Republicans – Page 4 – Powers For the People

House Republicans Push to Suppress Speech & Change Ethics Rules (video)

Posted on January 23, 2020February 15, 2023 by Pamela J. Powers

The Arizona House Republican leadership wants to change the House rules again this year. We have not voted on their proposed changes… yet…and if we do, there will be a floor battle because the Democrats don’t like the changes and neither do some of the more reasonable Republicans.

The suggested GOP changes would further suppress members’ speech by prohibiting photography, video or livestreaming from the floor, limit the number of House staff on the floor, and make it harder for people who are not House members to file ethics complaints against House members. On the photography issue, Republicans particularly don’t want us to photograph the votes on the board. What are they afraid of? Their voters? Voters have a right to know what we are doing, what we are saying and how we are voting.

You may remember the huge floor battle in 2019 over the Republican changes to the House rules. They cut speaking times to suppress speech, brought brought back the non-germane striker, and made other changes like making introductions of guests super short and not allowing us to say *why* a person was at the capital. (For example, we were not allowed to say that the people who marched 38 miles for the ERA want the Arizona Legislature to ratify the ERA.)

FY2020 Budget & #AZLeg Session Wrap-Up: What Just Happened? (video)

Posted on July 29, 2019February 15, 2023 by Pamela J. Powers

Drama, rumors, secrecy, backroom deals, coup attempts, flexible rules, and a bit of chaos are commonplace during the waning days of each session of the Arizona Legislature. This is the atmosphere in which our state’s budget is crafted each year.

The First Session of the 54th Legislature ended in the wee hours of May 28, 2019. The new budget took effect on July 1, 2019. New laws that had “emergency clauses” are already in place. All other laws take effect 90 days after the end of the session, which is August 27, 2019.

Here is a peak behind the curtain during the last days of the session and some high and low points in the legislation that was passed.

The Game Plan

In 2019, secrecy and chaos reigned supreme as the Republicans desperately clung to their standard game plan: hear and pass primarily Republican-sponsored bills; ignore all Democratic ideas, bills and constituents; make enough pork barrel deals with their members to get 100% of them on one budget; and ram the budget through in the middle of the night when voters are asleep and Legislators want to be.

The Chaos

There was more chaos than usual in 2019 because a few Republicans realized that the slim D-R margins in both the Senate and the House gave each R a lot of power. (Rep. Kelly Townsend showed the Republican leadership her power back in March when she starting voting “no” on every bill one day. Here’s the blog post and video.)

The chaos was amplified by totally random floor schedules…

That’s All Folks! House Republicans Manipulate Schedule to Protect Majority Votes (video)

Posted on April 1, 2019February 15, 2023 by Pamela J. Powers

That’s all folks! After the pledge, prayer. points of personal privilege (introductions) and a couple of proclamations, the Arizona House has adjourned until Wednesday. Why? Because Rep. David Stringer resigned due to the child sex charges, and the Republicans don’t have 31 members. The Republicans’ refusal to vote or even debate on anything without all 31 of their people in their chairs has really stalled progress this year.

We have done very little on the floor for the past two weeks. Heaven forbid that we would debate or vote on something that has bipartisan support but would pass with the majority of the Yes votes being Democratic.

More Tax Giveaways: Republicans Fight for ‘Revenue Neutral’ (video)

Posted on January 28, 2019February 15, 2023 by Pamela J. Powers

The House Ways and Means Committee passed HB2522 today. This is the revenue-neutral tax conformity bill, which would give the richest Arizonans a tax cut.

The Democrats stood strong and said that we should not give a tax cut when there are so many needs in our country. Also we must look at investment for the future rather than giving away money today. Our rainy day fund is underfunded. If Wall Street crashes the economy again, Arizona will face more devastating cuts, when we haven’t recovered fully from the last cuts.

This bill and the mirror bill SB 1143 need a 2/3 majority due to the emergency enactment clause, since we waited until the last minute to act on tax conformity. It will be difficult to get these out of the Senate or the House. Democrats need to stand strong on this.