Getting started

The August 10th meeting between Governor Napolitano and Republican legislative leaders provided an opportunity for these not-so collegial political adversaries to bury the hatchet and finish the work they began in May. Initial indications are that perhaps they can in fact accomplish that:

Gov. Janet Napolitano and the top Republican leaders from the House and Senate took the first step toward patching up a seriously damaged relationship Wednesday and possibly ending a bitter stalemate over money for English-language learners and a corporate tuition tax credit for private schools. The power trio sat down for the first time since the legislative session ended three months ago in a hail of controversial vetoes and crisscrossing accusations of dishonesty.

After the 40-minute meeting in Napolitano's office, she emerged with House Speaker Jim Weiers and Senate President Ken Bennett and said, essentially: Good meeting, let's have another.

As I've written before, I think the onus falls more-so on the Governor in terms of finding a way to make this work. That being said, if her statements are to be believed, the Governor is taking the right approach: "We talked about the differences between us, the misunderstandings we had, generally, and about things we might be able to do to avoid that in the future," Napolitano said. "We didn't resolve our differences, but we did resolve to get together again next week."

I guess there's nothing for it but to stay tuned and see how this all shakes out.