The Republican budget roast

The fiscal hawks vs. Hobbs … A Bigg announcement … And justice for boobydo.

Legislative Republicans got a guided tour of Gov. Katie Hobbs’ budget proposal yesterday — and they did not like what they saw.

The presentation of the proposal to the Legislature’s Joint Appropriations Committee¹ is an annual exercise in political showmanship.

As it usually plays out, the governor’s budget team attempts to go through a slideshow explaining her budget priorities, and Republican lawmakers attempt to interrupt with pointed political questions that might get them featured on the 5 o’clock news.

Nobody leaves satisfied.

“This proposal that you sent us does not add up. I mean, we're not even close,” said Republican Rep. David Livingston, chair of the House Appropriations Committee “July 1 is gonna come along, we're not going to have a budget, and the lights are going off on state agencies.”

We pared down the two-hour budget meeting down to three minutes packed with the best parts, but (disclaimer) completely devoid of context.

One of the most damning arguments Republicans leveled at the governor’s budget was that it’s not even balanced.

Rep. Matt Gress, former budget director under Gov. Doug Ducey, was quick to use his fiscal savvy to point out that the governor’s budgeting office failed to adjust caseload growth for the state Medicaid agency in future years, which he argued actually puts the budget in a deficit.

Marge Zylla, Hobbs’ director of legislative and fiscal affairs, didn’t have a convincing answer for the lack of projected growth for people relying on the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System, or AHCCCS, in fiscal years 2027 and 2028.

Republican fiscal hawks like Gress and Livingston made their own calculations for caseload growth that they said put the state’s future budgets in the red.

Zylla pointed out that the governor and Legislature rely on two different budgeting offices that come up with different numbers, and said “Conversations are ongoing at the technical level.”

Gress didn’t like that.

“You're talking to me like I don't know what I'm talking about. I've seen your sources and uses,” he said. “We have a three-year budget window. That's how this all works.”

While Hobbs’ budget is a step toward moderation and an attempt to fund bipartisan issues like childcare access and border security, that doesn’t mean Republicans love it.

Republican lawmakers spent two hours lobbing questions and accusations at Zylla and dissecting the governor’s $17.7 billion budget.

Here are some of the parts they hated the most.

We spent hours watching and rewatching this meeting so you don’t have to.
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Housing: The governor’s budget calls for a $15 million deposit into the Housing Trust fund, which is essentially a bank account dedicated to affordable housing initiatives. Gress is worried that money will be used to “support the housing of illegal immigrants.”

The border: Republican Rep. Tony Rivero said $10 million to support local law enforcement to intercept drugs on the border isn’t enough money. Gress said Ducey, his former employer, spent way more money on border efforts. He tried to make Zylla acknowledge that “the border is the primary contributor to the fentanyl epidemic.”

Childcare: Hobbs’ budget would create public-private partnerships to make childcare more affordable. Republican Sen. Vince Leach wants to make sure only kids with legal citizenship status can benefit from the daycare funding.

Corrections: The only thing Democratic and Republican committee members seemed to agree on is that the state’s paying too much money to the Department of Corrections as it fights with a lawsuit over violating prisoners’ constitutional rights. Democratic Sen. Brian Fernandez said increasing prison funding “seems like a one-way to get to nowhere.” Zylla reminded lawmakers Arizona could be subjected to a much more expensive federal takeover if it doesn’t spend money to comply with the court order.

School vouchers: Hobbs made a more moderate suggestion to rein in school voucher spending than she has in years past, this time by tying eligibility to a family’s income. The idea was still dead on arrival. But Livingston still made Zylla skip over other slides to cover the proposal before the committee’s time ended.

HB2043: harassment; intent; defense

Sponsor: Republican Rep. Alexander Kolodin from Legislative District 3 in Scottsdale.

Summary: Modifies the definition of the crime of harassment to require the “intent” to harass another person. Introduces a defense to prosecution for harassment if the conduct was criticism of a public officer or employee.

Upcoming: The bill is scheduled to get a hearing Wednesday in the House Judiciary Committee.

Notes: Basically, the bill would make it harder to prosecute people for harassment, especially for harassing public officials. Threats against elected officials have spiked dramatically since 2020, especially against those who have defended Arizona’s elections. It’s worth noting that the bill comes from Kolodin, who has long been wary of prosecutorial power. Kolodin also believes the 2020 election was stolen and was sanctioned by the State Bar of Arizona for his role in 2020 election lawsuits.

What do you think?: Let lawmakers on the House Judiciary Committee know with Wolfpack, our email-generating tool. We created a campaign supporting the bill and one opposing it. Pick your poison!

It’s unbelievable!: Republican U.S. Rep. Andy Biggs said he plans to run for governor next year. Biggs, a former state lawmaker who has served in Congress since 2017, is a diehard fan of President Donald Trump. But Biggs’ run for governor would pit him against Trump’s hand-picked candidate, Karrin Taylor Robson, who lost the Republican primary to Trump’s former hand-picked candidate, Kari Lake, in 2022, as the Republic’s Laura Gersony reports. Either way, Biggs should be OK. After all, he won a $10 million American Family sweepstakes in the 1990s.

Power vacuum: Cochise County Recorder David Stevens resigned just days after he was sworn in for another term, VoteBeat Arizona’s Jen Fifield reports. Stevens didn’t explain why he suddenly resigned. In the wake of his decision, the all-Republican board of supervisors now gets to pick his replacement. That board includes Supervisor Tom Crosby, who was indicted on charges of interfering with the 2022 election by delaying certification of the results.

Fat chance: Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes announced she’s joining a multistate lawsuit challenging Trump’s “unconstitutional order” attempting to end birthright citizenship. Meanwhile, Mayes says she doesn’t expect to get help from the Trump administration as she pursues her case against the “fake electors,” Capitol scribe Howie Fischer reports. She had asked the Department of Justice to share their files on the January 6 insurrection prosecution, but hours after Trump took office this week, her outlook was quite a bit dimmer.

“I think that it’s more likely that our request turned into a pumpkin this morning,’’ Mayes said.

Gearing up for a crackdown: Arizona Senate President Warren Petersen introduced the AZ ICE Act to force local law enforcement to work with their federal counterparts as the Trump administration rolls out a planned crackdown on immigration. Petersen specifically pointed to a program known as 287(g), which allows local police to process noncitizens who end up in their custody on non-immigration-related charges.

#Priorities: In one of his first acts as president, Trump pardoned most of the people who were arrested for the January 6 insurrection, the Republic’s Ronald J. Hansen and Richard Ruelas report. That included about a dozen Arizonans, most notably Jake Angeli, AKA the “QAnon Shaman,” who wore a furry, horned hat as he crowed over the dais of the U.S. Senate.

We were here when the QAnon Shaman first burst onto the scene. With the financial support of our subscribers, we’ll be around for whatever shenanigans he gets into next.

Taking it to court: The victims of the massive sober-living scam filed a class-action lawsuit against the state, the Arizona Mirror’s Shondin Silversmith reports. The scam targeted thousands of Indigenous people in Arizona and left many of them abandoned, missing, or injured. They’re suing the state for negligence and misconduct, saying officials should have clamped down on the scam much sooner and done more to help the victims.

Some poor employee at the Arizona Department of Transportation has the job of rejecting inappropriate custom license plates.

Meanwhile, the Phoenix New Times’ Zach Buchanan is having a blast at his job writing about all the rejected inappropriate license plates.

Our favorites include: “2MADRE,” “BOOBYDO” AND “FUBUDDY”.

1. A joint committee is just the House and Senate version of that committee gathering as one body.