Thu 19 Nov 2009
OUCH! That’s gotta leave a mark!
Posted by DSW under Campaigns & Elections , Press Release[14] Comments
Two press releases today aimed at elected officials who were MIA during the Arizona Legislature’s Special Session. The first one was issued by Senate President Bob Burns:
APB out for missing senator
Senate President Bob Burns issued the following statement:
“The Senate, and subsequently, the House, had to adjourn today before completing the final votes to continue our work on closing the huge budget gap when Sen. Thayer Verschoor failed to appear and did not respond to repeated attempts to contact him.
This state is in crisis and it is very disappointing and frankly embarrassing that one member of our caucus did not have the decency to show up. I left the floor open to give him every opportunity to do the right thing.
We all have to abandon our individual wants and needs to tackle this statewide issue. We are past the point of using individual demands to hold the state hostage.
I am sorry that this happened and I hope this weekend will provide the time and reflection we need to come back on Monday to perform our legislative duties. I hope Sen. Verschoor is part of that.”
And from Gubernatorial candidate, Vernon Parker:
Governor Brewer Goes AWOL.
Leaves on Jet Plane for Junket Rather Than Getting Job Done At Capitol
NOVEMBER 19, 2009. She’s failed to resolve the budget deficit. She refuses to cut her own budget while asking everyone else to sacrifice. She wants a massive tax increase. And now she’s chosen a junket over getting the job done at the State Capitol.
“Governor Brewer is right about one thing: we do need a ‘tough leader for tough times.’ But today’s failure is yet another example why it is not her,” said Paradise Valley Mayor Vernon Parker, who is exploring a run for governor.
Parker collected the maximum amount of seed money allowable for gubernatorial candidates in just 41 days.
Parker had previously called out Brewer for asking Arizonans for an 18 percent increase in the state sales tax yet failing to cut her own office budget.
Parker has presided over budget cuts as Mayor of Paradise Valley. Spending has been reduced by 25 percent while the budget for Mayor and Council has been reduced by 54 percent.
“Republicans will not beat a career politician like Terry Goddard with a failed one from the GOP. We need a fresh voice, new message and someone who can fight on Terry’s turf rather than he on ours,” said Parker.
Parker, 50, is the current mayor of Paradise Valley, Arizona. He has previously served the administrations of George H.W. Bush, George Bush, as an Assistant Secretary for the $90 billion United States Department of Agriculture, small businessman.
Parker has the most compelling life story of any candidate emerging for Governor.
“I truly believe it’s going to take someone who has defied the odds to help Arizona overcoming the odds now facing it. And we can start with a Governor’s Office that believes in shared sacrifice and makes Arizona have faith again in its Governor,” Parker said.
For more information contact Jason Rose or go to www.Parker2010.com.
November 19th, 2009 at 10:58 pm
Brewer wasn’t MIA. She worked with leadership to come up with the cuts and Verschoor screwed the pooch. This is just more of Parker gasping for anything to make him relevant.
Gould just continues to be a joke on the party. These jokers don’t realize the lasting damage their actions have on the party as a whole. Verschoor is termed and Gould thinks he’s safe so they can just run their own agenda. Check your ego at the door and get the dang thing done already.
November 20th, 2009 at 8:28 am
Brewer has a responsibility to the state to get the budget balanced. I think it is incredibly irresponsible to go to a political gathering instead of making sure she actually had the votes to win. Where are her priorities?
November 20th, 2009 at 9:58 am
It’s NOT her job to count votes. These cuts are needed to cut the hole we are in and Verschoor and Gould are on an obstructionist and selfish agenda.
The votes were there which is why they went to a vote. Instead of voting no, Gould refused to vote and Verschoor went hiding.
These are our elected “leaders”?
You should be disappointed but not with Gov Brewer who put up $300 million in cuts and then has her own party sabotage themselves.
November 20th, 2009 at 10:22 am
Who is the Senate whip, you know the person in charge of getting members to the floor to vote with the caucus? I’m pretty sure it’s not Jan Brewer. In fact, I would think it was someone on Bob Burns’ leadership team.
That’s not to excuse Verschoor, mind you. But for Burns to issue that statement attempting to play the victim or wipe his hands clean of this mess is disingenuous.
November 20th, 2009 at 12:40 pm
My understanding is that Gould and Verschoor object to a provision attached to the spending cuts that allows the Governor and the executive branch to raise fees at their own discretion instead of the legislature passing them. They think this would give the governor too much power over the budget and result in fee increases with no legislative oversight.
If that provision were removed, there would be no problem with the spending cuts. That had been made clear to the Senate leadership.
This was just another way for the governor to seek “revenue enhancements” instead of just sticking to cutting spending.
As citizens, we should be thankful that some legislators are careful about what they vote for instead of blindly following their leadership. Passing these cuts with that arbitrary fee setting provision in place would transfer power from the legislature to the governor which would be bad for Arizonans.
Incidentally, the need for having a special session at all is due to Brewer vetoing spending cuts that the legislature had already passed in the regular session which far exceed the cuts proposed in this special session.
November 20th, 2009 at 4:52 pm
The senate whip said on tv last night that they had the votes. So let’s assume that means they had the votes. Verschoor disappeared. So at some point he was a yes, then he wasn’t.
The more important the vote, the more power snf individual has over the collective.
In some other countries with constitutional government, parties have a lot more power to enforce party discipline. In Arizona, especially, parties are extremely weak. You can thank Clean Elections for some of that. Term limits as well.
November 20th, 2009 at 6:09 pm
I’m pleasantly shocked that JD polls as highly as he does. Looks like that result might be within the margin of error. I HATE McLame. As a flaming RINO, he’s emblematic of everything that’s wrong with the Republican party. JD is no great shakes, but he’s better than McLame, so, I’d happily cast a vote for a slight improvement. I wouldn’t pull the lever for McLame if my life depended on it. I’d rather bleed to death or claw out my own eyes. I voted for Ron Paul in the DC primary and I voted for Bob Barr in the general in `08. If McLame is the nominee in Arizona, I’ll be voting for anybody but McLame or the Dummycrat.
I’ll support Snickers in blasting Taxpayer Confiscated Earnings for Political Welfare (so inappropriately labeled “Clean” Elections..yet ANOTHER BRILLIANT decision by Arizona voters) and Term Limits. I’ll go another step further. I’ll reiterate my support of caucuses to select our Party’s nominees. The parties should bear the cost of selecting nominees, NOT taxpayers. Also, those who are not members of a party have NO BUSINESS selecting a party’s nominees.
November 20th, 2009 at 6:19 pm
AF, thanks for noticing I’d left a few items out of my litany. Can we toss in early voting as well? How about the weirdly short period of time (now 30 days) between the primary election and the start of general voting?
November 20th, 2009 at 6:43 pm
Oooo, the trendy mayor of the affluent Phoenix suburb is speaking
Look carefully at VP’s Washington experience and ask yourself if it qualifies him to lead Arizona out of its financial woes.
November 21st, 2009 at 7:51 am
Hey “Eat our Own”,
You might want to take a look at the video. I voted no as soon as SB1001 went on the board.
Whip Pierce knew that I was a no because of the fee issue, 2 weeks ago. The president came up to my office 15 min. before we went to the floor and I told him I would be voting no. He knew Verschoor was AWOL. He stated he was going to put the bills on the board.
I don’t sand bag leadership or the Caucus, I am very open w/ my positions.
I feel it is a very bad Idea to put a $130 million “De Facto” tax increase on business in a resession.
November 21st, 2009 at 11:05 am
Thank you Ron Gould. If the other agencies are granted the power to raise fees like DES did on preschools, Arizona will be in a world of hurt (even worse than now).
November 21st, 2009 at 2:22 pm
Verschoor is a coward that let parents of autistic children collect his signatures in 2008. Republican Leadership sold out on an insurance mandate in exchange for campaign help. Now, Verschoor will not cut DES when the state is spending $3.3 billion dollars more than the revenue coming in.
Verschoor is using the fee issue in SB1003 as an excuse for not voting for the cuts in SB1002 (and maybe SB1001).
November 23rd, 2009 at 8:53 am
Gould thank you, Verschoor thank you, and Hunter thank you for pointing out the fact that this bill would have given the Brewer & her appointees the ability to raise Taxes in the form of fees without a vote of my representative.
It is the legislatures responsibility to raise taxes. I this idea comes up again, do the same.
Let Brewer use the money that goes directly to her office and does not pass through the legisalture to fund the short falls. Enought with taxing me.
November 23rd, 2009 at 10:58 am
It’s not only a stretch for Sen. Verschoor to say the legislation (he didn’t show up to vote against) would raise taxes, it’s totally untrue and frankly a cheap scare tactic he is using after he failed to fulfill his responsibility as a legislator to show up to work.
Calling it “defacto” tax increase doesn’t work either. The bill allows agencies to raise fees.
Fees are not taxes.
Even if Sen. Verschoor really believes this, then come to work and vote no. His antics have been selfish and childish.
Check out the Yellow Sheet:
OBSERVERS SAY VERSCHOOR SHOWED TRUE COLORS
ARTICLE POSTED 11.20.2009
One observer said Verschoor showed his true colors yesterday by breaking the commitment he had given to leadership to vote on the budget bills only days earlier. “It’s phenomenally selfish. It’s not like the budget had changed. Why give a commitment if you didn’t like it?” said the observer. Another onlooker said Burns shouldn’t be too surprised that Verschoor fouled things up, given the pair’s adversarial history. “That’ll teach Burns to keep him on the sidelines,” quipped the source. And a Capitol veteran told our reporter Burns clearly mishandled the situation by not working to ensure Verschoor didn’t walk away from his vote. “I think the leadership was acting just as stubborn as Thayer was. There were things they could have done to alleviate his concern,” said the source.
Expletives were flying today from sources in reference to Verschoor. One senator pointed out that the ailing Caroyln Allen and Linda Gray, set to receive an award, both showed up. Verschoor, of course, didn’t. “It was very inconsiderate, but he’s termed out so maybe he doesn’t give a (expletive),” said the member. The caucus largely believes Verschoor’s custodian and agency fee cap hold-out is meant as a form of populist grandstanding to boost his run for treasurer, but members are quickly getting another impression, said the source. The no-show is reminiscent of when Vershoor “got mad and left in the middle of the night on his little scooter,” before the June regular session budget vote, said the source, adding Verschoor was called back by irate members. The annoyance supposedly continued in late June when Verschoor sought $20 million in transportation funds and a million bucks of the guv’s discretionary stimulus funding for the Centennial Fund, said the member, finding a little inconsistency with Verschoor’s pork appetite and claims of conservatism.