From the political notebook:


• Within the spending lobby, there is no more firmly held belief than that Arizona is an inexcusably low-tax state.


The basis for this belief is a report on state and local tax collections from the Census Bureau. For 2006, the most recent year for which figures are available, Arizona ranked 39th among the states in tax collections per capita. Hence the conclusion that, compared with other states, Arizona is among the bottom dwellers.

The Senate was the emblem of dysfunctional state government during the Legislature's drawn-out and unsuccessful struggle to pass a balanced budget. In the end, after more than 200 days in session, the chamber couldn't pass a plan that Gov. Jan Brewer would accept. And Bob Burns, as Senate president, bore the brunt of the blame.


The House delivered, giving Brewer the sales-tax referral that she wanted, but only after the budget debate dragged into a special session and by sugar-coating the tax hike with $400 million in income-tax cuts.

Kirk Adams ran for House speaker on a platform of transparency and reform of the legislative process. The pitch worked: He ousted a veteran lawmaker last fall in a closed-door Republican caucus meeting.


But Adams' ability to enact his agenda has not worked as effectively - or as quickly. Living up to the promises in Adams' "Rebuilding Our Republican Majority" strategy handbook has proved difficult.

“It’s not fair,” said Gayle Shanks.


As the owner of Changing Hands bookstore in Tempe, Shanks is upset that her company cannot compete with Amazon. Not because the giant online retailer is able to price their products lower, she said, but because the Internet giant’s business model gives it a 10 percent advantage over her at checkout.

Steve Pierce has spent 2 ½ years sitting in the back of the state Senate chambers, quietly surveying the proceedings and rising rarely to weigh in with a floor speech.


Now, as president-elect of the Senate, he'll be at the front of the room and pressed daily for comment on everything from the budget to the hot-button bill of the moment.

"I have lots of new friends," the Prescott rancher told the crowd attending the Arizona Tax Research Association's annual conference Friday. "They all want to come in and see me. I don't know most of them."

Basic city services will be shuttered for residents in two West Valley cities for more than a week over the holidays, to the chagrin of some taxpayers and the delight of city workers.


Employees in Surprise and El Mirage are getting extended paid holidays that will be added to their regular vacation days.

This is Arizona’s centennial year. It’s both a grand accomplishment to celebrate and an occasion that we should mark by making our state government more effective and efficient.

One of the biggest steps we can take toward modernizing state government is with a revamp of the outdated rules and regulations that govern its workforce. Our personnel system is practically as old as the state itself.

Patchwork fixes and incremental improvements won’t do. Now is the time for fundamental reform.

Arizona lawmakers may temporarily halt a burgeoning 12-year-old program that allows the creation of special vocational school districts. The districts have grown steadily, but critics say the initiatives have become a financial burden the state may no longer be able to afford.


Legislation being debated at the state Capitol would put a two-year moratorium on the expansion or formation of additional job-training hubs, known as joint technological education districts.

School districts will have to dig deeper in their own pockets to pay electricity, water and telephone bills for the next two years, thanks to a new legislative cap on excess utility funding for the schools.


Large districts say the money - millions of dollars that would ordinarily come from an excess utility tax levied by the districts as a portion of local property taxes - will have to come from the same pool of money that districts use to pay for salary increases, new positions, supplies and special programs.

The recent U.S. Supreme Court decision on school vouchers has reignited debate on this important public policy issue.


This decision, as well as a similar ruling from the Arizona Supreme Court in 1999, opens the way for a healthy and focused debate on the benefits of vouchers.

While few would argue that the overriding benefit of vouchers is to empower parents with the choice of where to send their child to school, the financial benefits vouchers provide to taxpayers should also weigh heavily in future debates.