Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Katherine Cooper dismissed a lawsuit for lack of standing, brought by the Goldwater Institute on behalf of 36 state legislators, their constituents, and an individual Arizona taxpayer on Friday. The Goldwater Institute says the ruling is “not the end of the line,” and vows to continue to fight the “unconstitutional tax that funds Arizona’s new Medicaid program.”
In 2012 the Arizona Legislative passed a Medicaid expansion program, with a coalition of democrats and a handful of republicans that will levy a provider tax on Arizona taxpayers, to fund the program. The Goldwater Institute argued that the levy was unconstitutional under Prop. 108 of the state constitution because bills that enact new taxes or increase taxes must receive two-thirds majority vote in both houses of the legislature.
The state’s Medicaid expansion bill fell well short of the threshold.
Goldwater attorney Christina Sandefur said of the ruling, “”We are dismayed by the Court’s ruling, but it is not the end of the line–we will continue our challenge on behalf of Arizona lawmakers and taxpayers against the unconstitutional funding of this new Medicaid program. The Court did not consider whether the tax was constitutional, but instead ruled only on who may challenge the law. The Court ruled that legislators who voted against the program cannot challenge it (even though their votes would have defeated the tax because it did not muster the constitutionally required two-thirds majority approval at the time of passage). Sandefur continued, “Unfortunately, this ruling greatly damages Arizona’s critically important voter-enacted constitutional protection requiring a two-thirds legislative supermajority for all new taxes, even when the government is responding to a ‘crisis or emergency’ or a program ‘for the poor.’
“If this decision stands, it would enable a simple majority of legislators to vote to ignore a constitutional supermajority requirement when politically convenient, shielding that vote from legal challenge. That is not what Arizona voters intended when they passed this robust protection more than twenty years ago, and we will continue to work to ensure this decision does not stand,” concluded Sandefur.
The judge wrote that “Whether a bill is subject to Proposition 108 is determined by the Legislature itself. Here, the Legislature voted not to require a supermajority approve H.B. 2010.”
However, some argue that Prop 108 did not grant the right to the Legislature to circumvent the constitution and that is exactly what the small majority of Legislators voted to do. They say that Prop 108 did not grant the discretion to the Legislature on what they can violate.
The judge wrote, “Plaintiffs ask the Court to waive standing because no one else will bring this case. As a result, the subject of the lawsuit will not be challenged and will evade judicial review. The Court respectfully disagrees that there are no other potential challengers. The hospitals subject to the assessment are proper plaintiffs.”
While the hospitals may be one set of “proper plaintiffs,” they are unlikely to challenge the law. They spent a tremendous amount of money of lobbyists to push the expansion though, due to the fact that they stand to make tremendous amount of money through expansion.
Across the state of Arizona last spring, Republican Precinct Committee persons passed resolutions condemning Brewer, for her effort to expand Obamacare in Arizona. In every Legislative District, except one, Republicans rejected the largest expansion of government the state has ever seen.
Judge Cooper was appointed by Governor Jan Brewer in September 2011 to a term that expires in 2014.