When they're not passing bills, Arizona lawmakers often draft little ditties called resolutions and memorials. These bits of legislation place issues on the ballot for voters to decide, or more frequently, send arcanely worded messages to various state agencies, members of Congress and special interest groups.
Some of them are downright amusing in their absurdity--until you stop to consider they cost taxpayers about $1,500 apiece just getting to a House or Senate committee. And that's not counting the time spent debating their merits, or the expense of sending out those postcards to the feds and others should they pass.
Here's a round-up of some of our 1995 favorites from the House of Representatives:
• HCR 2004 sends a nice note to Congress and the Secretary General of the United Nations, expressing the support of the Arizona House of Representatives for Taiwan's membership in the U.N. Kind of funny, seeing how we're so busy bitching about the feds telling us how to run our business.
• HCR 2008, proposed by Mesa Republican Jeff Groscost, would require initiatives that raise taxes to get approval of two-thirds of the voters, rather than the simple majority now required. Betcha this one was inspired by that successful tobacco tax proposition on last year's ballot, which passed by a narrow majority. Don't count on being able to upset a powerful special interest like the tobacco industry if this one passes.
• HCR 2015 says the state of Arizona claims sovereignty under the 10th Amendment and puts the feds on notice they need to "cease and desist" those pesky unfunded mandates.
• HCR 2016--co-sponsored by Groscost--calls for a constitutional convention to create a balanced-budget amendment.
• HCR 2017--also co-sponsored by Groscost--asks the feds to forget we
ever asked for a constitutional convention. Guess we can scratch HCR 2016.
• HCRs 2022, 2023 and 2024--again sponsored by Groscost--replaces the pronoun "he" with gender-neutral language in various portions of the state constitution. That's another three we'll get to vote for in 1996 if the resolutions pass.
• House Concurrent Memorial 2002 is the infamous "ozone resolution." Sponsored by Glendale Republican Jean McGrath, the resolution urges Congress and the Environmental Protection Agency to repeal that pesky prohibition on those wonderful chlorofluorocarbons.
• HCM 2003 urges the U.S. Forest Service to adopt a plan that would allow extensive logging in the habitat of endangered species.
• HCM 2005--sponsored by Groscost and fellow Mesa Republican Mark Killian--urges Congress to quit enforcing those environmental laws prohibiting activities like clear-cutting forests "until such time as the United States Congress has formulated long-term solutions to the environmental concerns facing our nation." Here's a long-term solution for you: Cut down all the trees, and we won't need laws to protect them!
• House Joint Resolution 2003 renames Arizona's stretch of Interstate 10 "Pearl Harbor Memorial Parkway."
--Jim Nintzel
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