Recent news that the state government revenues this year are going to be lower than previously projected has added urgency to the continued budget stalemate between the Arizona legislature and the governor’s office.
The Legislature has so far refused Gov. Jan Brewer’s proposal for a temporary sales tax referendum to allow the people of Arizona to decide the stalemate one way or the other.
Just as in previous budget crises (anyone remember the fight in 2003?), Arizona’s democracy has broken down. Shouldn’t the voters be allowed to make the ultimate decision?
While Brewer and the Republican Legislators may be equally stubborn, the evidence seems to support Brewer. A poll of registered voters taken by KAET earlier this year, when the crisis had become evident, showed that Brewer’s sales tax increase would have won, if Arizonans had been allowed to vote on it, by a 60 percent majority. The Legislature, therefore, is acting in clear opposition to a majority of the people by refusing to allow this (or any) tax increase.
In addition, when asked which one government expenditure should not be cut, 69 percent of the respondents chose education, with public safety a distant second at 10 percent. In this light, Brewer’s “irresponsible” veto of several education cuts pushed by the Legislature seems solidly justified.
Arizona voters are historically opposed to taxes, but have repeatedly shown that they will make an exception for education and certain other public programs.
The real question is how the legislators — who have been out of step with Arizona public opinion for the past several years — have managed to stay in office.
The answer is simple: Too many of us do not vote in elections. Voter turnout is almost always below 50 percent in non-presidential statewide elections and below 25 percent in the all-important legislative primary elections, which, because of poor legislative districting, are the elections where legislators are de facto chosen.
This is why the protests at the Capitol earlier this year seemed to have no effect on the legislators. This is why legislators get away with defying the public will year after year, crisis after crisis, as they make unpopular budget decisions and run the state of Arizona into the ground.
We, the people of Arizona, have failed in our democratic duty to instruct our state senators and representatives on how they should govern. We have the constitutional ability to elect a Legislature that conforms to our views, through the Republican primaries and then the general election, but a majority of us have not done so.
It may be that too many Arizonans have lost faith in their legislators and have taken policy into their own hands through the initiative process. But that is our fault in the first place for not taking the time to create a Legislature worthy of our trust.
Had most Arizonans been voting regularly in all-state elections and paying attention to who they were voting for, we would not have needed the inflexible initiative process to ensure funding for our public programs.
We, the people, bear the ultimate responsibility to participate in our legislative primary elections and thereby tell our representatives what we want.
