Just like last week, the Arizona House of Representatives voted on a budget on Tuesday afternoon, past The Skinny's deadline. When the column appears online later today through the magic of technology, you'll be directed here for an update on the vote.

So here you go: House Speaker Jim Weiers managed to resurrect his budget by the narrowest of margins--with 31 votes.

What does that mean? It's kinda like when Punxsutawney Phil sees his shadow on Groundhog Dog: We've got six more weeks, more or less, of lawmaking ahead of us.

Basically, the return of the House budget puts the House and Senate into a staring match. As we've mentioned before, the Senate budget is heavier on the social spending and lighter on the tax cuts than the House budget. The Senate budget has something else going for it: Gov. Janet Napolitano has said she'd sign it. We doubt that holds true for the House budget.

We feel kinda sorry for the members of the Senate and the Democrats in the House. But we've got little sympathy for the 31 Republicans who voted for the House budget out of misplaced loyalty to the speaker. They've only got themselves to blame as the session drags on and on and on ...