fees), the funds aren't "dollars that the local governments have collected themselves" but the hundreds of millions of dollars in development fees that the lege is swiping from cities and towns *are* dollars that the local governments have collected themselves.

Pretending that the lege is only taking "redirecting" state funds and not shaking down cities and towns is utterly dishonest.

The bottom line is that Pearce and his "associates" in the Rep caucus of the lege are deliberately visiting fiscal devastation upon every governmental and public entitity that they can put the touch on, other than the ones the control directly - the offices of the governor, treasurer, state superintendent of public education, secretary of state, and, of course, the lege itself.

Next year, every one of them must face a general election challenge from Democrats, and every one of them should face a primary challenge from Republicans who are disillusioned by complete disdain for public service exhibited by their current crop of elected officials.

Name-calling won't get it done

Commenter Thane made an observation on yesterday's post on the Senate Appropriations Committee meeting on the senate's FY2010 budget proposal.

It doesn't happen often (sorry, Thane :) ), but he was dead on with something he wrote.

"I'll just remind everyone here that name calling and disparaging comments on the intelligence or lack of intelligence of state representatives and state senators isn't going to win you any points in the audience of independent voters of Arizona."

He's right - name-calling isn't informative to readers, and it isn't going to get the job done when it comes to convincing folks who don't observe the real goings-on at the lege that a change is needed.

For that name-calling, for writing the post while absolutely outraged (and not at least identifying the post as a vent for that outrage), I apologize to readers.

And while "idiot" may be too strong a word, I don't apologize for the disparaging evaluation of one member's intelligence level - he earned it. If you don't believe me, watch the video of the meeting once it is posted and make your own judgement.

I also won't apologize for the low opinion expressed regarding the Rs' sense of obligation to the people of Arizona. Simply put, they exhibit nothing but contempt for any people who disagree with them or don't serve their purposes.

And right now, that is most people in Arizona.

...In past years, we've passed referenda clearly defining our priorities for government spending, and those priorities include education and support for the neediest in our state.

So instead of looking for ways to follow those priorities, the Republicans in the lege look at those priorities and call for a weakening of the Voter Protection Act so that they can further attack education and public services in AZ.

...Teachers, educators, and students exercised their constitutionally-protected rights to free expression and to petition the government and held rallies at the lege to bring attention to the massive cuts to K-12 Ed and the universities, so the Rs have proposed forcing school districts to fire all union representatives, requiring teachers to pay for substitute teachers if they engage in an "lobbying" activities, even if they properly use a vacation day to cover the time off from work.

...In an era when the state's municipalities are expected to meet their own infrastructure needs, the Rs in the lege are swiping sweeping the money that AZ's cities and towns have set aside to do just that. Furthermore, at the behest of the Home Builders of Central AZ, they've restricted the ability of cities and towns to recoup that money or even implement updated building codes.

...And to top it all off, while the lege is saying 'no' to abused children, the disabled, and the teachers and students of the state when they ask for support, they wholeheartedly say "yes" when the largest corporations in the state (Pinnacle West, Intel, and the rest of the usual suspects) ask for a permanent repeal of the state equalization tax.

Simply put, they're refusing to do the job that they were hired to do - represent the people of Arizona - and they don't have the integrity to resign their positions so that people who are willing to do the job can enter the lege.

I will not apologize for calling them on that.

Special Session To Save Yarbrough's STO

The website of the Arizona Senate Democrats is reporting that the governor will call a special session of the lege to "fix" the state's unconstitutional school vouchers law for Thursday at 1:00 p.m.

According to the Senate Dems, the bill to do the fix will be read and assigned to a committee tomorrow, and will be heard in that committee on Tuesday. No agendas posted as yet.

Yippee. The state, public education, human services are going to hell, but Jan Brewer is focused on doing her part to protect Steve Yarbrough's income.

She may have the job title of "governor," but she until she actually starts working for the people of Arizona, all the people of Arizona, she won't be worthy of the title "Governor."

Impressions from today's Senate Appropriations meeting

Yeah, I know I was there for only one bill (and it is still going strong as I type this), but they delivered a *lot* of subject material...

...A number of Democratic Representatives were in attendance at the Senate hearing, at least until they had to leave to attend a House floor session. Reps. Schapira, Heinz, Patterson, and Cloves Campbell Jr. observed at least of the goings-on, probably in preparation for the coming fights.

...Russell Pearce was the one designated to jump in front of the bullet today, generally being the one and only Republican to give voice to his party's objections to Democratic amendments. Generally his comments followed the form " 'I love' children, developmentally disabled people, corrections officers, etc. (or whoever the Democratic amendments tried to support)" before throwing that group under the bus.

...Jack Harper is very likely an idiot. To most regular readers of this blog, that I have a low opinion of his intelligence won't come as a surprise, he was in rare form today. Early in the meeting, Democratic Senators proposed an amendment to try to put the cuts in the Democratic-held Attorney General's office (deep) on par with those cuts in the other, Republican-held, statewide offices (virtually nonexistent). There were a couple of sarcastic comments from Democratic senators, including one by Rebecca Rios, that they were *certain* that there was no partisan vindictiveness at work. (This elicited at least one stifled guffaw from a certain LD17 blogger :)) )

Later in the meeting, a spokeswoman for the AZ Corporation Commission expressed reservations about the nature of some of the cuts to the ACC.

Harper jumped on this. He noted that only two of the five members of the ACC are Democrats and that this is proof that the Republicans made their budget cuts without regard to partisan affiliation.

What he didn't note is that the ACC is a distinct branch of government with its own powers, powers that many in the lege would like to accrue to themselves. In addition, while Republicans hold a majority of seats on the Commission, one of them is held by Kris Mayes.

As Commissioner Mayes will occasionally vote in the public interest instead of the corporate interest, she is considered a RINO who is hated by by the Pearce/Kavanagh/Gould wing of the GOP.

...I've been told by people who know him and don't like him that Harper isn't particularly dumb. Perhaps not, but he talks like someone who wants people to think he is smarter than he is, and he does a poor job of it. He spouted off a few times, but I had trouble taking notes because what he said made so little sense.

When the video archive of today's meeting is posted, I recommend watching it.

...Pearce's nativism doesn't extend to a respect for Native Americans. Sen. Albert Hale proposed an amendment to move money ($3 million) from the House of Representatives own budget to re-fund the Commission on Indian Affairs (the commission is zero-funded in the Republican budget proposal).

Pearce suggested that if they really wanted the commission, tribes could fund it out of gaming revenue.

Hale replied that gaming revenue is already shared with the state.

Hale's amendment failed anyway.

...The Republicans were ecstatic over the defeat in California of a number of referenda to help balance that state's budget, including some proposed tax hikes. They're using that defeat as carte blanche to ignore the possibility of a small tax increase in favor of balancing the state's budget on the back of AZ's children.

..."Cap'n Al" Melvin may not be quite on the same level of idiocy as Jack Harper, but he hasn't met a name that he couldn't massacre.

...The Reps were on message, even when that message was no more than ignorant BS. Their favorite talking point during the meeting was that not repealing the county equalization tax (the property tax that even though it's call a "county" tax is actually for education) counts as a tax increase.

...In keeping with the "on message" vibe, at one point during the debate, Pearce transitioned from the state needing to help abused children to needing to implement tort reform.

Huh???

Other impressions -

...I was fortunate to meet Kit Filbey, former vice chair of the MCDP and current vice chair of the GEMDEMS. She's intelligent and articulate, and was absolutely outraged at what she witnessed at the hearing.

And if you don't think my words here adequately convey the ugliness of the meeting (and they don't; I just don't have the vocabulary to fully express my own outrage at this mess), talk to her. She took copious notes during the meeting and will be able to fill in a lot of what I've missed here.

...Most of the Democratic senators of the committee were unyielding in their defense of AZ's most vulnerable. Senators Aboud, Aguirre, and Rios fought the Reps at every turn. Sen. Hale was skillful in his use of the "quiet" support technique. :))

...The Reps are *really* pissed over the criticisms they've been taking from the education community, moaning about AEA and union "lies" and "phony" pink slips, saying that after all is said and done, few or no teachers will be laid off.

...Pearce doesn't have a soul. During an amendment ot restore $167K to DES for food bank funding, he recited a story of how family was so poor when he was growing up that his mother had to work "two or three" jobs, strongly hinting that the people who have lost their jobs should just go out and get another.

Even if there are fewer jobs to get.

...Gould doesn't have a soul either. During debate on an amendment to restore funding for domestic violence services, he chimed in with "The best cure for poverty is a job."

As Kit Filbey pointed out, a job has nothing to do with domestic violence.

...Gould also protested that most of the proposed Democratic amendments were crafted to make Republicans look bad.

Senator Aboud retorted that it isn't amendments that are making Republicans look bad.

That one earned more than a few grins.

...And I am really glad that I left the meeting when I did. I've had the stream of the meeting going in the background as I type this, and more than once I've flipped off my computer screen at something that was said by a Rep, usually Gould or Pearce.

Lest you think that Jack Harper mellowed out during the course of the meeting, I have to tell you - he left even before I did. Apparently his daughter is graduating from something tonight.

Anyway, time to go and decompress so I can get to sleep at a reasonable hour.

Later!

Over three hours into the meeting...

...and just one bill completed. I'm out of here. I'll do a more complete write-up when I get home.

For the record, after that three hours, after the rejection of every Democratic amendment to try to soften the blow on the state's most vulnerable populations, public testimony that was unanimously opposed to the proposed budget, the Republican budget bill (striker to SB1188) passed on a party-line vote.

BTW - they spent around 15 minutes conducting the actual vote on the bill (most of them wanted to explain their votes). During that period, Ron Gould spent most of the time looking up AC units on the internet (presumably for his business in Lake Havasu)...If I got any good pics, I'll upload them later.

This explains a lot...

This meeting has turned into a Republican dogma indoctrination session, with Pearce leading the way, ably supported by his ideological saddle partners Gould, Harper, Sylvia Allen and Melvin.

The most illuminating quote, from discussion of one of the many Democratic amendments to support the children, the poor, and the disabled members of our community, Pearce said in support of his opposition to the amendment

"We're here to represent the taxpayers."

I guess that since most children aren't in a position to pay taxes, they don't deserve any consideration from elected officials.

Later...

Senate Approps...slow going

Ninety minutes in and still working on the amendments to the first bill. So far, all Demcratic amendments to help DES, the universities, K-12 ed, etc., have been defeated on party line votes.

More later...

Senate Approps meeting running late

It looks as if today's Senate Approps meeting won't be starting until 12:30, allegedly to allow the Democratic members to craft amendment proposals.

In other words, if you wanted to attend the meeting, you still have time to get here.

Get here soon, though - it's SRO time in SHR109.

Remaining BRBs

I'm getting too tired for more analyses, so here are links to the other budget bills on Wednesday's Senate Approps agenda -

Capital outlay, striker to SB1027

Criminal Justice BRB, striker to SB1028

(Sale of) Assets, striker to SB1031

General Government BRB, striker to SB1035

General Revenues, striker to SB1036

Health and Welfare BRB, striker to SB1145

General Appropriations, striker to SB1188

Environment BRB, striker to SB1258

The AZ Senate Democrats have posted a link to a .pdf summary of the budget proposal here.

Anyway, I hope to see some of you at Wednesday's committee meeting.

Good night!

Senate BRB - K - 12 Education

Oh, this one has a couple of real gems...

This is from a proposed striker to SB1187 (ALL CAPS INDICATES NEW LANGUAGE) -

ARS 15-185, Section B, paragraph 4 is changed to increase charter school equalization assistance -

Equalization assistance for the charter school shall be determined by adding the amount of the base support level and additional assistance. The amount of the additional assistance is one thousand four hundred seventy-four dollars sixteen cents ONE THOUSAND FIVE HUNDRED FORTY-TWO DOLLARS FIFTY-ONE CENTS per student count in kindergarten programs and grades one through eight and one thousand seven hundred eighteen dollars ten cents ONE THOUSAND SEVEN HUNDRED NINETY-SEVEN DOLLARS SEVENTY-SEVEN CENTS per student count in grades nine through twelve.

ARS 15-342 sections 27 and 34 are changed to allow school districts to sell advertising on school buses and school websites.

(Gem #1) ARS 15-502 is change to add - "THE GOVERNING BOARD SHALL REMOVE UNION REPRESENTATIVES FROM THE SCHOOL DISTRICT PAYROLL."

(Gem #2) ARS 15-504 is added -

PUBLIC SCHOOL TEACHERS WHO ENGAGE IN LOBBYING ACTIVITIES DURING REGULAR SCHOOL HOURS ARE REQUIRED TO REIMBURSE THE SCHOOL DISTRICT OR CHARTER SCHOOL WHERE THEY ARE EMPLOYED FOR THE COST OF HIRING A SUBSTITUTE TEACHER FOR EACH SCHOOL DAY OR PORTION OF A SCHOOL DAY THAT A SUBSTITUTE TEACHER WAS HIRED BECAUSE THAT TEACHER ENGAGED IN LOBBYING ACTIVITY. FOR THE PURPOSES OF THIS SECTION, LOBBYING DOES NOT INCLUDE CONDUCT THAT OCCURS DURING A FIELD TRIP FOR PUPILS.

ARS 15-821 is amended so that school districts do not receive two years of state aid payments for students who take kindergarten early (before age 5) and then retake kindergarten. (I don't actually have a problem with this one.)

(Gem #3) ARS 15-901, section B, paragraph 2 decreases base-level state funding for public schools from $3291.42 in school year 2008-2009 to $3201.89 in 2009-2010. Remember the increase for charter schools?

ARS 15-910, section K, paragraph 7 is added to cap monies expended on desegregation efforts to no more than the level spent in 2008-2009. Remember, this striker is proposed by the same guy who hates immigrants and sent out links to a white supremacist website as part of his 2006 campaign.

ARS 15-918.04, section C is added to close the career ladder program to new teachers.

ARS 15-923, section E is added to compel school districts to compensate parents who choose to drive their children to school themselves or make arrangements with other transportation providers. Section F adds the restriction that school districts don't have to reimburse parents for the transportation of the students from other districts or attendance areas within the same district unless the student is enrolled in a special education program.

ARS 42-17151, sections C and D are added to limit the ability of school districts to raise tax levies. Which is a nice two-step on the part of the lege - sweep up any fund balances that may have been built up to pay for capital projects and the like, and then inhibit the ability of the public schools to make up the difference the only way that they can.


More later... (maybe one more before I have to head to bed)

The Senate budget proposal...Higher Ed BRB

On Wednesday, the AZ Senate's Appropriations Committee will be considering a number of bills related to a budget proposal.

The cynic in me (which as any regular reader knows is never far from the surface) believes that the short notice of the hearing is to minimize the ability of those affected by the bills to organize an effective response.

Note: Since I'm trying to do the analyses on the fly, there will probably be some mistakes. I'll correct them when they are brought to my attention, but I strongly advise folks who are interested in these topics to read the relevant BRBs.

Here are some of the lowlights of the proposals, starting with the Higher Education budget reconciliation bill (striker to SB1029) (THEIR EMPHASIS INDICATING NEW LANGUAGE) -

(h/t to commenter testcase for spotting this)

ARS 15-1626,

section A, paragraph 5 - All other tuition and fee revenue shall beretained by each university for expenditure as approved by the board, except that APPROPRIATED BY THE LEGISLATURE

section B. THE BOARD SHALL NOT ALLOW ANY UNIVERSITY UNDER THE JURISDICTION OF THE BOARD TO REQUIRE ITS STUDENTS TO PURCHASE A MEAL PLAN OR LIVE IN ON-CAMPUS HOUSING.


15-1682.03

Eliminates new buildings and cuts the allowance for capital outlays from $800 million to $167,671,200.


There are also a number of changes to reporting and calculation functions that I've seen in other bills that never made it into law, but I don't understand the actual impact of them to comment on them.

At first glance, we should all be scared of their scheme to grab all of the state universities' revenue for themselves; it's one step from the lege actually setting tuition and fees directly. Once that happens, they'll be able to raise taxes on students and their families without looking like they're raising taxes.

More BRBs later...

Breaking - Senate Appropriations to consider budget proposal Wednesday morning

A newly-posted agenda for Senate Approps has the committee meeting at 11 a.m. (or upon adjournment of Senate Public Safety) in SHR1 to consider a budget proposal, a capital outlay proposal, and eight budget reconciliation bills (BRBs).

I couldn't find the text of the bills online as yet (I'm on the go, and can't really sit down for a thorough search right now...and they may not even be up yet), but an AP article (via MSN Money) talks about municipal impact fee grabs, privatizing prisons, and, of course, massive cuts to education and human services.

More later after I get home...

ACSTO, HY Processing and Steve Yarbrough

Edit on 5/19 to add link to AZ Republic article at end of post...

The Republicans in the lege are rushing headlong toward a special session in order to "fix" AZ's unconstitutional school vouchers law.

They may be successful in this effort (they've got the votes to implement their ideology and a pliable governor on the ninth floor), but they may come to regret that rush, as it is causing people to look closely at the organizations that benefit from school voucher/tax credit funds...

David Safier has an excellent post up concerning some of the financial activities of Rep. Steve Yarbrough's real job as director of the Arizona Christian School Tuition Organization (ACSTO).

In it, he sheds some light on ACSTO's massive increase in "processing expenses" at the same time that Yarbrough incorporated "HY Processing, LLC" in October of 2005.

ACSTO's processing expenses went from $24K in 2005 to over $360K in 2006 and even higher in 2007.

Hmmm....

Anyway, IRS has rules for 501c3 organizations covering this situation (I think this is relevant- I'm not a tax attorney) -

The organization must not be organized or operated for the benefit of private interests, and no part of a section 501(c)(3) organization's net earnings may inure to the benefit of any private shareholder or individual. If the organization engages in an excess benefit transaction with a person having substantial influence over the
organization, an excise tax may be imposed on the person and any organization managers agreeing to the transaction.

That "excess benefit transaction" clause seems to be especially relevant. From the IRS's page regarding the subject -

An excess benefit transaction is a transaction in which an economic benefit is provided by an applicable tax-exempt organization, directly or indirectly, to or for the use of a disqualified person, and the value of the economic benefit provided by the organization exceeds the value of the consideration received by the organization.

{snip}

In addition, if a supporting organization makes a grant, loan, payment of compensation, or similar payment to a substantial contributor of the organization, the arrangement is an excess benefit transaction. The entire amount of the payment is taxable as an excess benefit.

A quick check of Arizona Corporation Commission and AZ Secretary of State records show that both HY Processing LLC and ACSTO list almost the same address - 7517 S McClintock Dr. in Tempe , #107 for ACSTO and #109 for HY Processing.

Right now, I can't state unequivocally that HY Processing is being used to launder ACSTO monies into Yarbrough's personal accounts, but if Rep. Yarbrough's field of legal specialization isn't in criminal or tax law, he may want to consider putting both a criminal lawyer and a tax attorney on retainer.

Highly-skilled ones.

Kudos to David Safier for spotting the "processing" activity in ACSTO's paperwork - I've looked at the paperwork many times but never spotted that juicy tidbit.

Edit: on 5/19, the Arizona Republic ran an article on this very subject. In addition to the stuff in the Blog for AZ post and this post, it also covers how ACSTO paid almost $45K in rent to Yarbrough, who, as it turns out, owns the office building that houses both ACSTO and KY Processing.

Further along in the article, Yarbrough asserts that he isn't in violation of the state's ethics laws.

One of Yarbrough's friends should advise him that the IRS doesn't care about state ethics laws.

End edit...

Shadegg and Flake can't *both* change their names to "Scrooge", can they?

Earlier today, the U.S. House of Representatives passed H. Res. 442, a resolution "[r]ecognizing the importance of the Child and Adult Care Food Program and its positive effect on the lives of low income children and families."

The bill passed by a vote of 377 - 10.

Now this resolution has absolutely no practical effect on the laws of the country or federal spending. In fact, it was such an innocuous and non-controversial bill that even Trent Franks (R-AZ2) could find it in his heart to support it.

Trent Franks!!!

However, Franks was alone among the AZGOPers - Jeff Flake (R-AZ6) and John Shadegg (R-AZ3) voted against this resolution. Apparently, the hardcore ideologues are so opposed to any government social programs that benefit low income Americans that they won't even vote to acknowledge the success or even the necessity of one of those programs.

I sort of understand Flake's perspective - he hates everything. But what's up with Shadegg? He's enough of a politician to occasionally vote for bills that are of the "feel good but meaningless” variety.

Perhaps Shadegg is trying to get back in the good graces of the conservative wing of the GOP after his bout of honesty last week.

Later...

Is the bill logjam in the Senate loosening up?

All session, per the dictates of Senate President Bob Burns, the AZ Senate hasn't considered non-budget related bills.

This had led to weeks of committee agendas loaded with presentations and executive appointments, but light on actual substance (other than by the standards of those presentations and executive appointees, anyway :) ).

There have been a couple of exceptions, the most notable of which was the infamous "guns in parking lots" bill, but for the most part, the senators have been bored of their @$$es.

That seems to be changing this week. The Senate Public Safety and Human Services Committee has posted a revised agenda for its meeting this week (Wednesday, 10:30 a.m., SHR3). On that agenda is consideration of the appointment of Neal Young as Director of DES and of two bills -

SB1049____fingerprint clearance cards(Gray L)

**/***/****SB1155____trust lands; conservation; technical correction(Pierce S, Nelson)

All the asterisks mean for SB1155 is that consideration of the bill is pending a suspension of Senate Rules, the assigment of the bill to the committee, and the offering of a strike everything amendment.

The striker is listed as relating to "elections; hospital districts". The text of the striker isn't available online as yet, but the House has already passed HB2155 relating to the same topic. That bill would allow "for an election for a hospital district with less than ten thousand people to reauthorize an existing secondary property tax that supports the operations of a hospital." That bill carries a deadline for such an election of June 30, 2009 and requires a minimum of 30 days' notice.

Assuming that the proposed striker has the same language as the already-passed House bill, that would explain the rush on the bill.

Both bills on the committee agenda have "emergency" clauses attached to them so that they become law immediately upon the signature of the governor. For the emergency clause to be effective, the bills must pass the respective chambers by a 2/3 vote.

Looking at the bills, or one of the bill and the possible language of a striker on the other, they are measures that require immediate passage and cannot wait for the budget to pass before they are enacted.

In other words, no real loosening of the logjam yet, just work on bills that should have taken place months ago.

More later...