KJZZ’s Friday NewsCap revisits some of the biggest stories of the week from Arizona and beyond.
To talk about budget talks apparently hitting high gear, two new Freedom Caucus candidates and more, The Show sat down with Lorna Romero Ferguson of Elevate Strategies and Karl Gentles of The Gentles Agency.
Conversation highlights
MARK BRODIE: Lawmakers at the Capitol on a Friday, doesn't happen all the time, to discuss a budget. The House is scheduled to vote on its budget that went through the Appropriations Committee yesterday. Senate, there, there's talk that the Senate is going to unveil its budget proposal today.
We are less about two weeks away from the end of the fiscal year, and the House and Senate are not on the same page.
LORNA ROMERO FERGUSON: Yeah, a little concerning, right? Typically when you have majorities of the same party and in the situation where you have Republican majorities in the Legislature, which we've had for a while, usually they get on the same page on a budget earlier in the session, right? And then it always comes down to negotiating with the governor when it comes to revenue and spending priorities and whatnot.
Obviously it's been more challenging the past few years with divided government and a Democratic governor. But this is the first time in a while where the House and Senate have gone this far into a legislative session without being on the same page on just one, a general budget approach, and two, the priorities.
And so we've seen this in the past when the House and Senate haven't been on the same page. One chamber will forge ahead with their budget plan and start things rolling in a more public forum. This is probably the best time to do it, because as you mentioned, we're two weeks away from the end of the fiscal year, but those conversations about a compromise need to start happening or else this budget is, as the governor mentioned publicly yesterday, DOA, and the Senate has some other priorities that they want.
BRODIE: Yeah, the governor said yesterday, as Lorna alluded to, Karl, that the House budget is not one that she is willing to sign. The interesting thing, and Lorna alluded to this, there are different approaches here.
The Senate is trying to do some like kind of what they did a couple of years ago where, you know, they divide up a pot of money between the House, the Senate, and the governor. The House and we had Rep. Matt Gress on yesterday saying he's not down with that. He's not up for that. So in addition to having maybe different spending priorities, it sounds like they have to reconcile these different approaches.
KARL GENTLES: Well, they are. I mean, first of all, they've got to take a different approach from the Republican side and not making this a basically a demand letter as ranking Democrat Stephanie Stahl Hamilton said. I mean, we know it's a, you know, in her words, sham budget. …
So there, you know, there's a lot in that bill that's just not going to make it past the, you know, the budget's not going to make it past the governor's desk.
I mean, so you're talking about three major things, cutting K-12 education funding again, in some respect where you're cutting out money for books and, and, and supplies and that sort of thing. You're talking about cutting Medicare, cuts and also DACA money. So, I mean, they, they've got to do some negotiating, it has to be done in good faith. And it's just not there right now.
In fact, I think the Republicans are actually, you know, gone on vacation and at their cabins for weeks before they came back, and now they're finally getting back to the real business of the state. So we've got to have some negotiation and some real good faith.
BRODIE: Lorna, is it possible that by the House unveiling its budget, moving it through Appropriations, Appropriations voting on it today. Does that kickstart negotiations? Like, does that help in any way bring the Senate and maybe the governor to the table in the sense that I was saying, OK, this is a budget we can get through this chamber. These are our priorities. Let's talk about it.
ROMERO FERGUSON: Definitely. It, since they're the first to kind of go public and start moving, it does put added pressure on the governor's office into the Senate, right? Up until now everything's been happening behind closed doors and negotiations and conversations. So us in the public, we've heard we've heard rumors, but no one's seen anything until the House unveiled their budget earlier this week and we'll vote on it today.
It's always a delicate dance, right? Anytime you're negotiating with a budget, regardless of who's in leadership and who the governor is, you always have to balance the different priorities. And so now that the House has what's much considered a conservative budget, and the governor has been outspoken with what she's opposed to now the conversations are going to happen of what can she live with, what can these Republicans in the House, you know, forego and maintain the votes that they need.
You're going to lose some Freedom Caucus members, right, when you do that. And, and what are you going to be able to bring on that's going to bring in Democrats? And so two weeks is a short time period, but we've seen this in the past. As soon as you reach a deal, things move quickly, right?
And so at least the conversations are happening publicly and, and pressure’s on all parties.
BRODIE: Well, and to your point about maybe losing some of the Freedom Caucus members, presumably, I mean this has been sort of the governor's MO so far. She's not going to sign something if it doesn't have some Democratic support.
So yes, you're going to lose some Freedom Caucus members, but also, if you're the House, probably have to have some, a budget that at least some Democrats can vote for, right?
ROMERO FERGUSON: Definitely. And again, that's what the, the delicate, the balance and dance is, and especially, I mean, the governor has been criticized by her colleagues in the Democratic Party in the past for signing, signing on to budgets that they didn't feel really reflected the priorities of the Democratic Party, right?
So I think she's being cognizant of that during this cycle, making sure that a lot more of those priorities are included in whatever the final budget looks like. But yeah, it really comes down to 16-31 and 1, right? Now whatever configuration you need to get there, and sometimes people feel a little bit more beholden thinking that they're going to be that deciding vote and they get rolled and they find someone else elsewhere that they can get on board and so.
We'll, we'll see what happens next week after if the House does pass out their budget today and where the conversations go.
BRODIE: Well, and Karl, the conventional wisdom, what we keep hearing from legislators is that next week will be the week, that they will get it done because as we've been talking about, the fiscal year ends on the 30th. There's some members who are going to be leaving before that for some personal commitments.
So like, yes, once there is an agreement, to Lorna's point, it can happen pretty much in a day basically getting the budget done. But it seems as though there's still some negotiations to be done here. Can it happen in this amount of time?
GENTLES: I think it can, but you know, you've got to strip out the things that, you know, the, you know, the Democrats are, are against, or at least dial that back a little bit, right? And of course, you have to keep in elements of that that the, the, you know, Freedom Caucus and Republicans really want. So there is a delicate balance. Lorna is very, very right about that.
The question is, you know, what is it, where is that balance going to be, and what are Democrats are, what are we going, what are Democrats going to be willing to, you know, stomach in this next budget cycle?
BRODIE: All right, so we are still working in this legislative session … Oh, did you want to add something?
ROMERO FERGUSON: Yeah, I just wanted to say, you know, it'll be interesting to see when the Senate does release publicly their plan that, you know, there have been conversations that they've been, you know, you know, deliberating with the governor's office, how different that is from the House and how far apart we actually are.
A lot of this is speculation right now and obviously there's internal dynamics and personalities at play, but usually when you're negotiating a budget, it's honestly like a handful of issues that are really at play.
The majority of the state budget from year to year is, is pretty, pretty much the same. And so it'll be interesting to see how far away we are.
