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This week at the Arizona Capitol: Philosophical clashes on budget, bills to speed vote counting

Woman in glasses speaks at podium
Howard Fischer/Capitol Media Services
Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs speaks during her State of the State address on Monday, Jan. 8, 2024.

Gov. Katie Hobbs on Friday unveiled her budget proposal for the fiscal year that will start on July 1.

The $17.6 billion plan aims to scale back parts of the state’s universal school voucher program, put more money into the Housing Trust Fund and help families afford child care, among many other provisions.

Howard Fischer of Capitol Media Services joined The Show to discuss the plan, as well as GOP lawmakers’ response to it. With ESA’s and child care garnering many of the headlines about the budget, he began by discussing his key takeaways from the proposal.

Full conversation

HOWARD FISCHER: Well, I think you’re starting off with the right assumptions. You know, the governor figures, “Look, I don’t believe that we should have expanded vouchers to everyone who’s eligible. For the simple reason that a lot of folks who have signed up were already going to private and parochial schools or already being homeschooled at the parents expense. And so why are we doing that?”

That gets into a large philosophical discussion of, w”Wll, aren’t parents entitled to make their own decisions? And shouldn’t they get their share of the tax dollars back?”

She’s obviously giving up on getting rid of it. So she said, “Look, why don’t we means test this and say, OK, if you are not one of the people who was eligible before — children with special needs children going to DNF schools — we’ll go ahead and say at family income of up to $100,000, you still get a full voucher. And then scaling it back after that. So at the point that family income is $200,000, there’s no voucher eligibility.”

I don’t know that this is going to be any more success. I mean, I appreciate what she’s trying to do, but this is not a financial issue for lawmakers. This is a philosophical issue. So it’s an interesting idea, as I said. She thinks she can save $150 million for other projects. I see this pretty much as a nonstarter.

MARK BRODIE: What about some of the governor’s other proposals, Howie? What kind of responses have those gotten from GOP lawmakers like? Does it seem as though there’s any area where the two sides might be in agreement here?

FISCHER: Oh, I think everyone agrees in some sort of housing fix. There’s no question. But if the median cost of a family home is $400,000-plus, and it goes up and down, that’s hardly affordable. I think there’s some agreement that maybe we can do something about that whole idea of vacation rental, short-term rentals. I think that there’s some common ground on a non-budget issue in terms of, removing some of the barriers, the red tape that it takes.

Now the question becomes, what is the state’s role in terms of financing? The governor has been very big on issues of money into the housing trust fund, and they can then invest in developers, actual grants to people of limited income to help them with down payment assistance issues like that, rental assistance, all of that. These become important to a number of individual people.

There’s a lot of folks who say, what is the role of government? This also gets into the issue of childcare. I think there are a lot of traditional Republicans who like the idea of helping to subsidize businesses to provide childcare. But there are other folks who say, “Now wait a second, why aren’t we spending our time reducing taxes, and then perhaps businesses will pay employees more and they’ll be able to afford their own childcare?”

BRODIE: All right. Well, budget of course starting to heat up usually a little bit later on in the session. Some initial comments on it, most likely coming from some Republican lawmakers this week after seeing the proposal from the governor on Friday.

Howie, let me ask you about a couple of bills coming up this week in committee. One of them deals with voting — of course, elections are expected to be another big issue this year. This measure by Rep. Rachel Kessel (R-Tucson) would ban voting centers, it would eliminate on-site early voting locations, limit precincts to a certain number of registered voters. Seems like there’s a lot of stuff in there specifically dealing with early voting.

fischer
(via @azcapmedia on Twitter)
Howie Fischer of Arizona Capitol Media

FISCHER: Exactly. And it doesn’t specifically get rid of early voting. I mean, that’s become very popular. What I think she’s trying to do is say, “There’s no reason that we have to have early voting if, in fact, we can go ahead and actually count ballots at the precincts.” And that’s why she says, “If you have these vote centers like they do here in Maricopa County, you have tens of thousands of people. You have long lines. If you have people voting from home, from the vote centers, you don’t have to even coordinate which ballot goes to which precinct. And you can have enough volunteers to go ahead and count them there that night.”

As I said, this is, I think, a means to an end here.

The other issue, which is not up this week but we’ve obviously talked about, is the question of: If we’re going to keep early voting, what’s the deadline for people to drop off their early ballots? There is a lot more sentiment on this — despite the governor’s threat to veto it — to say, “If, in fact, you’ve got a ballot and you’re getting it 29 days before the vote day, you should be able to fill it out and figure it out. If you can’t figure it out beforehand, dropping it off on the day-of really does complicate the system.

Because remember, it isn’t a question of, “Oh, we’ll just open it there.” No, because it's an early ballot, you have to go ahead and set it aside. You have to verify the signature on the outside of the ballot, and then you can open it. And then you can then you count it.

That doesn’t start sometimes for two or three days after the rest of the elections. So I think there’s some sentiment in there too, perhaps saying, “No, if you haven’t figured it out by the Friday before, maybe you should have to come in on Election Day and vote a live ballot.”

BRODIE: Sure. Howie, let me ask you about, before we wrap up, one other bill coming up this week, which seems to borrow an idea from the British Parliament, in which the governor would be required to come on down to the Legislature once a month and field some questions from lawmakers.

FISCHER: Well, if you’ve ever watched C-SPAN, you’ll find some things they pick up from BBC where the Prime Minister comes in and he takes questions both from his own party and from the opposition party. It is, in some ways, must-see TV because of the fact that everyone there thinks, “Here’s my chance to show off how brilliant I am.”

And some of it is useful, quite frankly. I think that there’s a reason to have the executive — in a parliamentary state that’s a little different — answer some questions and do it on the record. My concern is, as I mentioned, making it must-see TV also means there are going to be gotcha questions in there, certainly from the opposition party. The idea of trying to embarrass the governor.

It does have some merit, though. If in fact they ask a gotcha question, will the listeners and will the viewers know that’s a gotcha question? And will they think less of the questioner and think more of the governor if he or she handles it in a much better fashion?

Now, of note on this is Rep. Alexander Kolodin (R-Scottsdale), who is the representative who is introducing this. He’s saying this is not actually out to get Katie Hobbs, because the fact it wouldn’t take effect until after the 2026 election. So it could very well be a Republican governor at that point.

I like the idea. I mean, I’m a big believer in asking tough questions of the chief executive. And of course, part of the problem we have as journalists is we can only do that when he or she agrees to have a press conference. And sometimes those are few and far between.

KJZZ's The Show transcripts are created on deadline. This text is edited for length and clarity, and may not be in its final form. The authoritative record of KJZZ's programming is the audio record.

Mark Brodie is a co-host of The Show, KJZZ’s locally produced news magazine. Since starting at KJZZ in 2002, Brodie has been a host, reporter and producer, including several years covering the Arizona Legislature, based at the Capitol.
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