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Lawmakers seek power to override mandated spending
A Senate panel agreed Tuesday to ask voters to give lawmakers the power to alter the provisions of some ballot initiatives.
HCR2044 would partly overturn a 1998 constitutional amendment which precludes lawmakers from tinkering with any law or spending requirement which voters themselves have enacted.
The measure, which already has been approved by the House, now goes to the full Senate.
But the final word of whether voters are willing to rescind the protections they approved a decade ago would be up to them: The change could take place only if it's ratified in November.
Sen. Bob Burns, R-Peoria, said he understands the right of initiative which lets voters propose and enact their own laws in the absence of legislative action.
He said, though, the 1998 amendment bars lawmakers from making changes when the state's revenue is insufficient to fund the programs.
So lawmakers are now forced to increase state aid to education every year. And they cannot cut funding for the state's indigent health care system.
The result, Burns said, is state spending automatically increases at least $500 million every year. And that's before additional funds are needed for other programs.
If there isn't enough new money coming in, lawmakers have to cut financing for other services which were not enacted by voters and lack constitutional protection.
HCR2044 would allow the Legislature to override voter-mandated spending in any year when expected expenses exceed anticipated revenue by at least 1 percent of the total budget.
If that were in place this year, that would translate to about $106 million.
And if that were in place now, legislators would be legally able to trim health care and education spending to deal with the current $1.2 billion deficit and an anticipated shortfall approaching $2 billion next year.
Sen. John Huppenthal, R-Chandler, said voters may not be willing to give up those powers.
The constitutional amendment stems from a 1996 voter-approved measure to allow doctors to prescribe marijuana and certain other drugs to seriously and terminally ill patients.
Lawmakers, saying voters may have been misled, decided in 1997 to partly repeal the measure.
Voters re-enacted it in 1998 and imposed new restrictions on lawmakers to prevent future legislative alterations.
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