http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0423strike-everything0423.html

'Strike-all' measures gain favor More seen as legislative session creeps to end

Robbie Sherwood The Arizona Republic Apr. 23, 2006 12:00 AM

Whether the consequences are large, such as a complete rewrite of state campaign-finance laws, or small, as in relaxing health codes for in-home cooking events, the springtime spirit of new life and resurrection is in full swing at the state Legislature.

Lawmakers and lobbyists have been busy in the waning weeks of the legislative session, employing a time-tested trick - the "strike-all" amendment - to revive stalled bills, or to introduce new ideas, without the inconvenience of committee hearings and extended public scrutiny.

The bills, which can be next to impossible for the public to track, could lead to profound changes in the way Arizonans pay property taxes, buy cars, run for office and pay for health care.

Strike-all amendments allow lawmakers to strip the contents of bills and replace everything below the title with a new measure that died along the way or just surfaced as an issue.

For lawmakers and lobbyists, it's a useful tool to keep the fight alive for issues until the Legislature's closing bell.

"It's never dead; there's always a chance if it's not sine die yet," said lobbyist Bobbi Sparrow of the Automobile Dealers Association, using the Latin term for the end of the legislative session. Sparrow is shepherding a hotly contested "striker" bill that would change the rules for auto buyers who purchase cars through brokers.

For opponents of the remade bills, it's like the Night of the Living Dead, with zombified legislation popping up all over the landscape.

"This is exactly the kind of move that gives the Legislature a bad name among voters," said Dana Naimark of the Children's Action Alliance.

Naimark was particularly upset about Senate Concurrent Resolution 1008, which surfaced late last month as a striker in the House and is only a few steps away from going on the November ballot. The measure would allow the Legislature to cut spending for voter-approved programs such as state health care and schools if there is a budget crunch.

Flurry of 'strikers'

Tension over late-session strike-everything amendments came to a head on April 11, when 10 out of 11 bills in Rep. Russell Pearce's House Appropriations Committee were newly surfaced strike-everything amendments.

The measures ranged from a bill to deny undocumented immigrants the right to file civil suits in state courts, which passed, to a requirement for voters who mail in their ballots to include photo-copied photo identification, which was held.

Six of those bills were approved for pending floor debates, including Senate Concurrent Resolution 1013, which would ask voters to gut the Clean Elections system for public campaign financing while greatly increasing the amount of private donations statewide and legislative candidates could accept.

At one point, Bonnie Danowski, a volunteer lobbyist for Valley Interfaith, tried to criticize the flurry of "strikers." She stepped to the microphone to speak about a measure that would require photo identification to cast a mail-in ballot. Instead, she called Pearce on the carpet.

"Strikers are supposed to be a rare occurrence," Danowski said. "These are bills that cannot stand scrutiny."

Pearce quickly interrupted and dressed down Danowski from the chair.

"Stop right there," Pearce said. "You are not going to come into this committee and cast aspersions that are absolutely not true. It takes a majority vote to get bills out, and things do get debated."

Not all of the 10 striker bills in Pearce's committee that day survived. Pearce held four of the bills.

But the hearing brought a blistering response from Dick White of Valley Interfaith, whose volunteer lobbyists have staged other protests during the legislative session to decry what they feel is a legislative process that minimizes public testimony and scrutiny.

White called Pearce's committee a "personal playground" to advance "pet causes that cannot stand the scrutiny of consideration by House committees."

Pearce shrugged off the criticism as whining from special-interest groups who can't muster majority support for their ideas. He said he sponsored some of the strike-everything bills at the request of other lawmakers, in particular the referendum to overhaul campaign-finance rules. He also held some of the bills that he felt had problems.

"These are the same people who whine about everything," said Pearce, R-Mesa. "They just don't like the bills. They need to convince lawmakers to vote their way, but they just whine and moan and groan."

'Cuts out the public'

Pearce noted that strike-all bills must still have a public hearing, so the criticism that the public is cut out is off base. But House Minority Leader Phil Lopes disagrees because, in some instances, strike-all amendments allow an issue to avoid the entire committee process in one house or the other.

"We strongly oppose those kinds of bills because without debate, it cuts out the public," Lopes, D-Tucson said. "Things that do go through committees and die get brought back, so we object to the process."

Sen. Carolyn Allen, R-Scottsdale, said the abundance of strikers and legislative game playing hurts the image of Republican leaders who hold majorities in both the House and Senate.

"I don't know how we can go and hold our heads up and say we are Republicans," Allen said. "Are we serving the public or are we serving ourselves and our personal agendas?"

However, when Allen's bill to make it tougher to file malpractice lawsuits for emergency room errors ran into rough waters in the House recently, her bill found its way onto a living air-quality bill in the Senate with help from Senate Finance Chairman Dean Martin, R-Phoenix. House Bill 2315, which now contains Allen's proposed tort-reform bill, is headed to the Senate floor for a debate.

Lobbyist and former lawmaker Mike Gardner said striker bills have earned a bad rap, but he said they have a valuable place in the lawmaking process. Most states have a version of the strike-everything amendment - in California it's called "gut and amend" - so that lawmakers can introduce new ideas after deadlines for filing new bills. Arizona lawmakers reformed the rules surrounding strike-everything amendments more than a decade ago, requiring 24 hours' notice before hearing one in committee and no longer allowing them to be adopted during floor debates.

"It truly can be abused, but this Legislature over the past decade has made tremendous strides in reform," Gardner said.

"The public does have a chance to weigh in. I still think it's a necessary part of the process. The alternative is to not allow lawmakers to introduce any new ideas after January."