News Release - Arizona Common Sense

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Update From Arizona Common Sense

March 25, 2008

We are coming up on a critical time for HB2156, as you may recall last year's bill HB 2020 won super-majority support in passing both the House and the Senate in the legislature but had been very disappointingly vetoed by the governor. So to give you a picture of what has occurred and what we expect, here is an abbreviated timeline.

THE BILL:

In early January, the lobbyists for the bill as well as some members of Arizona Common Sense met with the Governor's staff to discuss concerns they had with our bill from last year.
In Mid-January HB 2156 was assigned to the Counties, Municipalities and Military Affairs Committee (CMMA). The introduced version was very similar to last year's bill.
On January 29th the CMMA Committee heard HB 2156. The committee "requested" that both sides begin discussions to reach some common ground.
A month of negotiations with the RRs and state agencies (ADOT and the Land Department) led to the an amendment for a revised bill assigning oversight from the Corporation Commission to ADOT.
On February 26th, the House CMMA committee heard the bill with the amendment. The bill passed the committee 8-0.
Throughout March lobbyist continued discussions, federal preemption concerns were addressed.
We accomplished the goal of drafting a floor amendment to go forward to the House floor that the RRs would not actively oppose.
The amendment for House floor was prepared and distributed on the 17th.
On March 18th HB 2156 sailed through Rules and both the Republican and Democrat caucuses.
On the 20th the CMMA amendment and the floor amendment were approved on the House floor, as amended, and were passed by the House on a voice vote, allowing the bill to be presented on the House floor for a recorded vote, pass the bill in the House, and move it on to the Senate.
On Monday, March 24th, the bill was voted on in the House and passed 42-15, with 3 not voting. An excellent result, as the bill moves on to the Senate.
The bill will be transmitted to the Senate later on the 24th or on the 25th , and over the course of the remainder of the week, we would move to have the bill assigned to a committee and put on an agenda to be heard as soon as possible.
The bill would likely be heard in Senate committee some time in early April.
We would then seek to move it through Senate Rules, Caucus and Floor in a process that would mirror the process we are now completing in the House. We will be continuing discussions with the RR, working with the agencies, and keeping the governor's office informed. .
If it is amended in the Senate, it would extend our process to another recorded floor vote in the House.
Once the bill is finished at the legislature, late April or early in May, it would then be transmitted to the governor. If session is ending at that point, she would have ten days from the last day of session in order to act on the bill. If session is still going the governor would have 5 days to act. We hope that all our hard work to address her concerns will result in her signing the bill this year.
As for the possibility of any veto override, this governor has never been overridden. The best chance is to gain her signature and this is how our effort is focused. We hope our process with this bill would be successfully completed before July 1st.
Finally, we are attempting to keep the possibility of passing our language as a ballot measure (HCR) available to us.