Budget Passes House Approriations but Senate Adjourns

The leadership's new budget deal, which is essentially the same as the old deal, just passed the House Appropriations committee. The Senate on the other has just adjourned until tomorrow. Speculation is that they do not yet have the votes to pass the bills. We must prevent them from getting them.

The bills are mostly identical to the bills passed previously. The exception is the last bill containing the sales tax ballot measure. In the previous version, the sales tax referral was accompanied by a flat tax proposal. In this version it would be accompanied by a income and corporate tax rate cut. The tax cuts would become law with the Governors signature. The sales tax would have to be approved by the voters. Also included would be a TABOR like cap on future appropriations and a repeal of the prop. 105 protections (currently preventing the legislature from cutting 301 monies).

The damaging policy language is also included in the new bills. (Legislative summary sheet for HB2011). If passed:

• Retention based on tenure or seniority would be prohibited.
• Statutory deadlines for contract and salary notifications would be eliminated.
• Local associations could not negotiate for compensated days for professional association activities. (presumably this would also effect release time officers)
• Recall rights following RIF's would eliminated.

The legislative leadership has lost its connection to Republican principles. It has perverted the concept of limited government with minimal taxation to broken government and tax cuts at all costs. Ironically, one of the only Republican NO votes was by Rep. Briggs who voted against the tax bill because the rate reductions would not take effect immediately, leaving an opportunity to repeal them during the next session.

Please keep contacting your legislators.

Budget Deal Appears Imminent -- And its even worse than the first two.

The legislative leadership and the Governor appear to have reached a budget deal. Details are emerging rapidly and both houses are scheduled to act on the proposed budget tomorrow (Wednesday, July 29). AEA is planing another round of the HeatWave starting at 12:30 tomorrow at the capital. Please check the March4Schools web site or the AEA Facebook page latter this evening for more information about activities being planed for tomorrow and the latest details on the proposed package.

Please sent a message to the following legislators encouraging them to stop the current proposal.

Senator Linda Gray (LD10-Mesa) lgray@azleg.gov
Senator John Nelson (LD12-West Valley) jnelson@azleg.gov
Senator Jay Tibshraeny (LD21-Southeast Valley) jtibshraeny@azleg.gov
Senator Carolyn Allen (LD8-Scottsdale) callen@azleg.gov
Senator Jonathan Paton (LD30-Southern Arizona) jpaton@azleg.gov

Update from the NEA-RLC (Day 2)

Today's activities were centered around an afternoon lobbing trip to the hill. The morning consisted of training and planing sessions. In the afternoon, 150+ Republican NEA members made the short trip from the NEA building to the congressional office buildings to meet with legislators and their staff. John and I were able to meet with staff from Senator McCain's and Representative Franks' (CD2) offices.

Update from the NEA-RLC

Chairman of the Republican National Committee Michael Steele was the keynote speaker this morning at the third annual NEA Republican Leadership Conference.

For the past two years as part of NEA's efforts to engage Republican members, they have held a conference for state and local Republican association leaders just prior to the Republican National Conventions. This year the conference is being held in Washington D.C. Over 150 Republican association leaders from around the country have gathered to network, plan, and interact with national GOP party leaders. John Skarhus (Sierra Vista CTA, AEA Board of Directors) and myself are representing Arizona.

At the past two conferences, state national committeemen had addressed the attendees. However the bar was raised this year. The keynote speaker for the opening day was Michael Steele, Chairman of the National Committee. After polling the audience to assure himself that we were actually Republicans, Chairman Steele got down to business discussing the current debate over health care reform and the pending review of NCLB. Steele made some insightful comments about the flaws of NCLB. Among them, he pointed out that NCLB did not provide a review processes to assess weather the mandates themselves were constructive. He closed his remarks by encouraging participants to remain involved in the political process.

It surprised me to learn that Chairman Steele had spend a year as a high school teacher. Although his experience was at a private preparatory school, it was clear he could still recall the challenges and rewards of trying to inspire a group of students.

The afternoon was spent attending small-group and panel discussions. In the evening we attended the annual awards banquet of the Republican Main Street Partnership. This year's honoree was Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood, one of the Republicans serving in Obama's cabinet. Interestingly, LaHood also taught prior to entering politics.

LD26 GOP District Meeting Update

The bulk of this month's legislative district meeting in LD26 was an exchange between Senator Al Melvin and Rep. Vic Williams. Both had an opportunity to express their views and explain their votes on the recently vetoed budgets.

Senator Melvin voted for the original June 4th budgets and "fixes" passed at the end of the regular session. In his view the original June 4th budget was a reasonable solution, and agreed with the legislative leadership's efforts to move it forward. He also expressed disappointment with the lack of unity among Republican elected officials.

Rep. Williams voted against the June 4th package. Time permitted him to explain his two primary objections, although he said he had many others. His chief complaint was about the budget process. He expressed frustration that he was expected to approve a 500+ page budget package that would affect every Arizonan with only 18 hours to review it in detail. His other objection was that the budget package did little to address the structural deficit. He explained that the vast majority of 3.5 billion dollar deficit for 09-10 was addressed with one-time accounting tricks, fund sweeps, barrowing, and stimulus money. He did not think a reasonable observer could come to the conclusion that Arizona's budgetary problems could be fixed without looking at the revenue side.

While the exchange remained within the bounds of what could be called civil discourse, it was clear that the legislators had a clear difference of opinion. Likewise, it was apparent that the participants in the room were divided.

I imagine that LD26 represents a microcosm of the Republican Party across the state. One side clamoring for more cuts, the other looking for a reasonable solution. Although I understand the arguments made by those against increased taxes at all costs, I have yet to hear them acknowledge the devastating effects that would result if government services (education included) were actually cut by 30%. Personally I would prefer reason prevails.

NEA/AEA Reaffirms Commitment to Republican Outreach Efforts

John Wright was one of four speakers making the case for bipartisanship as the governing body of the NEA reaffirmed its commitment to involving Republican members and engaging Republican public policy makers.

For the last three years the NEA has committed a significant amount of resources to encouraging Republican members to become more involved. Most significantly, they have organized and funded Republican Leadership Conferences. Last year the RLC was held in Minneapolis just prior the Republican National Convention. Local and state association leaders from around the country were given an opportunity participate in training sessions, collaborate on future plans, and interact with national Republican political leaders. This year the RLC will be held in Washington D.C. This year's focus will be involvement in precinct level politics. The funding for these conferences was authorized by a new business item offered at a previous Representative Assembly and needed to be renewed this year. The business item that passed this year calls for NEA to enhance its efforts and provides funding for another year.

It was my participation in last year's RLC that convinced me that the NEA and AEA were serious when they advocate for a "pro public education party". I want to take this opportunity to thank John Wright for speaking to the issue at the RA and his support as we endeavor to rebuild the AEA Republican Caucus.

Welcome

The Arizona Education Association Republican Caucus has been revitalized to further the following goals:

1. Provide forums for Republican AEA member to discuss issues and encourage involvement in state and local association activities.

2. Establishing and maintaining relationships between members and Republican public policy makers.

3. Encouraging AEA members to become active in state and local political party activities.