Kansas’ Republican State House Speaker is currently the lead attorney in a lawsuit against the state government. But what’s fishy is that the case revolves around the state budget – the same state budget Speaker O’Neal was intimately involved in writing:

O’Neal represents 17 professional groups, including the Kansas Bankers Association and Kansas Association of Realtors, challenging a 2009 legislative decision to take money from the funds of professional regulatory bodies. The groups’ members pay dues that support the regulatory agencies.

Democrats contend it is a conflict of interest. (…)

“Using his position as House speaker to drum up business for his law firm … I don’t see how he can reconcile it,” said House Minority Leader Paul Davis, a Lawrence Democrat.

While O’Neil voted against the particular funds transfer at issue here, we have no idea what went on behind the scenes or what sort of back-room deals were involved. So Kansas voters have no idea if their Republican leader secretly helped engineer this legislation just so he could turn around and sue the State of Kansas.

All we know for certain is that the Republican House Speaker, instead of representing his constituents, is representing the banking industry and 16 other trade groups as they literally try to pry money away from Kansas taxpayers in this lawsuit.

Every time it looks like Arizona’s Republican-controlled legislature has finally hit rock-bottom, they find a way to sink even lower. But really, closing a state budget deficit by stealing from the dead? We never thought they’d sink that low… until they did:

According to her will, a 2003 donation of nearly $250,000 was given to the Arizona Department of Parks on behalf of Asta Forest.

"She wanted to give this money so that other people could enjoy the state parks and all they have to offer," Essenburg said Monday.

While parks officials considered what to do with her donation, Arizona's budget deficit climbed.

But last month, when the state Legislature met to cut cash from the budget, $213,000 was taken away from the Arizona State Parks donation fund. (…) That money included most of Forest's donation.

We’re not unsympathetic to lawmakers’ dilemma in Arizona. The state is facing a severe deficit brought on by the recession, and no one will be particularly happy to see their services cut or their taxes raised.

But this just isn’t right.

South Carolina Republicans are now on-record saying they can’t be trusted with power. That’s our interpretation, anyway, of a new proposal by the state’s Republican legislative leaders to make across-the-board budget cuts automatic when times are tough – without any input or on-the-record votes by the legislature:

To deal with future budget shortages, the state's top legislators want across-the-board cuts to come quicker as they propose automatic cuts when revenues fall a certain percentage.

Currently, only a budget oversight board led by Gov. Mark Sanford can decide to cut the state's spending when it gets a report that revenues are 4 percent shy of expectations. Lawmakers want the cuts to come automatically when the state's revenues are 2 percent short.

Even the most uncompromising anti-tax voter should be outraged by this proposal. We elect our leaders to make tough choices, not to run away from them. And the reason we want elected officials making the tough decision to cut services or raise taxes is so we the people can hold them accountable for their actions.

Writing the budget is the most basic responsibility of every legislature in America – the power of the purse. If Republicans really want across-the-board spending cuts, they should at least have the backbone to vote for them, on the record. But South Carolina Republicans are too afraid to do their jobs in tough times, and now they want someone else to do it for them.

The Arizona Daily Star has a nice summary this morning of state Republicans’ incompetence at passing a budget. Basically, they want to raise sales taxes, but they’re too afraid to vote for it. That’s a problem - since Republicans are in the majority, nothing gets passed without Republican votes.

Meanwhile, a sensible Democratic alternative which would actually cut the sales tax rate goes ignored:

The sales-tax increase is pretty much the only tool the Legislature's GOP leadership has produced — other than devastating cuts in spending and putting property up for sale — as a revenue stream to address the state's estimated budget gap of $1.6 billion this fiscal year.

House Speaker Kirk Adams, R-Mesa, and Senate President Bob Burns, R-Peoria, cannot get enough Republican votes to send a measure raising the sales tax to the ballot this spring, Capitol Media Services reported Tuesday. Thus they say, they're going after Democrats' votes.

But many Democrats oppose the increase on the grounds that sales taxes disproportionately affect lower-income taxpayers. We agree; there are better ways to increase revenues, among them the Democrats' proposal to reduce the tax but apply it more widely. (…)

Former Gov. Janet Napolitano left a budget plan when she moved on to the Department of Homeland Security, but it was ignored by the GOP majority. Democrats developed a proposal and posted it online — www.strongerarizona.com — but it was ignored as well.

Arizona Democrats are quietly showing the whole country how a “loyal opposition” is supposed to behave. They’re out-front on the key issues. They’re looking out for the struggling middle class instead of the special interests. And most importantly, when they vote against a proposal, they follow up with alternatives and solutions of their own.

Meanwhile, the Republicans are still the “Party of NO” even when they’re in charge.

Managing a state budget during this recession is not easy. Falling tax revenue can open huge budget deficits, and closing those gaps is almost always a painful process. But North Carolina’s Democratic legislators have gotten it right, and they have the ratings to prove it:

The three financial rating agencies have given North Carolina a AAA rating in the wake of a budget crisis.

The rating is the highest possible and the three rating agencies, Moody's, Standard & Poor's and Fitch Ratings affirmed the top score, which like an individual credit score is a measure of credit-worthiness and financial security. North Carolina is one of only seven states to have the top score.

The high ratings can also be seen as a vote of confidence that the Democratically-controlled legislature is making the tough decisions now that will put North Carolina on solid financial footing for years to come.

But it’s more than just a feather in lawmakers’ caps. High credit ratings will save North Carolina taxpayers millions of dollars by allowing the state to sell bonds for major projects at lower interest rates.

California Assembly Speaker Karen Bass -- a DLCC board member -- has brokered a deal in the legislature that will keep nearly 700,000 children in her state covered by health insurance through the Health Families program:

Under the rescue effort, Healthy Families will reap $196 million to keep 660,000 children of low-income families from losing health insurance provided by the government program. Much of the money will come from a new 2.35% tax on health insurance companies that will be used to leverage nearly $100 million in federal matching funds.

Speaker Bass said the measure was one of the most heartening votes of the legislative session, and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger called the compromise that Bass worked out "a great victory for California's kids."

We've touched on the general ridiculousness of the Republican majority in the Arizona legislature before. Whether they're opposing health care reform, slashing higher education funding, or charging admission to attend a town hall, the GOP in the state just doesn't seem to care about what's best for Arizona citizens.

Case in point?

The Republican budget is so bad that the state's GOP governor -- Jan Brewer -- is actually taking lawmakers of her own party to court. She's accusing her fellow Republicans of forcing her to choose between signing a budget of which she doesn't approve or forcing a government shutdown.

The Republican governor argues in her court filing that legislators have violated the Arizona Constitution by waiting to send her an already approved budget she is likely to veto -- using it as a negotiating mechanism to get their proposal signed into law.

That's a pretty good indication of just how fundamentally uninterested in the business of governing that Republican legislators in the state can be.

That said, it's likely that much of this ridiculousness could be averted if Gov. Brewer were to offer an invitation to include Democratic lawmakers in budget negotiations. Unfortunately, that is a compromise she has steadfastly refused to consider.

Unlike the GOP, Democrats have a plan to protect commitments to education, health care and other basic priorities for Arizonans. You can read it here.

Some of the most staunchly Republican areas of California have been abandoned by their Republican legislators.

As California continues grappling with a $24 billion budget deficit, Republicans representing some of the poorest areas of the state are doing everything they can to turn a bad situation into a desperate one for the folks back home:

One in five Merced County adults are out of work, home foreclosures run rampant and anti-poverty programs are stretched to the limit. The county welfare chief calls it California's Appalachia.

This also is a region represented in the statehouse budget brawl almost exclusively by anti-tax Republicans, whose push to downsize government collides with sobering reality -- a greater percentage of their constituents depend on health and welfare programs than anywhere else in California.

One in 12 residents of Merced County have tapped CalWorks, the state's welfare-to-work effort, double the per-capita use in Los Angeles County and five times the percentage in San Francisco.

With legislative Republicans using parliamentary tactics to block every alternative to draconian cuts, the impact will be disproportionately painful for these Republicans’ home communities. And make no mistake – these cuts will be excruciating:

That means eliminating CalWorks, which services 1.4 million statewide. It means killing off Healthy Families and slicing Medi-Cal, affecting more than 2 million people, most of them children. It means cutting home-care workers for the elderly and disabled, and carving deeply into programs for Alzheimer's patients and people with HIV.

If just a few Republican legislators come to their senses and start working with the Democratic majority, they can save the programs their constituents most depend on. But instead, they’re apparently content watch California’s government collapse around them.

The 2009 legislative sessions have been painful for state legislators and their constituents across the country. With the recession decimating state tax revenues, most new state budgets will impose tax hikes and deep cuts to even the most essential government services. Throughout the process, Democrats and Republicans in many legislatures have set aside their traditional priorities and acted pragmatically to keep their governments from imploding.

But according to recent figures, 2010 could be far worse:

After already cutting $40 billion, states expect to have to slice another $62 billion to make their current budgets balance, the National Conference of State Legislatures said in its latest survey of states’ fiscal health, released April 23.

Four months ago, NCSL figured states would have to close shortfalls of $85 billion for fiscal 2010 budgets. Now that number has ballooned to $121 billion. Similarly, the National Governors Association has estimated budget gaps could top $230 billion through 2010.

In the face of all that red ink, legislative leaders are working hard to continue making wise investments and minimize the impact of their budget-balancing strategies. But since state governments generally cannot operate on deficit spending the way Congress can, states as Democratic as New York and as Republican as Idaho have made painful decisions to slash services and raise taxes.

If these new figures are accurate, voters around the country should brace for a new round of painful choices next year. But they should also remember that with the economy as bad as it is, these choices are often their legislators' only options.

North Carolina Speaker of the House Joe Hackney -- a Democrat -- is the current president of the National Conference of State Legislatures. At the end of Hackney's term, Georgia State Senator Don Balfour -- a Republican -- will succeed him.

Both men recently sat down for an interview with Stateline:

Despite their personal history and different party affiliations, they agree mostly on the big stuff: The economic stimulus and financial system rescue plan are starting to help in their states. The public has no idea about the depth of the financial troubles facing state governments, even after the stimulus money is spent.

Nationally, Republicans have spent a lot of time arguing that the Federal Recovery Package was unnecessary. Even at the state level, some GOP governors (and Republican-controlled chambers) have turned down parts of the program. But responsible leaders from both parties recognize that the Troubled Assets Relief Program and the stimulus are both key parts of future economic recovery.

The recession poses stiff challenges for lawmakers, as both leaders make clear. Georgia was forced to make $1.6 billion of cuts to balance its budget, while North Carolina faces a budget gap between $3 and $4 billion.

Complicating the situation further is the fact that both leaders have plans for necessary state improvements. Balfour believes that Georgia needs to invest $3 billion a year for 20 years to upgrade transportation infrastructure that will confront traffic congestion. North Carolina has made serious investments in reducing class sizes and improving early childhood education that are now at risk as lawmakers examine ways to make ends meet in this economy.

Watching serious legislators come up with ways to make responsible choices really does make you wonder what the heck Virginia Republicans are thinking.