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Legislative Alert, February 1, 2010
Welcome to the
weekly legislative update brought to you from the Arizona AFL-CIO. Your
participation strengthens the union movement at the state legislature and
beyond! Your participation is needed – all affiliated are invited to
join the weekly lobbyist meeting to collaborate efforts and plan strategies
& tactics. The weekly meeting is every Friday @ 12:00 at 5808 N.
7th Street. There will be NO meeting this week. The next
legislative meeting will be February 12th at noon.
Bills, Bills and more Bills
Today,
Feb1st is the last day to introduce bills for the Senate and the
last day to introduce bills in the house is next Monday, February 8th.
So far there have been 941 bills introduced.
Special Session Round 6!
You read that right, the Governor called for a Special Session that will
begin today at 1:45. They will be asked to address four items:
balancing the 2010 budget, including delaying education payments and selling
more state buildings; setting up a special election for a three year, 1 cent
sales tax increase; pro-rating income tax deduction for out-of-state filers;
and borrowing against the state's future revenues from the Arizona
Lottery.
HB 2250- Tax Cuts for Corporations- Really?
On Thursday, House Republicans approved a package of tax cuts that they
suggest will stimulate the economy. The opponents of the bill are
saying these cuts will benefit corporations at the expense of
homeowners. They claim the cuts will be phased in.
You see, when
times were good they passed "temporary tax cuts" which are now
permanent tax cuts and part of the reason the budget deficit keeps
climbing. Now they want to add insult to injury and pass more tax
cuts? Really?
Yes that is correct. The core of the bill will cut corporate income tax
rates by nearly 30 percent, from nearly 7 percent to 5 percent and individual
income taxes, which are computed on a sliding scale, would drop by 10 percent
across the board.
The bill was approved
34-25. The bill will also phase out the state property tax and shift
some of the burden of local property taxes from businesses to homeowners. In
these difficult economic times when homeowners are watching their property
values plummet should be shifting property values from businesses to
homeowners? We do need to stabilize small businesses but not on the
backs of struggling working families. This is simply more corporate
bailouts.
Representative
Adams the sponsor of the bills says that the purpose of the bill is to
attract businesses to the state however ask any business what factors they
consider when moving their company to a state the main factors are education
and services. We are at a race to the bottom when you compare us to
other states and we simply can't afford this type of stimulus plan.
The legislature
needs pass legislation that will move us forward not backwards.
Hero & Villain of the
Week
Our
hero of the week is Sen. Debbie McCune Davis who filed a bill penalizing
dishonest lobbying practices and a second bill to require lobbyists to reveal
the dollar amount of their lobbying contract.
SB 1361 suspends
a lobbyist's registration for three years if convicted of knowingly providing
false information regarding legislative or administrative actions and is
classified a class 1 misdemeanor.
SB 1360 requires
lobbyists to disclose the amount of their lobbying contract. Other states,
such as Texas, already require disclosure. "If a lobbyist is paid by an
industry to come to the legislature, the public has a right to know the
weight of the influence being expended at the legislature by that industry or
interest." McCune Davis said.
The Villain of
the week is Kirk Adams for producing a bill and calling it "Jobs
Recovery" bill! When the budget has slashed and burned thousands
of state employee jobs and then naming a bill a Jobs Recovery bill is simply
politics and not productive.
Movin' on Up or Just Movin'
Out....
Who's
in, who's out, and who is about to get out?
You might have
just received your 2010 Green book and the ink is still wet, but it is
already out of date. Last week Sen. Jim Waring
resigned to run for congress and Senator Crump announced today his
resignation to also run for Congress in addition to Sen. Gorman, who already
has ads on Face Book for her Congressional race. Three down how many more to
go?
Listen to the Voters not
the Pundits
We
all heard the spin about why Martha Coakley lost
her race for United States Senate. There have been so many assumptions
about why she lost but most of the political pundits have just been busy
spinning their rhetoric without producing any strong polling numbers.
The polling firm
Hart Research did an Election Day poll that was just published in the Boston
Globe and it is loaded with information as to what the voters were thinking
when they placed their votes on Election Day.
Here is a sample
of the poll:
A good Senator
first. 61-33% of the voters said they voted for the person they believed
would be a better Senator and NOT send a message to Washington or President
Obama. Voters gave the president positive personal rating of 52 vs. 33%
negative.
When asked who
the trusted more to improve the economy, 47% to Democrats and 33% to Republicans.
When voters were
asked if Brown should stick to his conservative base and block the President
– Cooperation won by more than three-to-one (76-to 21 percent). Even
among Brown voters, bipartisan cooperation was preferred to resistance
61-to-36 percent.
It was no mistake
that President Obama went directly to the Republican House Policy Retreat
over the weekend in an effort to show true bipartisan support and an attempt
to truly work with the opposition party.
During these
challenging times working families want our elected officials to put their
differences aside and work with each other not against each other.
To read the full
article goes to Boston Globe
How Low Will They Go?
U.S.
Sen. John McCain's job approval ratings have hit to their lowest point since
he was accused of participating in a banking scandal more than 16 years ago,
according to a survey released Thursday.
Even though his
poll numbers have taken a tumble he had 5 million in the bank for his Senate
bid. Looks like the Senator will have to run against J.D. Hayworth in
the Republican primary which might be a bruising fight. There is a
democrat who is exploring a run for Senate, Tucson councilman Rodney
Glassman.
Watch State Legislature in
Action
Just
a reminder, Cox Cable recently began broadcasting AZ CapitolTV
from the Arizona Legislature on Channel 123. This channel is a CSPAN style channel featuring events of the Arizona
Legislature and other state programming of interest such as Statehood
Day. Also, the Arizona Legislature now has an online video
archive. View and hear live and archived hearings and meetings using the
State of Arizona's live and video archive at http://azleg.granicus.com/ViewPublisher.php?view_id=3
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