Civil Arizona assesses the policy preferences of Arizona’s legislative leaders based on their recent votes in the legislature and recent public statements.

Civil Arizona strives for accuracy and we invite all legislators to correct any inaccurate assessments of policy preferences made. In addition, we provide these legislators the opportunity to post a detailed description of their policy preferences.

Below are “Civil Arizona Fiscal Policy Survey” assessments of twenty legislative leaders:

Although Republicans hold a 18-12 advantage in the Senate, there has been a battle between the conservatives (fiscal moderates) and ultra-conservatives that has held up many legislative initiatives.

Term-limited Senate President Bob Burns has had to deal with majority leadership changes, Senators resigning to run for congress and several term-limited Senators running for other offices.

Being outnumbered 18-12, Senate Democrats haven’t been invited to the table to help set Arizona fiscal policy.

Even so, the Republican caucus controversy enabled Senate Democrats to block a linkage of the sales tax referral to the job creation/ corporate tax reduction legislation.

With the sales tax increase going to the voters on May 18, 2010, Senate Democrats are faced with the choice of accepting significant education and health care cuts or promoting an increasingly regressive tax structure.

With a 34-26 advantage, House Republicans were able to pass legislation that swept $800 million from voter approved spending, sold $1.1 billion of buildings and borrowed $450 million against future lottery revenues – all passing with either 33 or 34 Republican votes. These budget "gimmicks" have still left the state with a $3.2 billion structural deficit.

The Arizona House Republicans took a firm stance against raising any taxes of any kind and delayed Gov. Brewer’s sales tax proposal for over a year. Only after reaching a tentative agreement to link the sales tax with the corporate tax reduction did House Republicans agree to refer the sales tax increase to the voters.

The Arizona House Democrats have been left out of major decisions regarding developing solutions to the state’s fiscal problems. House Democrats have tried to sponsor a variety of measures to expand tax revenues to protect critical education and health care programs – with very little success.

The Arizona House (and Senate) Democrats are faced with a philosophical dilemma concerning protecting the Indian gaming monopoly and generating additional revenue from off-reservation gaming to protect current levels education, health care and public safety spending.