The Republicans who control the Arizona House of Representatives advanced their own state budget proposal even though Gov. Katie Hobbs says it's dead on arrival.
After introducing their budget plan late Wednesday, Republicans on the House Appropriations committee passed the package on an 11-7 party-line vote ahead of a planned vote before the full House on Friday.
At a press conference before the vote, House Minority Leader Oscar De Los Santos (D-Laveen) set the tone for the Thursday hearing: “We’re not going to be taking this too seriously.”
Rep. Stephanie Stahl Hamilton (D-Tucson) said the House budget does not have a chance of becoming law, because Hobbs' office is currently negotiating a separate budget proposal with Democratic lawmakers and Republicans in the Arizona Senate.
“It's safe to say that we are very close to a bipartisan budget that could actually get signed,” Stahl Hamilton said. “This is not that budget, and I want to be very clear that this feels like performance art.”
While both sides agree that House Republicans crafted their budget proposal on their own, they disagree over who is at fault.
Rep. David Livingston (R-Peoria), who helped craft the Republican proposal, blamed the Governor’s Office.
“It was a governor that stopped negotiating with the House,” he said. “Period, end of story.”
Democrats said that is not true — De Los Santos accused Livingston of leaving the state during negotiations, while Hobbs said she has negotiated with lawmakers from both parties in order to craft a bipartisan budget package.
“This reckless and partisan budget is not that. House Republicans are yet again playing political games, attempting to jam through a budget that would decimate the middle class families I fight for,” Hobbs said in a statement.
Both sides do agree that the current fight is reminiscent of a battle earlier this year over funding for medical care for Arizonans living with developmental disabilities. Republicans had blamed Hobbs' office for mismanagement that led to cost overruns while Democrats said the increased funding was needed to address higher-than-anticipated enrollment and costs of care.
House Republicans and the Governor’s Office engaged in a tense war of words for months before finally agreeing to a compromise to solve the disability funding crisis in April.
“The key take away from that is the counter that we proposed to the executive on the [disability] issue was largely identical to the bill we ultimately passed in the House, and I expect, in many respects, that to be the case again with this budget,” said Rep. Matt Gress (R-Phoenix), who also helped write the House Republican budget proposal.
The compromise on the disability funding issue that Hobbs ultimately signed included the full funding sought by Democrats and some reforms championed by Republicans.
De Los Santos, the top Democrat in the House, saw it differently.
“David Livingston and Matt Gress stood on the House floor for 30 minutes, huffing and puffing, and minutes later their proposal went down in flames,” De Los Santos said, referencing failed Republican attempts to put even stricter guardrails on the program.
Democrats argued House Republicans' attempt to pass their own budget is just the latest example of what De Los Santos called “huffing and puffing.”
But Gress remained confident that, at the end of the day, the House Republican budget will provide the framework for the spending package Hobbs eventually signs — even though the governor has said otherwise.
“This will be largely intact when the final product comes forward,” he said. “Mark my words.”
Livingston did acknowledge that it is rare for the Republicans in the House to be in conflict with the GOP leaders who run the Senate during budget season.
“This has been a very unusual way to do a budget, and the budget’s not done. There's no secret here,” Livingston said. “There's not a handshake agreement with the Senate or the governor yet; there will be.”
EDITOR'S NOTE: The photo caption has updated to correct the spelling of Laurin Hendrix's name.
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