Legacy of a dysfunctional legislature.

As I've said before, the highly-charged partisanship and adversarial nature of the Republican domination of the Arizona State legislature is hurting our community. The dysfunction has played itself out in a number of ways, most dramatically with trash legislation being sent to the Governor in anticipation of a veto, just to undermine her and game the elections.

Another manifestation of the dysfunctional state legislature is that key legislation isn't being passed, with the result that a huge number of ballot initiatives are going to the public in November. Basically, the people themselves are forced to do the work of legislating, while the legislature is abdicating its responsibility to do it.

An example is the minimum wage hike. Polls show that the large majority of Arizonans favor some degree of minimum wage increase. Results of two separate polls show support in Arizona at 76% and 81%, respectively. So it's strongly supported in our state.

I'm one of those that thinks some increase is in order. A full-time worker should be able to earn a living wage. It's just common sense. And, despite the rhetoric, past minimum wage increases have not resulted in the loss of jobs that detractors have threatened. So the dire predictions of economic harm are not based in empirical reality.

So, what's stopping us? Democrats in the legislature favor some kind of increase. Ah, but Republicans in the legislature tend to oppose it, and they have the majority of seats.

Unfortunately - and here's where the dysfunction comes in, yet again - the Republicans in the state legislature have tended to use their majority to completely shut Democrats out of the process. So, when Democrats put forth a state minimum wage increase bill, it didn't even receive a hearing.

Some businesses and Republicans may have been pleased at that, initially. The idea that legislation favored by most of the state never even got to be debated surely appealed to some folks. Folks, especially, who like the idea of using power in the state legislature to disenfranchise any voice or opinion that disagrees with them. But that kind of slash-and-burn, winner-take-all approach to legislating is not only destructive, it eventually collapses under its own weight.

Indeed, the result of the Republicans' killing the proposed minimum wage legislation meant that it was never able to be debated, at all. And that means that a solid compromise was never able to be hammered out to the benefit of the state. And that means that those intractable Republicans in the legislature lost their chance to have any influence on the legislation because it has now become yet another ballot initiative, in the form of Proposition 202.

Once again, the people are forced to do the job of legislating, where the Republican majority in the legislature neglect to do it.

Well, as it happens, some business leaders and Republicans aren't happy with the Republicans' abdication of responsibility:

Arizona businesses should have bargained on a higher minimum wage through the state Legislature, a lobbyist for a key business group said, rather than having to fight a far-reaching initiative.

“It’s clearly something that we should have done," said Todd Sanders, lobbyist for the Greater Phoenix Chamber of Commerce and a key leader in the fight against Proposition 202.

“We should have probably sat down with those folks," he said, referring to Democratic legislators and others who want to create a state minimum wage.

Sanders isn’t alone in his beliefs.

A key Republican key legislator said the failure to negotiate may have been a missed opportunity for the business community. Rep. Michele Reagan, R-Scottsdale, who leads the House Commerce Committee, said a negotiated deal “would have been preferred."

No kidding. That's supposed to be the whole point. Folks with two opposing views sit down and hammer out a collaborative agreement for the betterment of our state. That's how mature, discerning and responsible legislators handle their responsibilities.

Not so, our legislature. And in this case, their domination of the process to the exclusion of opposing viewpoints has cost them the ability to take part at all.

As for Proposition 202, it's not perfect, perhaps. I'm sure it could have been improved by collaborative debate. Almost certainly, some fine-tuning could have been done to make it a better law. I'm a strong believer in the concept of "iron sharpening iron", that way. I believe in letting opposing viewpoints and competing ideas challenge us to come up with an even better solution. In fact, I enjoy the give and take of negotiation, and the thrill of seeing a new synthesis take shape that meets the needs of all stakeholders. Collaboration is a supremely beautiful thing when it happens.

But while it might have been improved, Prop 202 is far better than the state of utter neglect we have today on the minimum wage front. And most Arizonans agree, so we can expect Prop 202 to pass.

As for the Republicans in our state legislature, they've demonstrated once more that their "can't play in my sandbox" approach to public service is, long term, an attitude that seriously undermines their effectiveness in representing Arizona well. And some of them (and their constituents) are now gnashing their teeth at the predictable results of their mulishness.

The result: Republicans' strong-arm tactics and stubbornness end up costing them their ability to be involved, at all. In fact, it all sounds like some kind of morality play about cooperation.

You know, it's too bad we don't have a real spirit of comity in our legislature. Personally, I long for the day when we have a diverse legislature that is able to use common sense to find common ground for the common good in Arizona. I'd like to think that's not a pipe dream. But as long as one party continues to dominate the legislature to the detriment of moderate discourse and collaborative debate, I'm afraid my vision will remain just that: a vision of a future that might be, someday.