PHOENIX — The way Sen. J.D. Mesnard sees it, when the people who crafted the Arizona Constitution put in a $350,000 debt limit they weren’t kidding.
And now the Chandler Republican wants voters to reaffirm that — and close some of the forms of creative financing lawmakers have used for years to get around that — a move that effectively would forever kill forms of borrowing lawmakers have used for years.
His SCR 1033 proposes to add some specific strings to that $350,000 debt limit so lawmakers could no longer simply find more creative ways to borrow money during financial downturns. That’s exactly what happened more than a decade ago when Gov. Jan Brewer and state lawmakers, facing a $3 billion shortfall, agreed to sell off some state buildings and then lease them back until they owned them again.
