6/15/2009 4:36:00 PM Governor backs down on demand for sales tax increase Brewer still plans to ask Arizona Supreme Court to intercede
Capitol Media Services photo by Howard Fischer
Gov. Jan Brewer threatens to sue Senate President Bob Burns on Monday if he doesn't send her the budget approved more than a week ago by the Legislature. Brewer said she is taking that step after Burns walked away from talks on Sunday night.
Capitol Media Services photo by Howard Fischer
Senate President Bob Burns criticizes the demand Monday by Gov. Jan Brewer that he immediately send her the 10 bills in the budget package approved more than a week ago. Burns said he and House Speaker Kirk Adams remain interested in negotiating with the governor and hope the Arizona Supreme Court refuses to consider her anticipated lawsuit seeking to force the Legislature to let go of the bills
By Howard Fischer Capitol Media Services
PHOENIX -- Gov. Jan Brewer has given up her demand for an immediate sales tax hike to balance the state budget -- at least for the time being.
Brewer made the disclosure Monday as she accused Senate President Bob Burns of walking away from talks designed to get a spending plan by the time the new fiscal year begins July 1. The Republican governor said her willingness to defray her call for higher taxes shows she is willing to compromise with legislative leaders from her own party.
With no deal in sight, though, Brewer said she now is going to ask the Arizona Supreme Court to intercede. The governor said she will ask the justices today to force Burns to send her the package of 10 bills that make up the state budget.
"He has a responsibility to send me those budget bills so we can move to the next step in the budget process,' the governor said. "I will not allow Burns to hold the people of Arizona hostage.'
Those bills were given final approval on June 4.
Burns, with the consent of House Speaker Kirk Adams, has refused to send them to her. Instead, the two GOP leaders said they see those bills as a starting point for negotiations.
"If we send the bills and the bills are vetoed, then where are we?' Burns said. "We're back at Step One and in a position that we were in three months ago.'
Brewer conceded she "probably' will veto the bills.
But the governor said, in essence, that's just part of the process that eventually will lead to a deal. She said the lawsuit she intends to file will just push that process along.
Burns called the threatened lawsuit "unfortunate.' And he hoped that the justices would stay out of the fight.
The Arizona Constitution does require that the Legislature send all bills to the governor.
But nothing in that document specifies how quickly that has to occur. And Brewer declined to say what legal authority she has to conclude Burns has now waited too long.
In the meantime, efforts to get a new budget have hit a snag as now just 14 days remain in the fiscal year.
Burns acknowledged he walked out of talks on Sunday. But he insisted he always intended to come back at some point.
"When things bog down in negotiations, sometimes one of the parties gets up and leaves,' he said. "I just did not feel like we were making any headway at that point in time and we needed to break the meeting.'
Brewer brushed aside that explanation.
"I have been at many tables negotiating,' she said. "I know when somebody is going home to go to sleep and when somebody has said, 'It's finished.' '
Both the budget crafted by Brewer and the one approved by Republicans in the Legislature propose to cut spending from current levels to deal with at least a $3 billion gap this coming fiscal year between revenues and expenses. But the governor has not been willing to take as much away, especially in what she considers a few crucial areas.
"I will not decimate education,' she said. "Nor will I let state government fail the most frail of our society: children and the elderly.'
The governor proposed to make up that difference with a one-cent hike in the state's 5.6 percent sales tax for the next three or four years, a levy she said would generate about $1 billion a year.
But Brewer has been unable to convince a majority of legislators to vote themselves to hike tax-payers, much less the two-thirds majority required for such a move. Her fallback position was to instead refer it to voters, something that needs only a simple majority.
At this point, though, there is no way there can be a vote by the time the budget year begins July 1. And there is no guarantee it would pass. So Brewer is instead planning to make up what the tax would have generated for the coming year by using more federal stimulus dollars, borrowing more money and other financial "bridges.'
The governor said, though, she remains adamant in her belief a tax hike will be necessary for the following budget year. And she wants lawmakers to vote now -- as part of the plan for the coming year's budget -- to put the tax increase before voters this November.
