Last night's LD17 Democrats meeting

A brief summary...

...Todd Landfried, the Executive Director of the Maricopa County Democratic Party gave a presentation about the state of MCDP and its goals for the upcoming election cycle. He's been giving this presentation to the various LDs throughout the county; it was substantially the same as the one he gave to LD8 in February. That write-up is here.

...On May 24, the LD17 Dems' Issues Committee will be putting on a health care forum at the Granite Reef Senior Center in Scottsdale with speakers from a number of groups making presentations. The public is invited to this non-partisan forum; I'll have more details as we get closer to the date of the event.

Genie Zavaleta and Danny Rodriguez gave a presentation on the DREAM Act, recently reintroduced in Congress (HR1275). In short, the bill, if passed and signed into law, would allow the U.S.-raised children of illegal immigrants to receive education benefits, including state residency status for tuition purposes. The bill would also help such children gain permanent residency immigration status if they had completed at least 2 years of higher education or served at least 2 years in the military.

Note: The STRIVE Act, HR 1645, is a more comprehensive act that incorporates the DREAM Act but also covers much more.

Note2: The DREAM Act has been introduced in the Senate as S774.

The DREAM Act is rooted in the plight of the "Wilson 4"; four students from AZ that were brought to the U.S. as small children, who, after doing standout work in high school and being invited to attend a solar-powered boat competition in New York in 2002, were detained when they asked about viewing Niagra Falls from the Canadian side of the border.

More Wilson 4 coverage here (NPR).

Genie and Danny urged us all to contact our Congressfolk to urge passage of the DREAM Act. It should be noted that AZ Congressmen Grijalva and Pastor, as well as Senator McCain, have already signed on as cosponsors of their respective chambers' version of the Act. [Don't expect much help on this from McCain other than attaching his name to the bill - he's not in D.C. most of the time these days, anyway. :) ]

...David Schwartz, treasurer of the LD17 Dems, announced that on April 20, he and his wife Kathy will be hosting a fundraising dinner to benefit efforts to remove land mines worldwide as part of the "Night of a Thousand Dinners". I don't have contact info for him (oops. Sorry about that), but if interested, contact district chair Doug Mings at dougmings[at]gmail.com and he'll be able to put you in contact with Kathy and David.

...State Representatives David Schapira and Ed Ableser gave a brief legislative update. The highlight was the second defeat of HB2382, a bill to raise the fees charged to teachers for state-mandated tests. As I wrote last month, this bill was originally defeated on the day that Bob Mings and I shadowed Rep. Schapira. However, it was brought back two days later by Rep. Konopnicki.

It was defeated by an even greater margin the second time around. :)

...Bad news department: Laura Knaperek may be gone from the legislature, but she hasn't gone away. She's now the executive director of an organization called "United Families International." Among other things, this organization opposes UN efforts to outlaw forced marriage and gender-selective infanticide.

Interesting, if somewhat hypocritical, stances for an organization (and an ED!) that touts itself as "pro-family" and "pro-life".

Later!