Arizona lawmakers say they've come to a deal on a bipartisan budget plan to avoid a government shutdown at the end of the month.
The budget, which passed out of the House on 40-19 bipartisan votes on Thursday night, will keep the government funded when the new fiscal year starts on July 1 — if Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs signs it.
And all signs indicate she will.
The budget the House passed is largely the same spending package that Hobbs negotiated with Senate Republican leaders.
The House vote puts an end to weeks of uncertainty over whether lawmakers would send a plan to Hobbs that she would sign before the June 30 deadline as GOP infighting and partisan rancor threatened to trigger an unprecedented shutdown of state government services.
Republicans in the House passed two partisan budgets in recent weeks, which Hobbs promptly vetoed, before passing the bipartisan budget plan, which the House had refused to consider until Thursday.
The House vote
Republicans added amendments to the budget they say are substantial enough to get them on board, including about $100 million in spending cuts over the next three years and increased oversight over government spending, said House Speaker Steve Montenegro (R-Goodyear).
“So it's all about accountability, government accountability,” he said. “We want to make sure that we are doing our job and making government a government that works for the people and not the other way around.”
But Democratic Minority Leader Oscar de los Santos (D-Laveen) said there aren't many meaningful changes and that the House-passed budget largely mirrors the $17.6 billion package the Senate passed last week.
“Frankly, now the House Republicans have thrown not one but two tantrums, gotten it out of their system and seen that they don’t run this place individually and that they have to work in a bipartisan manner. That’s the difference,” De Los Santos said.
The Senate is expected to pass the budget to Hobbs as early as Friday and send it to Hobbs’ desk for her signature.
“We were able to reach a consensus to fund the core functions of government. I appreciate the collaboration with the House over the past few days to get this spending plan across the finish line," Senate President Warren Petersen (R-Gilbert) said in a statement. "We have delivered a balanced budget with bipartisan priorities funded, like K-12 schools, transportation, public safety, and protecting our small businesses. We believe this is a bipartisan spending plan that will get signed.”
Bipartisan support — and opposition
Though the budget passed with broad bipartisan support, it also had some bipartisan opposition.
Democratic critics largely complained, as they have for years, that the budget did nothing to rein in school voucher spending. The school voucher budget is nearing $1 billion and has grown every year since Republican lawmakers expanded the program eligibility to all students in the state in 2022.
Republicans have long opposed any effort to restrict the voucher program following that expansion.
Some Democrats, including Rep. Alma Hernandez (D-Tucson), also said they couldn’t support the budget because of the inclusion of funding for the Gang and Immigration Intelligence Team Enforcement Mission, a multi-agency task force.
She specifically opposed the inclusion of language saying the money could be used to enforce federal immigration laws and SB 1070, the controversial law passed by the Legislature over a decade ago that was partially struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court.
“So while yes, there are great things in the budget and no budget is perfect, and I have said that every year since I've been here, my morals and my values cannot allow me to support the terrorizing of my community,” Hernandez said.
The same language was actually included in previous budgets, including spending packages Hernandez supported, though she said the situation is now different as the Trump administration undertakes an unprecedented deportation effort.
And De Los Santos, the House Democratic leader, said Democrats have received assurances that Hobbs' administration won’t use that money to target immigrant communities.
“You also had the governor's spokesperson and the director of DPS, the agency that administers that funding, clearly and unambiguously clarify that that funding is used strictly for gang enforcement, and not $1 of it goes to anything like that, what was being referred to,” he said.
A handful of Republicans aligned with the legislature’s far-right Freedom Caucus also opposed the bill.
Rep. Justin Olson (R-Mesa) argued the budget was fiscally irresponsible and introduced several failed amendments to cut back on spending, including adding new reporting requirements for the state’s Medicaid program.
Olson, who also backed a failed bill to cut $100 million in Medicaid spending, said those measures were necessary as congressional Republicans move to shift more of the costs to run Medicaid and other social programs onto states.
Olson said Medicaid spending was growing too fast and was “not sustainable.”
Despite the opposition, the budget’s backers said the deal – which left both sides with some wins and some losses — reflects the nature of a divided government.
“If we had a governor that was Republican, and a governor and a body that was Republican, then of course, we would move further to the right, but we don't have that in this budget,” Rep. Teresa Martinez (R-Casa Grande) said.
Martinez said she voted for the budget to avoid a government shutdown, ensure public safety officers are paid and “because, for my district, this is the right thing to do for them, and it's the right thing to do for the people of Arizona.”
EDITOR'S NOTE: The story has been updated to correct the spelling of Justin Olson's name.
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