By Howard Fischer
Mail | X: @azcapmedia

PHOENIX - Arizonans are smoking less, and it’s having a negative effect on early childhood development.

The 80-cent-a-pack tax on cigarettes that Arizonans approved in 2006 initially generated about $165 million a year. That has been used both to help create more high-quality child care centers as well as provide direct scholarships for those in need so they can afford that care.

Whether it's due to the tax or people heeding health warnings, that 80-cent levy is now generating less than $90 million. That's after the fact  inflation has made each dollar collected worth less even as services are costing more.

All that, according to Joe Barba, vice president of First Things First, has cut into the ability of the state-created agency to meet its goals.

Those goals, all administered via grants it provides to community organizations in 28 different regions, run from helping to create higher quality child care through things like training of staff and making sure there is a curriculum to ensure kids learn what they need to be ready for kindergarten.

"It's much more than having children in a room and adults in a room,'' Barba said. "It's making sure that a child is getting some sort of an education.”

First Things First also provides grants to parents who otherwise are unable to pay for high-quality child care, leaving them with quitting their jobs and staying home as the only other realistic option.

So now the organization is working to line up legislative support - preferably led by a Republican - to expand the levy to also include vaping products containing nicotine.

Barba figures that would translate into about a 50% increase in the retail prices of those products, potentially raising an additional $100 million a year.

To sweeten the deal for the lawmakers who would have to approve it, he said First Things First would keep only some of that for its programs - perhaps 60%, though the number is not yet final. The balance would go into the state general fund to support other state priorities.

Making that happen, however, is not going to be easy.

One option is to ask lawmakers to simply amend the 2006 measure. That avoids having to take the issue back to voters who approved the original levy in 2006 by 53.2%

But the Arizona Constitution spells out that the Legislature cannot simply alter what voters have passed. Lawmakers can act only if the change "furthers the purpose'' of what voters originally approved.

An argument could be made that the purpose - early childhood development - remains the same. All that's changing is adding a new funding source.

But that's just half of it.

That constitutional restriction on legislative tinkering also requires approval of three-fourths of each chamber, meaning 23 of 30 senators and 45 of 60 representatives - allowing the plan to be defeated by eight senators or 16 representatives.

Barba said another option is to ask lawmakers to create an entirely new tax on vaping products.

That avoids one constitutional issue. But it raises another one, albeit not as high: It still takes a two-thirds vote - 20 senators and 40 representatives - to impose a new tax.

Whatever the number, there already are lawmakers who are making it clear they won't support either plan.

Rep. Consuelo Hernandez, D-Tucson, introduced a measure, backed by First Things First, which would have levied a slightly different tax on vaping products. Barba said that would have raised $80 million a year, with 60% of that going to programs for his organization.

Her bill was assigned to the House Ways and Means Committee. And Rep. Justin Olson, who chairs that panel, refused to even give it a hearing.

"I don't support tax increases,'' the Mesa Republican said. "I came to the Legislature to cut taxes, not to raise them.''

Barba said what needs to happen now is to build a broad, bipartisan coalition to be able not just to get a hearing but also line up the necessary votes, whichever path the legislation takes. But that, he said, also means recognizing the political reality at the Capitol.

"Our goal is to have somebody in the majority party, hopefully, sponsor the bill for us,'' he said, acknowledging that Republicans control 33 of the 60 House seats and 17 of 30 Senate seats.