Arizona: Karen Osborne

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The Senate Appropriations Committee passed the "Sham-Wow!" budget deal on a 6-3 vote Monday, setting up a crucial vote on Tuesday.

The Arizona Guardian headline today says "Do or die time for Senate budget today and its not looking good" (subscription required). "The Senate's chances for smooth passage of a budget including a sales tax referral were dimming late Monday as Sen. Carolyn Allen continued to be a no vote."

Secretary of State Ken Bennett told The Arizona Republic over the weekend that he had to have the matters to be referred to the ballot by 8:00 a.m. on Tuesday for he and county elections officials across the state to have enough time to prepare for a Nov.

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The only real surprise from the first day of the Special Session was how quickly the rank hypocrisy of the GOP Caucus was exposed. The all-in gamble by the Accidental Governor aka "Big Casino" by vetoing the entire K-12 budget and thus jeopardizing a July 15 payment to charter schools, a GOP sacred cow, and federal stimulus funds paid off. Everyone at the table folded their hands and she took the pot. Keep in mind, however, that this was only the first hand. This game is far from over.

The Legislature voted unanimously in a rare bipartisan fashion to:

- restore the $220 million in education cuts and sweeten the pot by another 2-percent or $100 million; there is also an October 1 "trigger" which will restore all cuts to education if a budget is not adopted by that date (that would mean school districts would be free to spend up to $175 million in “soft capital” costs, such as equipment);

- restore funding to the state Medicaid insurance program;

- all for the purpose of preserving $2.