The Arizona Legislature: 2010 preview

The next session of the Arizona Legislature is shaping up to be a lot like the last session, only more so.

...One of the harbingers of the discord took form last December, even before the session started. In a major surprise, the House Republican caucus deposed Jim Weiers as Speaker, installing Mesa Republican Kirk Adams in his place. According to the R blog Sonoran Alliance, there's a possibility that Weiers is going to try to return the favor, but don't hold your breath. It will probably be a year, and by then, the Democrats will be in charge. (Hey, I freely admit I put the "partisan" in "partisan hack." :) )

...Adams pledged to have a "transparent" process. Yet by the end of his first few weeks in his new position, the pattern had already been set - GOP leadership (Adams, Senate President Burns, Governor Brewer) would nestle themselves behind closed doors and negotiate budget packages that catered to the whims of their own caucus' membership while ignoring the input and ideas of Democratic legislators and even average constituents. Then they would present those packages for a public vote, passing them with only Republican votes and no real public hearings (Approps committee hearings with minimal notice don't qualify a "real." No matter how loudly the Rs claim that they do.)

By the time the Fifth Special Session of the lege rolled around in December of this year, they weren't even bothering with the pretense.

And still not getting the job done.

Anyway, to sum up the 2009 legislative session: Things started off badly, and went straight downhill from there.

First, some summaries of the 2009 session of the lege that are more neutral and dispassionate than mine -

Arizona School Boards Association



Arizona Capitol Times



Arizona Catholic Conference (OK, these folks are less "dispassionate" and more "really, really, really conservative)

Arizona Municipal Water Users Association

(State of) Arizona Land Management Department

A tax law firm's summary for CPAs

Arizona Game and Fish Department

Arizona Department of Health Services



Arizona Department of Revenue



Arizona Department of Insurance



Arizona Department of Transportation



Grand Canyon Chapter of the Sierra Club





Now that the "neutral" part of the post is over, on to the more partisan part - the 2010 predictions...


2009 Legislator of the Year, Arizona Capitol Times version: Rep. Ray Barnes (R-LD7)

2009 Legislator of the Year, County Supervisors Association of Arizona version: Sen. Sylvia Allen (R-LD5)

2010 Legislators of the Year, Random Musings version, or "Legislators who should stay away from cameras if they want a chance at being repeat winners of more mainstream awards" - Ray "Bisexual Principals" Barnes and Sylvia "5000 Years" Allen.

Not to be confused with the Legislative Loon Award, which is based on bill filings, this one is based on crazy utterances. While other contenders are certain to step up (Russell Pearce, John Kavanagh, Jack Harper, et al,) those two seem to have a lock on the award.


Most likely area of contention: What else? The budget. They haven't finished the current year's budget, which will take up the first few weeks of the new session, and hopefully no more than that. After that, they will start work on the FY2011 budget, which looks to have a deficit that's even larger than this year's. And most of the one-time fixes will have been used up already.


Bad bill most likely to make a comeback, non-revenue category: Guns in schools. A version directed at universities and community colleges has already been filed for next year's session, so a K-12 version can't be far behind.

Bad bill most likely to make a comeback, revenue category: Repeal of the equalization tax. The Rs have made it clear that they want to destroy public education in Arizona; getting rid of a dedicated revenue source for public education is a step in that direction.

Good bill most likely to pass: None. There may be a few "harmless" bills ("technical corrections" and the like), but nothing good is expected to come out of next year's legislative session...making it a lot like this year's session.


Institutional memory, elected/insider category: Rep. Jack Brown (D-LD5). First entered the lege in 1963, before many of his colleagues were potty-trained (and in more than a few cases, before they were born) and has served continuously since 1987. Has more knowledge and wisdom than most of the rest of the lege combined. Norman Moore, Chief Clerk of the House, was in contention for this one, but after three decades of service, he has retired to go into the private sector as a lobbyist.

Institutional memory, "outsider" category: Howard Fischer of Capitol Media Services. He *is* Capitol Media Services, working as its sole employee. Every media outlet in the state uses his stories. Has been covering the Capitol for more than a quarter century. "Outsider" is in quotes because with his longevity, he isn't really an outsider, but he doesn't work for the lege, so he falls into this category.


Legislator most likely to piss off his own caucus: Who else could it be, but Sen. Ron Gould? With his stomping out of his own party's Governor's speech and spending the spring, summer, and fall working to scuttle any balanced budget deals, he's had this one sewn up for months. The runner up, and the House's "winner": Rep. Sam Crump. A second-termer, he was briefly stripped of a committee chairmanship early in the 2009 session for trying to out-harsh his own Speaker, Kirk Adams. He had been "exploring" a run for AG, challenging State Superintendent of Public of Instruction Tom Horne and (rumored) Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas. He has announced that he is seeking reelection to the House, however. Democrat Jack Brown could gain some traction in this category because he is easily the most conservative Democrat in the legislature, but there is so much respect and affection for him that no one really objects when his votes don't always gibe with his caucus-mates'.

Legislator most likely to piss on the other caucus: One could make a case for most (though not all) of the Rs in this category, but the hands-down winner in this category is our old friend, Sen. Jack Harper. A complete list of his credentials for this award would take up the rest of the post, but the highlight of his year was when he equated legislative Democrats with a pre-Iraq War Saddam Hussein and the ruling Sunnis in Iraq.

Legislator most likely to claim at one point to only follow the "will of the voters" while at another point to claim that the "will of the voters" is meaningless: Russell Pearce. Basically, it all matters if he agrees with the "will of the voters." If the matters under discussion are nativist measures approved via referendum, he believes that the voters are brilliant; if the matters under discussion are voter-mandated social spending, he thinks they are misguided, or worse, and seeks to overturn the Voter Protection Act so that he can kill all social spending in AZ.

Christmas Day 2009 - Grand Canyon

All pics taken by a certain blogger... :)

Apparently, bigotry, deception, and lies don't the holidays off

Yes, I know that said "no political posts" but some things just cry out for a response...and since they don't have to take holidays off from their spewings I don't have to take time out from criticizing those spewings...

Sonoran Alliance has a Russell Pearce-penned op-ed piece up regarding his opinions on the ongoing legal battles between Maricopa County officials, the county court system and the Dynamic Duo (Sheriff Joe Arpaio and County Attorney Andrew Thomas) with the Arizona Bar Association thrown in for good measure.

The piece is standard winger tripe - everything that ails Maricopa County is the fault of liberal judges and lawyers...and, of course, undocumented immigrants.

All would be fine if folks would just get out of the way of fine upstanding public servants like Andrew Thomas while he wages his jihads against liberals...and, of course, undocumented immigrants.

In a somewhat surprising development (surprising that it happened so quickly, not that it happened), Pearce aimed most of his rhetorical salvos at Maricopa County Superior Court Presiding Judge Barbara Mundell and retired Arizona Chief Justice Ruth McGregor, the newly-appointed special master brought in to oversee the court cases between Thomas/Arpaio and the county's judges and other elected officials.

While Arpaio and Thomas and their supporters (a group that counts Pearce as one of its leaders) were certain to object to the appointment of an independent special master to oversee all of the many court cases involving county and court officials that have been brought by Thomas and Arpaio. I just thought that even *they* would take the rest of the week off from their campaign of bigotry, deceptions, and outright lies.

I was wrong (mark this date down :) ).

From the piece:

While I have worked with Former Chief Justice Ruth McGregor and I like her and feel she is very competent, she certainly has the appearance of conflict, she was who appointed Superior Court Presiding Judge Barbara Rodriquez Mundell (a focus of the investigation) to her position and worked with her for the past several years. (By the way phantastic she is a Democrat).

So let's see, in one sentence (and one parenthetical phrase): he implied a conflict of interest on the parts of both judges (telling readers that neither of them can be trusted while shifting the conversation away from Thomas' and Arpaio's misdeeds), stressed a Hispanic name (telling his fellow nativists that Judge Mundell is one of "them"), and drops in Chief Justice McGregor's voter registration (aka - telling fellow Rs that she isn't "one of us").

That's pretty efficient use of a single sentence, but old hat for an experienced demagogue like Pearce.

We're stuck with Arpaio and Thomas for another three years (barring resignations to run for higher office or federal investigations/indictments/convictions), but we can start making a change next year by electing officials (lege, Governor, etc.) who don't see their primary duty as running interference for the Dynamic Duo.

That's something that would make Christmas 2010 joyous for people who respect the rule of law in Maricopa County.

Public Hearing on KidsCare enrollment cap

On Tuesday, December 29, AHCCCS will be holding a public hearing on the enrollment cap that Governor Brewer has ordered for KidsCare.

From the public notice for the hearing:

KidsCare Program Enrollment Cap

Due to Arizona’s fiscal crisis, AHCCCS can no longer ensure the availability of adequate funding to support further growth in the KidsCare program. As a result, AHCCCS will implement an enrollment cap for the KidsCare program effective January 1, 2010.

AHCCCS will be holding a public hearing regarding the KidsCare Enrollment Cap, where written and oral comments can be submitted. Below is information on the location and time of the public hearing:

AHCCCS Administration
701 E. Jefferson, Gold Room
Phoenix, Arizona
December 29, 2009
10:00 a.m. – 11:30 p.m.

Other locations that will be set up for participation via teleconference are:

ALTCS: Arizona Long-term Care System
1010 N. Finance Center Drive, Suite 201
Tucson, AZ 85710

DAHL /Office of Special Investigations
2721 N. 4th street, Suite 23
Flagstaff, AZ 86004

The public information sheet is here; AHCCCS' letter on this topic to the Governor and leadership in the legislature is here.

Not exactly a Christmas-y post, but whatthehell - lumps of coal are a part of Christmas lore as much as tinsel and trees and such.

And lumps of coal are exactly what Brewer, Burns, and Adams deserve this year...

Twas The Night Before Christmas...

The bustling metropolis of Tusayan, Arizona, flooded with last-minute shoppers and holiday revelers...or not. :)

Clement Clark Moore's classic story is available here, courtesy the Mount Pleasant Daily Tribune (TX).

Stupid Human Tricks

Not of the David Letterman variety, of the "guns and booze" variety...

I was going to write about the appointment (document courtesy AZCentral.com) of retired AZ Chief Justice Ruth McGregor as "special master" to oversee the myriad court cases involving various Maricopa County officials, which all seem to have Andrew Thomas and Joe Arpaio as the complainants or complainees (aka whiners or whinees), but I'm trying to avoid hardcore political posting for the next few days.

So I'm left with this -

Also from AZCentral.com -

Gilbert man shows off gun, shoots finger

A Gilbert man proved once again early Wednesday morning that guns and alcohol don't mix.

Ryan Maes, 33, told police that he and a friend had been drinking and playing video games about 2 a.m. when he accidentally shot himself in the finger with a .40 caliber pistol.

To the 59 legislators (54 of them Republicans) who voted for the "guns in bars" bill during the last session, and the governor (also an R) who signed it:

Guns and booze don't mix.

Never did and never will, no matter how much the backslappers at last summer's NRA convention told you otherwise.

And they probably did it after a couple of cocktails.

Happy Holidays to all...

Posting will be light to intermittent until after New Year's, so I wanted to take this opportunity to wish all members of the Random Musings reader community a joyous and safe holiday season.

It's been a long, eventful, and often acrimonious year, and next year is shaping up to be more of the same. We can take a moment (OK, a couple of weeks) to step back, catch our breaths, and appreciate the good things that have happened this year. (Not gonna list those, because this post isn't about starting an argument. There will be plenty of time for that later. :) )

So whether you celebrate Christmas, Chanukah, Ramadan, Kwanzaa, winter solstice, 359th Day of the Year, or nothing at all, may you enjoy the season.

See you soon...

Pic courtesy ehow.com

Jan Brewer: "I surrender"

Arizona's Governor Jan Brewer held an "emergency" meeting of her cabinet on Monday.

There, her agency heads and the press were treated to this presentation on the state's budget crisis (summary: we're hosed).

Her address to those gathered before her is here.

She announced a number of unilateral moves to address the budget shortfall.

From the address -

Therefore, at my personal direction, the following steps will be taken immediately:

ONE: I am ordering my budget office to work with each of you to develop additional contingency plans in anticipation of additional agency reductions and to adjust spending allotments accordingly.

TWO: I am also ordering agencies to transfer monies out of all eligible special line items to ensure that they have sufficient funds to cover mandatory expenditures.

THREE: I am asking the Department of Education and the Board of Regents to notify school districts and universities to prepare for additional payment deferrals later in the year, beyond those already budgeted.

FOURTH, I am ordering the Arizona Department of Corrections to return to the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”) -- as soon as possible -- all non-violent criminal aliens as is allowed under existing law.

{snip}

FIVE: I am restating my Arizonans-only directives to state agencies to ensure that public benefits are only provided to those who are legally in this country and reside in this state.

{snip]

SIX: I am asking ALL directors with discretionary programs to provide me with a list of non-mandatory programs that can be capped due to a lack of funding.

While many of these programs are important, and their freeze will be heartbreaking and difficult for many Arizona families, the Legislature simply has not committed enough funding for their continuation and we must divert resources to the programs that ARE mandated.

Starting today, I am implementing a wait list for KidsCare, the children’s health insurance program at AHCCCS. There will be a hard cap on childcare assistance wait lists at DES.

{snip}

SEVEN: In order to sustain the most critical services, I am asking all citizens receiving state services to contribute more toward their benefits. Effective immediately, agencies are to implement means testing and sliding fee schedules to ensure the neediest among us receive the most help.

EIGHT, I am taking immediate steps to enhance the management of our state’s cash flow. On your desks you will find instructions to change the processing of state warrants.

{snip}

NINE: I am establishing a Privatization Commission to expand the use of private sector services in state government. This commission will be charged with developing best practices, identifying areas of state government appropriate for privatization and developing plans for the implementation of privatization solutions. Privatization done properly will help the state reduce operational costs, improve service delivery and quality, and lead to innovation.

And FINALLY: In the first week of the New Year, I will be convening the legislative leadership of both parties. I will not be asking for theories, or for a vote count of what might or might not work politically. I will ask for honest, comprehensive and TIMELY solutions to the current budget deficit.

Now, while most of the MSM attention is going to the part about deporting imprisoned undocumented immigrants, that's already done under existing law.

What really should get the attention of most folks are her plans for capping enrollment for KidsCare and other safety net programs, screwing with state aid to all schools and privatizing government.

Let's sum up here: she's dealing with the legislature's failure to balance the budget because some of the most extreme members of her own already extreme caucus felt that the budget proposals before the lege weren't draconian enough. They embarrassed her and their own leaders by scuttling anything resembling a proposal that didn't dismantle the state's social safety net, public education system, and Arizona government itself.

So what does she propose?

Giving the nuttiest of the nuts *exactly* what they wanted all along.

Why do I think that the last of her ideas, the one about talking to legislative leadership "of both parties" isn't going to work, especially since the nuts have just learned that their political bullying tactics have worked?


BTW - Brewer makes a show of asking for "honest, comprehensive and TIMELY solutions to the current budget deficit."

Funny, but just such things were offered to her months ago by the Democrats in the lege - http://www.strongerarizona.com/.

She and her Republican associates in the lege haven't been interested in real solutions before this, and there's no evidence that they are really interested now.


Coverage from the AZ Capitol Times here; Howard Fischer of Capitol Media has coverage here, courtesy the East Valley Tribune; Arizona Republic coverage here; Phoenix New Times coverage here.

The coming week...

As usual, all info gathered from the websites of the relevent political bodies/agencies (except where noted), and subject to change without notice...

This will be a quick post, mostly because almost everybody is on a holiday schedule this week. Meaning that almost nothing will be happening.

...Having said that, let's start off with the highest profile exception to that statement, the U.S. Senate. They'll be in session most of the week, considering health care reform (LA Times). Expectations are that a final vote will be taken by Christmas, meaning that the bill won't go to conference committee until after the new year as the House is adjourned for the holidays. (Actually, there's a session planned for Wednesday, but that seems to be a pro forma session. I'll update if that changes.) The Senate's committee schedule is here; there's only one committee scheduled to meet this week - Judiciary on Thursday.

...Back here in AZ, the Arizona Corporation Commission has a Securities and Utilities meeting scheduled for Tuesday. Agenda here. The ACC's full hearing schedule is here. It's a light one.

...The Arizona Board of Regents isn't meeting this week. However, they are looking for a President of the Board.

...The Tempe City Council isn't meeting this week, but their Council Calendar is here. There's one item on it this week - a holiday open house on Tuesday at 9 a.m.

...The Scottsdale City Council isn't meeting this week, but the Community Meeting Notice is here. Summary: there's nothing scheduled this week. You might think that there is a holiday or something coming up. :)

...Everybody else isn't going to meet this week: Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, Boards of Directors of the Central Arizona Project and the Maricopa Integrated Health System, Governing Board of the Maricopa County Community College District, Citizens Clean Elections Commission, Arizona State Legislature.


Have a happy and safe Christmas everybody, even Republicans...and a certain Libertarian commenter! :))

Et tu, Steve?

During Saturday's debate in the House on the latest round of budget cuts, things got a little heated, with Democrats and Republicans criticizing each for various things. Mostly the Republicans were trying pin the blame for the state's finances on the Democrats, the group that has been totally shut out of almost all discussions at the lege this year, while the Democrats were having none of it.

Most of it was stuff that we have heard before, with just a little more rancor than usual (apparently, the idea of having to work on the Saturday before Christmas on matters that should have been dealt with by the end of June put the legislators in a less than "seasonally cheery" mood. What a shock. :) )

Time permitting, I'll cover some of those gems in a later post after the lege has posted the video of today's session.

However, one utterance caught my ear and then my eye when Howard Fischer of Capitol Media Services included it in his piece on Saturday's happenings at the lege.

From the article, courtesy VerdeNews.com -

Rep. Steve Yarbrough, R-Chandler, said the Democrats voted against every spending reduction that came to the floor, not just this session but earlier this year.

"It may politically expedient to say, 'I voted against the cuts,' ' Yarbrough said. "But that is political gamesmanship, not statesmanship.'

This from one of the people most responsible for the state's mess, what with his devotion to his STO and protecting its ability to siphon revenue from the state into his pockets and his signing on to Grover Norquist's "no taxes" pledge.

Yarbrough, along with almost all of his Republican colleagues, haven't just voted against all attempts to address revenue (and not just taxes), including the "passing of the buck," a referral of a sale tax increase to the ballot, they've simply refused to even consider them.

How about we change his statement to -

"It may be politically expedient to say 'I voted against the taxes.' But that is political gamesmanship, not statesmanship."

Change a couple of words, and Yarbrough's statement is true, but truth was never a part of the special session agenda for Yarbrough and his friends. Gamesmanship was.

On the other hand, gamesmanship and ideological rigidity may be what passes for "statesmanship" in today's GOP.

Yarbrough is one of the leaders of the gang that has sacrificed fiscal sanity and legislative professionalism on the altar of "political gamesmanship."

If he wants to assess blame for the toxic atmosphere and culture of ineffectiveness at the Capitol, that is his prerogative.

He just needs to be looking in a mirror when he's pointing fingers.

Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends

In this case, "the show" refers to the state's ongoing fiscal crisis and the refusal of the Governor and the Republican leadership to open their eyes to the reality of the depth of the state's problems.

Today, the House passed $193 million in budget cuts in a bill that the Governor is expected to sign. After that, they adjourned the Fifth Special Session of the lege so that they could all make it home for Christmas. (AZ Capitol Times coverage here.)

The next act in the show will take place on Monday morning at 9. That's the time that the Governor has set for an "emergency" meeting of her cabinet.

In an unusual move, the cabinet meeting will be open to the press (I'm pretty sure that does *not* include wiseass "intrepid" bloggers :) ).

Normal practice has been to hold cabinet meetings and then issue press releases/do coordinated interviews afterward. All this means is that Paul Senseman and the rest of the Governor's communications staff are hard at work today writing up a script for the meeting...instead of its aftermath.

I've got a couple of phone calls out about the special session and the Governor's set piece scheduled for Monday, but the people that I've reached don't have any info about the cabinet meeting or are out doing non-AZ government stuff, like spending time with their families and friends.

Sounds like some crazy priorities, but whaddya expect on a Saturday? :)

Later...

And the race is on...

...for the most coveted annual award in blogdom, the Random Musings Legislative Loon Award...

Perhaps the challenge of upstart Legislative Loon candidate Judy Burges has served to inspire previous winners Jack Harper and Russell Pearce, but they are getting an early start on their efforts to regain the title (last year's award went to the entire Republican caucus).

They've teamed up on a couple of pretty rancid pieces of "legislation."

One is SCR1006, a proposed amendment to the AZ Constitution to repeal the right of folks to sue to recover damages in the event of death or injury. This is the localized AZ expression of the GOP's obeisance to the insurance industry.

AKA the "their constituents aren't as important to them as are big business lobbying groups" act.

The other is SB1011, a bill to complete the "turning Arizona into an armed encampment" trifecta that they started last year. Last session they passed guns in cars and guns in bars. Next session, they will be trying for guns in schools. Specifically, SB1o11 would allow faculty members to carry concealed weapons on the campus of their university or community college.

If this one passes, students should duck if they show up to class late... as should Appropriations chairs who visit the campuses of the universities whose budgets they are gutting.

In normal years, this kind of nuttiness would barely rate a line, much less an entire post, but given the train wreck of a session this past session and the obvious lack of focus on the parts of Pearce and Harper and the other GOPers on addressing the state's worsening fiscal crisis in the coming session, the complete fiscal insolvency of Arizona looms ever more likely.

Legislative Republicans: Still more interested in partisanship than in professionalism

They are sure to gripe that their Democratic counterparts are the hyperpartisan ones, that they are engaging in dilatory tactics for no good reason (no, the Rs don't think that legislators and the public having time to read the bills before the lege is a good reason), but they "doth protest too much."

The proof is in the numbers.

From SB1001 of the Fifth Special Session -

General Fund cuts and fund sweeps from the Attorney General's office: $8,195,500.

GF cuts and fund sweeps from the House, Senate, and the other constitutional offices (Governor, Treasurer, Superintendent of Public Ed, Secretary of State, and Mine Inspector): $2,153,000.

In other words, the Democrat-occupied AG's office is taking a hit that is more than 3.8 times larger than the other constitutional officers and the House and Senate.

Even when adding in cuts to two agencies under control of the lege, the Auditor General and Joint Legislative Budget Committee ($1.34 million and $200K, respectively), that ratio stays above 2.2X.


Bottom line - the Governor and the Republican leadership in the lege still don't take this stuff seriously.

Jan Brewer could be a placekicker for the Buffalo Bills

...because she has the "wide right" part of the job down pat already...

I was going to title this post "Does A Special Session Make A Noise In The Woods If It Doesn't Do Anything?" but that was too long and snarky, and God knows I could never be accused of "snarkiness."

:-)

Anyway, it's looking more and more like tomorrow's 5th Special Session of the Arizona Legislature (in 2009 alone!) has already fizzled.

Mary Jo Pitzl at the Arizona Republic's Political Insider is reporting that they don't have the votes, even with some Dems crossing over, to pass anything through the House.

Mary Reinhart of The Arizona Guardian (subscription required) confirms this, but writes that the session is going forward anyway. Of course, as Tedski at Rum, Romanism, Rebellion advises, Brewer's call for a special session can't be rescinded, so they have to meet, pray, pledge, collect their per diems, and go home for the holidays. Maybe take some time to work on a few bills for next session, drop off campaign paperwork at the SOS' office, or just generally schmooze with people they last saw so many months weeks days ago.

Anyway, if any changes happen, I'll write about them tomorrow after work...or you can just read about it at Tedski's site. :)

Have a good night!

Health care reform: It's not time to get out the tar and feathers...yet

Desert Beacon in Nevada puts it far better than I can here...but that's not going to stop me from trying anyway. :)

Most of the recent developments regarding health care reform in the Senate have been disheartening to those of us who support substantive reform.

Between Joe Lieberman behaving as if he is relevant, the death of a single-payer plan, and the way that the Senate plan has morphed from a plan to "reform" health care to a plan to "enhance" insurance industry profits, it's easy to be discouraged.

Don't be, not yet anyway.

This whole mess still has to go to conference committee to be merged with the bill that passed the House.

What is more important than the Senate bill is the final bill, the one that reaches the President's desk.

Many people in the center and on the left may not understand that, but you can be sure that the Republicans understand it all too well. They are less interested in seeing that a "bad" bill passes the Senate than in seeing *no* bill pass the Senate.

They know that it is easier to fix the shortcomings in a bad program than to start one from scratch (witness the months-long kerfluffle over health care reform).

Now is the time for all of us to contact our representatives in Congress again (I know a couple of office staffers who aren't going to be happy about that line :)) ) and let them know that the only acceptable reform is real reform, not an insurance industry wish list. Let them know that their constituents need them to stand strong in supporting substantive reform.

We've given up on single-payer (with all due respect to Senator Sanders, his amendment was never going to pass even if he hadn't withdrawn it). but a non-mandatory public option is a must, and it's a reasonable compromise.

Well, "reasonable" to most anyone who doesn't work for the insurance industry, like Jon Kyl, John McCain, and Joe Lieberman (ok, so it's Lieberman''s wife who works for the industry. He works for her.)

We can get that in conference, but first, we have to *get* to a conference committee.

For that, we need the Senate to pass *something.*


Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords (CD8) can be contacted via this online form.

Congressman Raul Grijalva (CD7) can be contacted here.

Congresswoman Ann Kirkpatrick (CD1) can be reached here.

Congressman Harry Mitchell (CD5) has a contact form here.

Congressman Ed Pastor (CD4) can be reached via this generic House contact form.

I'm not bothering to list the contact info for any of the Arizona Republicans in the House or Senate. They've all made it clear that they are opposed to any form of health care reform, or at least any that isn't structured to increase insurance company profits and reduce choice for average Americans. If you want to contact them, then use a search engine to find their official websites and work from there.