Archive for February, 2010

The process of how a bill becomes a law is a very complicated one with many steps to it. There are about 1500 bills presented to the legislature every session that try to get passed and either turned into law or on the ballot for the people to decide. Out of those 1500 bills only 200 to 350 make it through the actual process of going into law or on the ballot. A bill in order to become law or end up on the ballot has to pass through both chambers of the state legislature. It has to pass through the house and the senate. An “ideal” bill will go through both the house and the senate and come out with the same language. So let’s first look at the process of how an “ideal” bill becomes law.

The process of passing a bill through each chamber of the legislature is the same. The bill will start out in the House first. It has to obtain a sponsor. Either a prime sponsor – which is just one main person supporting it. Their first and last names are listed on the bill. Or there are also the co-sponsors. You could have many names listed on a bill as co-sponsors of it. Once is bill gets sponsored it is then “dropped.” If a bill is dropped it’s a good thing. Being dropped means it was assigned a legislature number to it. Like HB 2460 for example or HCR 2460 (which means it’s trying to get passed to be put on the ballot). Bill numbers are reused every year. So HB 2460 this year may be about renewable energy whereas last year it was about income tax.

Once a bill is assigned a number it is then heard in committees. The house has 15 committees and the Senate has 11 committees. The House of Representatives has 60 members at the state level and the Senate has 30 members. Committees change every year, and each chamber has a finite number of weeks to hear the bill. For example the House this year had from January until the end of this week to get all the bills they intend to pass through committees.

The Speaker of the House is in charge of assigning the bills to committees. A bill may never get pass this point if the Speaker of the House does not assign it. He can assign it to one committee or to many committees as well. Ideally you want your bill to be assigned to one committee, because if it’s assigned to multiple committees the process can take longer and it may not get heard in time. The bill also cannot be heard in the 2nd committee unless it was heard in the first committee. There is paper work that can be drawn up however by another committee. Say your bill is stuck in the first committee and they just do not seem interested in reading it, you can request for that bill to be “withdrawn” from the primary committee it was assigned to in order for it to be heard in your committee.

The Committee Chair has sole discretion as to what bills they put on the agenda to be heard. If the Committee Chair doesn’t like your bill & is not feeling enough pressure from constituents or other Representatives, that bill may never be heard. When a bill is in committee that is the ONLY time the public is given the opportunity to speak, and even then it is up to the committee chair as to who gets to speak and who does not. A bill can be amended as well in a committee. An amendment may be offered to a bill by any member of the committee.
There are four outcomes to a bill when it’s in committee:
- Do Pass (DP)
- Do Pass Amended (DPA)
- Failed (if there is a tie vote on a bill it is considered a fail as well)
- Held (meaning it was not heard or there is going to be testimony on it but it’s not going to be voted on)

After a bill passes through the committees it was assigned, it then goes onto the Rules Committee. All bills must go through the rules committee. The Committee Chair of the Rules Committee again has full discretion on what bills are heard or not. The Rules Committee job is to vote on if the bill is considered “Constitutional & Proper” (C&P). There is never any public testimony during Rules and bills can only be amended for form.

Once a bill passes through rules it goes onto what is called a “Caucus.” Both political parties have their own separate caucus’s (There was one independent Representative a few years back and they chose which Caucus to attend – there currently are no Independent Representatives or Senators in the Az Legislature). In the Caucus the bill is discussed and must be passed through BOTH caucuses in order to move forward. There is no public input in Caucuses however the public can attend them. Bills cannot be amended in Caucus either.
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I believe Republicans MUST repudiate crony capitalism and all government intrusion into the marketplace.  Therefore, I believe Brenda Burns and Gary Pierce are our best bets for Corporation Commission.

I have nothing against Barry Wong personally.  He seems like a nice fellow, and I’ve seen him twice at local events with the Kingman Republican Forum and Kingman Republican Men’s Club, but because he says “I’ll be your eyes and ears,” I’d like someone elected to the Corporation Commission who knows what crony capitalism sounds like.

When he votes to mandate that a certain percentage of Arizona’s electricity come from alternative sources, and then it is put upon rate payers to pay the extra cost of this alternative energy, then it becomes nothing but a transfer of wealth from grandmas on fixed incomes to snake oil salesmen promising “energy from the sun” that costs ten times what “energy from the earth” (e.g. nuclear, coal, natural gas) or other “energy from the sun”, i.e. hydroelectric, costs.

In reality, if I could get a several-thousand-dollar subsidy, I could convert my household wastes to methane gas, but it’s not efficient to do so — therefore the subsidy would have to be really big.  I certainly don’t think it’s fair for the working folks of Arizona to support my losing business model, but that’s in effect what we’re doing when we REQUIRE $9 a month from every family in Mohave county as a  ”GREEN  ENERGY” mandate — and it IS THERE.  Check your bill.  And when the requirement increases down the road, the cost will grow.  The only “green energy” I can see is the effort these shysters are making to suck the green out of our pockets — $108 a year from each family in Arizona is a tidy sum, when multiplied by hundreds of thousands.  Nice work if you can get it.

This, while the natural gas plant down the road sits idle, and while the pipeline for coal slurry we already paid for from eastern to western Arizona sits idle.

It’s time to hammer the nail in the coffin of Global Warming.  Sorry Barry, you can’t hear the tell-tale sounds of big government sliding into bed with business.

The Senate adjourned the Sixth Special Session sine die today, after the House voted on the last of the special session bills. A brief explanation of each bill and its status is below:

SB 1001: statewide special election (Burns). Calls a statewide special election on May 18th, and includes reimbursement for counties for election costs.
-Approved by the House and Senate and signed by the Governor.

SB 1002: budget reconciliation; appropriations; education (Burns). Authorizes a roll-over of payments to K-12 schools and universities.
-Approved by the Senate last week. Amended in the House to make the rollover conditional upon the enactment of the House jobs package. The Senate opted not to concur and instead adjourned without acting on the amended bill, killing the measure.

SB 1003: revenue bonds; lease-purchase; finance (Burns). Authorizes the sale of up to $300 million in bonds against lottery revenue and authorizes the lease-purchase of additional state buildings.
-Approved by the House and Senate and transmitted to the Governor, awaiting signature

SB 1004: state lottery; authorization (Burns). Re-establishes the State Lottery Fund and the State Lottery Commission and provides for the repayment of bonds.
-Approved by the House and Senate and signed by the Governor.

SB 1005: standard deduction; non-residents; pro-rate (Burns). Prorates the standard income tax deduction for non-resident filers based on the ratio of Arizona gross income to federal adjusted gross income.
-Approved by the House and Senate and signed by the Governor.

SCR1001: temporary sales tax; repeal (Burns). Refers to the ballot a temporary one-cent sales tax increase for three years. The election is set for May 18, 2010.
-Approved by the House and Senate and transmitted to the Secretary of State to be placed on the ballot.