Freshman State Representative Scuttles Conservative Budget

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Liz Harris

Republican plans to pass a conservative budget that would protect core spending programs in the event of an economic downturn, were scuttled on Monday by freshman State Representative Liz Harris, who joined with Democrats to kill the budget. The Republican freshman ran as a conservative, but refused to comment on why she surprised her own party with a “no” vote at the last moment.

The surprise failure of the conservative budget now shifts the advantage to Democratic Governor Katie Hobbs and the Democratic minority, who will now have an equal amount of input into any budget that passes, since Arizona’s narrowly divided legislature means that the loss of any one Republican requires Democratic votes to pass bills or budgets.

Harris has been silent on social media about her vote, but some observers believe her vote may relate to a post-election promise she made to vote “no” on every bill until Arizona held a new election to redo the November 2022 election. Harris was upset at the election results and her social media accounts are filled with election integrity posts, but since the Legislature had no mechanism to meet her demands, her threats were not taken very seriously. Plus, Harris has been voting for bills in spite of her promise not to, so most do not believe this recent “no” vote is related to her earlier promise.

“Harris swore she’d vote ‘no’ on everything then promptly voted “yes” on lots of things, so it isn’t that old promise.” said one legislative insider. “This “no” vote was something different, but she’s not saying why she voted “no” so no one has any idea.”

“Outside of being really passionate about Kari Lake and overturning the 2022 results, there isn’t any reason to think that Harris is actually a conservative, so people need to realize that she may have voted “no” on the conservative budget because she doesn’t actually like it,” opined one Republican lobbyist. “Moderate Republicans do exist down here. There aren’t as many around as there used to be, but let’s not act surprised to see one in person.”

If that is the case, then Harris may need to answer questions about why every other Republican, including the few other moderates, voted “yes” on the budget, while she voted “no.”

Republican leadership now needs to start fresh budget discussions on a budget that will likely end up between $1 billion and $2 billion higher – potentially bad economic news for Arizonans already facing recessionary headwinds.

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