A brief Pearce family history

Presented without comments because none are needed.

From the Phoenix New Times' Feathered Bastard, written by Stephen Lemons -

State Senate President-elect Russell Pearce's son Joshua Trent Pearce was recently under investigation by the Mesa Police Department for allegations of possible child abuse.


Mesa PD spokesman Sgt. Ed Wessing confirmed that police responded to a call December 10 from Banner Desert Medical Center regarding a nine day-old baby girl, the daughter of Joshua Pearce and his wife Samantha.

According to Wessing, hospital staff told police that the child had a skull fracture, and that the parents' explanation of how the fracture may have occurred did not jibe with the severity of the injury.

{snip}

Today, Wessing informed me that no charges would be forthcoming.


"The Mesa Police Department will not be submitting criminal charges in this case," Wessing told me via e-mail. "At this time we do not have sufficient probable cause to charge Mr. Pearce in this case."

{snip}

This is not Josh Pearce's first brush with the law. In 2006, he was arrested by the Mesa PD for a DUI, while driving on a suspended license. He told police that he was a regular user of marijuana, but that he no longer drank alcohol because of a previous DUI.


In the car with him was Samantha and their then five day-old child Wyatt.

{snip}

His job was listed as "roofer." Court documents described his last known address as being 1247 East Inca Street in Mesa, the same listed on state Senator Russell Pearce's campaign finance reports with the Arizona Secretary of State.


Wessing stated that Josh Pearce now has a different Mesa address on file.

In 2007, the County Attorney's Office hit Josh Pearce with two felony counts of aggravated DUI. Josh pleaded guilty to one count in a deal with prosecutors and received five years probation.

Russell Pearce himself is no stranger to allegations of domestic abuse. In 2008, I revealed the existence of a marriage dissolution petition filed by Pearce's wife LuAnne in 1980, which alleged physical abuse at the hands of her husband.

It reads in part, "Further, the husband, RUSSELL KEITH PEARCE, is possessed of a violent temper, and has from time to time hit and shoved the wife, the last time being on February 3 [1980], when he grabbed the wife by the throat and threw her down."

The Pearces were ultimately reconciled and remain married to this day.

{snip}

Josh Pearce was born in November of 1980, around nine months following the document's filing.


Also in 2008, I blogged about a 1974 police report that stated Pearce, then a young sheriff's deputy, busted down the door of his first wife Karen. Karen and Russell were divorced the same year. No charges were ever filed in that incident.

A similar summary from David Safier at Blog for Arizona can be found here.

Note: I generally don't quote other writers' work this extensively (preferring to quote a paragraph or two and link to the entire piece), but I feel it is appropriate in this case as Mr. Lemons has done a far better job of succinctly documenting the Pearce family's activities than I could.

2010 Ebbie Awards

...sort of patterned after Keith Olbermann's "Worst Persons In The World" segment on his nightly show...


Second Runner-Up -

Unnamed personnel from the Maryland Department of Natural Resources.

From Treehugger.com -

Photo: U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service - Northeast Region

To many people, Jim Hart and Khalil Abusakran are heroes. When the two men from Maryland, saw a deer stranded in the icy waters of the Patapsco River, they did what few others would dare. With an inflatable boat, the duo ventured out and rescued the animal before it perished in the frozen stream. But, after they and the deer returned to shore, it wasn't a hero's reception that awaited them -- instead, the two men were slapped with fines for not having life-jackets aboard their vessel.

I freely admit, I'm not sure I would have done the same thing - venturing out into freezing water to save a deer - I'm just not that brave.  Or foolish (hopefully :) ).  However, the act of the the officers of the MD Department of Natural Resources, fining these two men for doing something that the DNR officers refused to do, merits Christmas Eve visits from the Ghosts of Bambi Past, Present, and Future (and I don't mean the kind of "Bambi" who brings her own stripper pole, either :) ).


First Runner-Up -

Arizona Senator John McCain.

From Politico's Daily Beast -

Railing against Don't Ask Don't Tell, shooting down an immigration bill he once sponsored, pushing his own changes to START—the tougher John McCain who emerged in the primaries may be here to stay.


{snip}

Conversations with friends, advisers, and analysts reveal McCain as a man still angry at his 2008 presidential loss, fueling his desire to remain in the spotlight and an important part of the debate, even on issues where he is out of step with the majority of Americans.

For taking his anger out on gay and lesbian servicemembers, 9/11 first responders, foreign policy, DREAMers, and still doing nothing to actually represent Arizona in D.C., McCain earns a visit from the Ghosts of Mavericks Past.

Obviously, the Maverick is already gone, so there's no Present or Future Mavericks around to make some visits.



And the "winner" is...

Arizona Governor Jan Brewer

There was consideration of making this a group award, also giving it to Russell Pearce and the rest of the Republican caucus in the legislature.  Most of the wave of nastiness emanating from West Washington these days gets its start in the R caucus room, but Brewer is the one who has taken it national and has ridden the wave all the way to a full term on the 9th floor.

Latest example (and there are many examples - could have gone with imagined headless bodies in the desert, actual bodies due to BrewerCare, her ties to private prison lobbyists), blaming the tepid health care reform package passed by Congress earlier this year for her inability to balance Arizona's budget for the last two years -

Heading into a new year with a new Legislature and a new Congress, the primary area of budget focus for Arizona will be our need for action by the federal government on "Obamacare."


If our state budget is to be balanced, it will require action by Congress and the White House. They must provide flexibility to states so we have the ability to create sustainable Medicaid programs.

For her shameless leadership of the hate brigade, Jan's Christmas Eve visitors will be the ghosts of Cecilia Esquer (a long-time civil rights champion and Chicana activist), Mark Price (the first victim to succumb to her cutting off AHCCCS benefits to transplant patients) and Gary and Linda Haas (the couple murdered in New Mexico by escapees from one of the private prisons championed by Brewer and her advisers/lobbyists).

Later...

It's official - Arizona will gain a seat in Congress in 2012

Confirming something that was already widely expected, as a result of the 2010 Census Arizona will gain a 9th seat in the U.S. Congress.

The new apportionment map is here (state numbers only; actual districts will be mapped out in the coming year.)

Having 9 seats in the House will put Arizona on the same footing as...

Massachusetts, which is losing a seat (one of the Ds who is going to lose his seat will run for challenge Scott Brown for a seat in the Senate)

Indiana (no change)

Tennessee (no change)

...And ahead of those with eight seats...

Missouri (losing a seat)

Minnesota

Wisconsin

12 seats in Congress switched states.

While the population of the country, and hence its Congressional representation, in concentrated in the East (as in "east of Texas), all of the states that lost a seat in Congress are also in the East (particularly in the Northeast and Rust Belt), and all of the states that gained a seat are in the West or deep South.

The big gainers were Texas (+4) and Florida (+2); Ohio and New York each lost two seats to lead that list.

The only state in the deep South that lost a seat was Louisiana.  That wasn't a surprise due to the mass exodus from the state in the wake of the Hurricane Katrina disaster/post-disaster debacle.

A map showing population percentage change by state is here.  The only state that showed a net loss in population was Michigan (- 0.6%).  Texas gained the most population numerically (nearly 4.3 million) while Nevada gained the most population as a percentage of its 2000 population (~35%).

More information here.


Tying this back into the ginned-up controversy over the yet-to-be-formed Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission (AIRC), it wouldn't be surprising if the motives of Kirk Adams and Russell Pearce (for trying to mess with the independence of the "Independent" commission) went beyond base partisanship.

The general expectations are that the new CD will be carved out in the East Valley area of Maricopa County due to the growth there and the fact that the current CD6 is already one of the largest (in terms of population) in the country.

Both Pearce and Adams are from the East Valley area of Maricopa County (Mesa, to be specific).

Pearce has already "explored" a run for Congress once, and most observers expect that Adams is going to make a run for Congress at some point.

The recent histrionics coming from them have the all of the hallmarks of a play to put someone on the commission who is friendly to their personal political interests, not just the Republican Party's.

BTW - to anybody who might view what I just wrote as an "attack" on Pearce and/or Adams:  It isn't.  It's just an observation and some speculation.  It's not like they invented the concept, either; it's been around as long as redistricting has.

North Indian Bend Wash Superfund Site Update: Community Meeting In February

Just received an email from Vicki Rosen, the EPA's Community Involvement Coordinator for the North Indian Bend Wash Superfund Site (NIBW) -

Hello everyone and Happy Holidays!


We've got our next CIG meeting scheduled for Wednesday, February 9, 2011. It will be held at the Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts--Stage 2 on the Main Floor. The Center is located at 7380 E. Second Street. The meeting will start at 5:30 pm and last until about 7:30.

Specific agenda items will be sent out in advance as we get closer to the meeting date. I will also send out a printed flyer on the meeting by mail to our site mailing list.

Looking forward to seeing everyone. Have a wonderful holiday and a very Happy New Year.

Vicki

As we get closer to February 9, more info on the meeting will be posted, but until then, background and history of the NIBW can be found here.

AZ Republic finally reports on burgeoning "Arizona guns in Mexico" scandal

From the Arizona Republic -

The glass entrance to Lone Wolf Trading Co. in an unassuming strip mall near 51st and Peoria avenues, bears target practice posters and a sign: "No loaded weapons in our store."

Multiple model airplanes hang from the ceiling inside. It looked like business as usual as a couple of customers last week glanced at a wall with rifles on display and a shelf with handguns.

Owner Andre Howard did not return calls and was not present when the Republic visited the store for a comment about a recent year-long Washington Post investigation. Lone Wolf ranked eighth among dealers nationwide for selling the most number of firearms (1,515) recovered by police in the last four years. The store also topsdealers with the most traces in the last two years for guns recovered in crime scenes in Mexico. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives traces weapons recovered by law enforcement agencies to where they were sold originally.

The AZ Rep article is a fairly long and detailed on, so why pick on them for it?

The Phoenix New Times covered it a week ago when the Washington Post originally published the results of their investigation.

Maybe their hesitance to cover this particular story has its roots in Arizona's politics, where the majority in the legislature is so crazy about guns that not only are they trying to turn the state's college campuses into armed encampments, they want to force cities and towns to take firearms confiscated from criminals in the U.S. and transfer them to gun dealers for resale.

Something tells me that Russell Pearce, Jack Harper, Jan Brewer, and the rest won't appreciate the irony of a weapon used to kill someone in the U.S. in turn being used to kill someone in Mexico.

Actually, on second thought, they may thoroughly *enjoy* that idea.

New favorite t-shirt

From Zazzle -

Trent Franks: cut from the same intellectual cloth as Jan Brewer

Apparently, Congressman Trent Franks (R-AZ2) has been getting his information from the same impeccable sources as Jan "headless bodies in the desert" Brewer.

From an interview with Franks in the Arizona Republic -

2. Will you be a leader on immigration?

{snip}

Even as the radical Iranian regime grows ever closer to a nuclear-weapons capability, some of the very terrorist organizations that are trained, funded and armed by Iran have increased their activities just miles from our southern border.

Sometimes, one of Arizona's electeds says something so perfectly inane that adding a punch line would be redundant.  And unnecessary.

In a (not) shocking development, Franks didn't offer any evidence to support his statement.

For the sake of journalistic standards, I've got an email out to the Department of Defense's press folks seeking confirmation of Rep. Franks' statement.

I'll update if anything comes through.  Though to be honest, I don't expect anything.

Later...

Final election result: Proposition 112 defeated

From the website of the Arizona Secretary of State -

The statewide recount of Proposition 112 has been successfully completed, with the results certified today by Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Robert Oberbillig.


Those results confirm the defeat of Prop 112, which would have moved up by 60 days the deadline for citizens’ initiative campaigns to submit signature petitions to qualify for the ballot.

The official court filing is here.

The final margin was 194 votes out of 1,585,522 votes cast in the race, or slightly more than 1/100th of 1 percent of the total (0.0122%). 

That's the definition of close.

Later...

Latest Republican attack on Clean Elections under the guise of "free speech"

From the Arizona Capitol Times (subscription required) -

Arizona’s Clean Elections system may rise from the dead just long enough to slap the people who are dancing on its grave.


Rep. Ted Vogt, a Tucson Republican, plans to introduce a bill that would drastically raise the campaign contribution limits for privately funded candidates. But the voter-approved law that created the Clean Elections system may require a three-fourths vote in the Legislature to change the contribution limits, which could slam the door on a proposal that’s certain to face stiff opposition.

Vogt wants to raise the campaign contribution limits for statewide and legislative candidates to match the limits for federal offices (currently $4800/year for humans; unlimited for corporations), but the law approved by the voters that created Clean Elections is standing in the way.  It ties funding limits for "traditionally" financed candidates to the Clean Elections law, which cannot be changed unless passed by a 3/4 vote of the legislature and only if any changes further the intent of the voters.

Given that the Rs despise Clean Elections and want to destroy it, that last seems unlikely to occur.

Lest one thinks that traditionally-financed candidates have taken vows of campaign poverty, consider these numbers, courtesy the AZ Secretary of State's website:

House Speaker Kirk Adams (R-LD19) raised over $190K for his 2010 race

Rep.-elect Ben Arredondo (D-LD17) raised $115K

House candidate Shawnna Bolick (R-LD10) raised $100K

Senate candidate Cheryl Cage (D-LD26) raised $124K

Sen.-elect Adam Driggs (R-LD11) raised $109K

Senate candidate Justin Johnson (D-LD10) raised $137K

Senate candidate Bill Konopnicki (R-LD5) raised $131K

Rep. Eric Meyer (D-LD11) raised $105K

Sen.-elect Michele Reagan (R-LD8) raised $125K

Rep. Nancy Young Wright (D-LD26) raised $120K

There were also a number of candidates who raised between $80K and $100K, but in the interests of brevity, I'm not going to list them all here.  Most of the candidates who raised less than that were either Clean Elections-funded candidates or were unopposed.

In the Cap Times article, Vogt and a talking head from the Goldwater Institute try to portray this as a matter of free speech and Clean Elections and current contribution limits as acting to suppress free speech.

Well, they are entitled to have and express their opinions, but no one that I've spoken to can find the part of the Constitution that protects one's "right" to buy and sell candidates for public office, or the right of candidates to sell themselves to the highest bidder.

And after a careful reading, I can't find such a protection either.

Jan Brewer's approach to balancing the state's budget: Abdicate...responsibility

Sunday's Arizona Republic(-an Party press release outlet) contains an op-ed published under the Governor's name wherein she assesses the reasons for the inability of the state's elected leaders to balance Arizona's budgets.

She looks at previously enacted cuts to...

...the state's work force...

...K-12 education funding...

...University-level education funding...

...prison spending...

...child care enrollees (I think that she is talking about her drastic cuts to KidsCare here)

...and the fact that she, Russell Pearce, and the rest of the Republicans on West Washington will be looking to further decimate education and social safety net programs in the coming year...

And blames the devastating cuts, past and pending, on [drum roll please]...


...the federal health care reform package that was signed into law earlier this year, describing it with the Republican epithet "ObamaCare".


In the op-ed, she blithely ignored...

...the state's increased population over the last decade, requiring an increased, or at least a status-quo, level of services...

...the state's decreased revenues due to both the cratered economy and generations of ideologically-driven but reality-blind tax cuts for corporations and the wealthiest Arizonans...

...years of papering over the state's structural deficits (caused by the blind revenue-cutting) with accounting tricks like pushing back mandated payments (aka - "kicking the can down the road").


This op-ed, probably written by a puppeteer/staffer but published under Brewer's name, clearly signals that she and her R colleagues have no intention of addressing the state's fiscal crisis in a professional and responsible manner, instead choosing to put their efforts into misdirecting attention away from their continued willful ineptitude.


The Arizona GOP: the party that keeps on giving...the finger to the next generation.

Michelle Bachmann (R-MN) named to House Intelligence Committee: write your own punch line

From Politico -

Rep. Michele Bachmann, one of the most outspoken conservatives in the House, has won an appointment to the secretive House Intelligence Committee.

The move by incoming Speaker John Boehner to put Bachmann on the panel surprised Republican insiders, who see her as a fiery grass-roots leader of the tea party movement but not necessarily a leader on national security among House Republicans.

Michele Bachmann, who was noted for her ability to "open mouth, insert foot" long before she hit the D.C. scene, but has elevated her wingnut game since her arrival there.

Things like...

"I wish the American media would take a great look at the views of the people in Congress and find out: Are they pro-America or anti-America?" -Rep. Michelle Bachmann, calling for a new McCarthyism, Oct. 2008

"Carbon dioxide is portrayed as harmful. But there isn't even one study that can be produced that shows that carbon dioxide is a harmful gas." -Rep. Michelle Bachmann, April, 2009

"I don't know where they're going to get all this money because we're running out of rich people in this country." -Rep. Michele Bachmann, accusing the Obama administration of plotting to divert money from Republican to Democratic districts and planning to tax the wealthy to fund the windfalls, Feb. 2009

"I believe that there is a very strong chance that we will see that young people will be put into mandatory service. And the real concerns is that there are provisions for what I would call re-education camps for young people..." Referring to the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act, Apr. 2009

Older Bachmann quotes can be found here and here.

The Last Comic Standing "reality" t.v. show could have a season of shows dedicated to mocking Bachmann and still not exhaust all of the punch-line material that she has provided over the last few years.

And now, she will have access to classified intelligence material.

God help us all...

DADT repeal and the DREAM Act: .500 batting average is great in baseball...

...but it sucks in real life...

John McCain and Jon Kyl, Arizona's Senators, joined the Three Amigos (Congresscritters Flake, Franks, and Shadegg) on the "Lump of coal in their Christmas stockings" list today...not that they weren't already charter members of that not-so-distinguished group. :)

First, the good news: the Senate passed cloture on repeal of the military "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy toward gay and lesbian members of the U.S. armed forces.  The vote there was 63 in favor, 33 opposed.  The move basically sets an end to Senate debate on the measure and allows it to be brought up for a final vote (likely later today).  Passing cloture makes it seem likely that the measure will gain full approval because that will only require a simple majority (51 votes) not the 3/5 support (60 votes) that cloture requires.

Now, the bad news:  by a vote of 55- 41 (60 votes needed to pass), the Senate failed to invoke cloture on the DREAM Act, effectively killing the measure.  If passed, it would have created a path to "legal" immigrant status and possible citizenship for children brought to the U.S. by undocumented immigrants.  That path wouldn't have been an easy one, requiring many things, including attending college here or serving in the U.S. armed forces.  The nativist Rs, aided and abetted by five Democrats (Nelson of NE, Pryor of AR, Tester and Baucus of MT, and Hagan of NC) held sway today, however, turning their backs on the many hard-working and high-achieving residents of the U.S. who were brought to the United States through no choice of their own.

Three Rs did show some character, voting for decency over demagoguery.   Deepest thanks go out to Bennett of UT, Murkowski of AK, and Lugar of IN for their support.

Kyl and McCain showed a remarkable consistency - they were against both measures, voting to undercut members of the military who are honorably serving their country *and* to snub many of their own constituents who have done nothing but help make Arizona's (and America's) society more robust.

In baseball, consistency is good.  A batter who hits .290 every season has the same lifetime average as one who hits .240 and .340 in alternate years, yet the consistent player it considered the better player, one desired by almost every team.

In real life however, as written by Emerson in his essay Self Reliance, "consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines."

Emerson may have been writing nearly a century before McCain or Kyl was born, but it's almost as if he was watching them in action when he wrote his essay.

Flake, Franks, and Shadegg: Protectors of child marriage, not protectors of children

Lost in the hubbub surrounding the culmination of the 2nd Session of the 111th Congress (DREAM Act, DADT, tax cut "compromise", omnibus spending bill, etc.) is the realization that a certain group in D.C. (hereafter referred to by the Randomly chosen mathematical variable "Rs" :) ) is still doing everything that they can to block even the least controversial legislation.

On Thursday, the party of "No" donned its costume for the D.C. Christmas pageant, going with the "Ebenezer" look.  (Call it a "truth in advertising moment").

They spent most of the week voting against nearly *everything.*

In itself, that isn't noteworthy anymore - they've spent the last two years voting against every piece of significant legislation.  The measures that they haven't killed outright, they've blocked as much as possible (except for the infamous tax cuts for the wealthiest 2% of Americans).

However, as the calendar has turned toward the Christmas holiday, and toward the end of the 111th Congress, their partisan obstructionism has turned into petty meanness.

This trend was highlighted Thursday, when the House Republicans killed S. 987, the International Protecting Girls by Preventing Child Marriage Act of 2010.

This bill would have made the ending of child marriage in developing countries a goal of U.S. foreign policy.

The bill should have passed easily, and would have, if House leadership had been able to bring it to the floor under normal procedures.  However, due to the backlog caused by Republican obstruction of everything and the impending end of the 111th Congress, S. 987 was brought up for consideration under "suspension of the rules," meaning that a 2/3 majority vote was required for passage.

The bill was sponsored in the Senate by Dick Durbin and had a bipartisan list of 42 cosponsors, and was approved by the Senate unanimously.  The related House versions of the bill, H.R. 2103 and H.R. 6521 boast more than 120 cosponsors drawn from both sides of the aisle.

With that kind of broad bipartisan support, it should have passed easily (not even Rs have the chutzpah/arrogance to publicly support the practice of forcing young girls to marry men who are two, three, or more times their own age).

Then certain "pro-life" groups started whispering that this bill would cause an increase in abortions, even though abortion, "family planning" or even "reproductive rights" are never even mentioned in it.

The final House vote on the bill was 241 in favor, 166 against.  A clear majority, but not the requisite 2/3 needed for passage.

157 Republicans, including Arizona's Three Amigos, Jeff Flake, Trent Franks, and John Shadegg, expressed their support of child marriage by voting against the bill, but only one of the 157, Dan Burton of Indiana was honest enough to stand and speak to his vote.  And even he only professed financial reservations about the bill (estimated: $87 million over 10 years, *if* money was appropriated in a later bill).

In an interesting non-development, none of the Three Amigos seems to have put out a press release touting their victorious defense of the institution of child marriage. 

Why is that?

Message to Jon Kyl: If you want a Christmas break, get some work done now

The Republicans in D.C., led by Arizona's own Jon Kyl, are now trying to derail any efforts to pass significant legislation late in the year by claiming that doing so would somehow disrespect one of the "holiest" of Christian holidays.

From TPMDC -

To Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ), Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's suggestion that the Senate come back the week after Christmas isn't just a way to complete a busy lame duck agenda -- but an attack on people of the Christian faith.


"It is impossible to do all of the things that the majority leader laid out," Kyl said today, "frankly, without disrespecting the institution and without disrespecting one of the two holiest of holidays for Christians and the families of all of the Senate, not just the senators themselves but all of the staff."

Let me keep this brief -

There are millions of Americans right now who would love to be in a position where they could complain about having to work between Christmas and New Year's.  Yet Kyl doesn't think that is disrespectful of Christians, though many of the people affected are Christians.

There are millions more who will be working between Christmas and New Year's, and wishing that they could afford to take the week off.  Yet Kyl doesn't think that is disrespectful of Christians, though many of the people affected are Christians.

There are thousands of American servicemen and women who will be away from their families and in harm's way on one of Christianity''s "holiest" days and have no choice about that, yet Kyl doesn't think that disrespects the Christian members of the armed forces.

Senator Kyl, all I have to say is this:

If anybody is "disrespecting" Christmas, it is you with your brazenly cynical attempt to use the holiday as a political tool.

Quit whining and finish the year's work before Christmas, or plan to drag your ass back to D.C. immediately after the holiday.

Note: most of the above was sent to Sen. Kyl as a letter through his website's contact form.  There were a few minor modifications (I'm not going to use the word "ass" in a letter to a senator, even one I can't stand :) ).

Later...

If the Arizona legislature has its way, the safest college campus in Arizona won't be in Arizona...

...not legally, anyway.

The ever-reliable (for providing blog subject material, anyway) Jack Harper is getting an early start on his term in the House.  The soon-to-be-former state senator is the lead sponsor of the first House bill of the next session of the legislature, HB2001.

If enacted into law, the measure would allow faculty members of the state's community colleges, provisional community colleges, and state universities to carry concealed weapons on campus.

This bill, in one form or another, has been proposed in the last few sessions of the legislature.  It's usually opposed by the police departments and staff of the various colleges and campuses.

It's an indicator of how certain (OK, "most") Rs place a premium on ideology over reality.

Nearly everybody who has worked, taught, learned, or just visited on one of Arizona's college campuses doesn't see the need for this bill, yet the ideologues in the legislature continue to push this measure to turn our colleges and universities into armed encampments.

Of course, this being the legislature, when one comes across a measure that seems to be inherently dumb, one should also look for legislator who'd personally benefit from it.

State Rep. John Kavanagh (R-Russell Pearce with a 'Noo Yawk' accent) is the Director of Scottsdale Community College's Administration of Justice Studies program.

This bill, if passed, would seem to benefit him, presuming that as an FOR (Friend of Russell's) he's as much in the pocket of the NRA as his friend and cannot function in society without immediate access to his gun.

Except...

The campus of the community college that employs him is situated entirely within the boundaries of the Salt River Pima/Maricopa Indian Community (SRP/MIC).

While the college is "within the jurisdiction" of a community college district (Maricopa County Community College District), the laws that apply to the persons on it are those of the SRP/MIC.

People are barred from possessing weapons on the campus (and the rest of the Community) under *tribal* law, not state law.

HB2001, if enacted, wouldn't actually go into effect there.

Ooopsie.

I'm not sure if the prospects for this bill are any better this time around than they were in the past, but given the lege's rightward lurch and its utter disregard for the opinions of people who have anything to do with education, anything is possible.

Stay tuned.  The coming session of the lege is going to provide fodder for writers all over the state.

Unfortunately.