Privatizing public safety: not a safe idea

...and not a particularly ethical or bright one, either...

One of the great watchwords of Republican rhetoric is "privatize!".

As in "we should privatize all government functions because private business can do anything better than the government can!"

They say it frequently and loudly but it seems more like the one thing that private business does best is accrue wealth unto those at the top of the business org chart.  Something that isn't necessarily unethical; in fact, it's what business is all about.

However, that isn't what society is all about, not if it wants to be a healthy society.

The one consistent characteristic of "privatization" efforts is that they turn into mechanisms to funnel money intended to serve the public good away from public purposes and into private pockets (ask state legislator Steve Yarbrough).

It may be legal, mostly because the people writing the laws are the ones benefitting from the misuse of public funds (think: the Mob writing racketeering laws), but it isn't ethical.

And when they start privatizing public safety functions?

The scheme stops being "merely" unethical and starts being hazardous to life and liberty.

Two stories that broke this week highlight this fact -

- In this story, Ethan Bronner of the New York Times chronicled the devastating impact on real people of privatizing probation and jail services.  People who have committed minor infractions end up in jail because they are unable to pay exorbitant fees imposed on them by private probation companies.  Once they are in jail, more fees are imposed on them by the private businesses overseeing that part of the cycle.

Fees that they are still unable to pay, a situation that fuels another go-round in the cycle of debt in which restrictions on freedom are nothing but a revenue generator for private companies.

In other words, in many areas of the country, the public safety system, specifically the local jail/probation apparatus, has been co-opted into enhancing private profit instead of enhancing public safety.

- As bad as the above is, it pales in comparison to an incident in Florida, where a lifeguard was fired from his job for going to rescue a distressed swimmer in an area of a beach that was outside "the section of the beach his company is paid to patrol".

The company deemed the lifeguard's actions inappropriate because its policy, based on "liability concerns" is that only people who are swimming in areas that the company profits from are worthy of rescue (no, they didn't use those specific words, but they might just as well have), and terminated his employment.

The company has since offered the lifeguard, Tomas Lopez, his job back; he has declined the offer.

Lest you think that the people running the company came to their senses and that was behind the turnaround, it should be known that they were eviscerated in the court of public opinion and the offer was less an exercise in "common sense" and more an exercise in "damage control."


The incident serves as a prime example of the darkest side of "privatization."  A company ostensibly hired to protect public safety was willing to let someone die in order to protect their profits.

No matter the nature of the privatized function, the highest priority of a private company is to protect and serve its own profits, not to protect and serve the public.

On Tuesday, I posted a transcript of the Declaration of Independence.

My, how times have changed.

236 years ago, America's leaders pledged their own "lives...fortunes, and...sacred honor " in support of an independent America.

Today, too many of America's leaders have no "honor" and it's our lives and fortunes on the line...to support the bottom lines of their friends.

Enough.

Whenever a politician starts advocating for the privatization of some public function (i.e. - Russell Pearce pushing for the privatization of most MVD functions or  Steve Yarbrough pushing for ever more privatization of public education, in a way that is set up to make him ever more wealthy), audit him (or her; men don't have a monopoly on corruption).  And if the official, the official's family, or the official's friends benefit from the proposed move in even the tiniest way, the official goes to prison. 

And not a private Holiday Inn camouflaged as a prison.

236 Years Ago...

From the US Archives -

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

---

Button Gwinnett
Lyman Hall
George Walton

William Hooper
Joseph Hewes
John Penn
Edward Rutledge
Thomas Heyward, Jr.
Thomas Lynch, Jr.
Arthur Middleton

John Hancock
Samuel Chase
William Paca
Thomas Stone
Charles Carroll of Carrollton
George Wythe
Richard Henry Lee
Thomas Jefferson
Benjamin Harrison
Thomas Nelson, Jr.
Francis Lightfoot Lee
Carter Braxton

Robert Morris
Benjamin Rush
Benjamin Franklin
John Morton
George Clymer
James Smith
George Taylor
James Wilson
George Ross
Caesar Rodney
George Read
Thomas McKean

William Floyd
Philip Livingston
Francis Lewis
Lewis Morris
Richard Stockton
John Witherspoon
Francis Hopkinson
John Hart
Abraham Clark

Josiah Bartlett
William Whipple

Samuel Adams
John Adams
Robert Treat Paine
Elbridge Gerry
Stephen Hopkins
William Ellery
Roger Sherman
Samuel Huntington
William Williams
Oliver Wolcott
Matthew Thornton

CD9 Forum at Changing Hands on July 17

The candidates for the Democratic nomination in the new Ninth Congressional District, David Schapira, Kyrsten Sinema, and Andrei Cherny, will meet at a forum held at Changing Hands Bookstore on Tuesday, July 17 at 7 p.m.

The forum will be moderated by John D'Anna, editor of the Mesa Republic.

Changing Hands is located at 6428 S McClintock Dr., Tempe, Arizona 85283 (SWC of McClintock and Guadalupe).

Arrive early, for two reasons -

1. To get a good seat.
2. To have time to browse the coolest bookstore in the Phoenix area.

See you there!

The week that was...

Because of work, posting has been light.  Apologies to regular readers, and thanks for your patience.

...Health care reform, SB1070: A good week for President Obama.  Not a perfect week, but definitely one that will go in the "good" column...

First, the US Supreme Court overturned three of the four sections of Arizona's SB1070 anti-immigrant law that the Obama administration challenged in court.  The downside is that the USSC left in place (for now, anyway) the section that allows/requires law enforcement officials to demand to see "the papers" of anyone they suspect may be in the country illegally.  However, the justices declined to rule on that because it hasn't actually been implemented yet.  

The Republicans/nativists have been spinning this as an unequivocal victory for them but this cartoon from Clay Bennett of the Chattanooga Times Free Press best sums up that school of "thought" -

Then, the USSC upheld President Obama's signature initiative, the Affordable Care Act.  Democrats were overjoyed; Republicans were apoplectic.  Especially since one of the justices who voted to uphold the law was Chief Justice John Roberts, heretofore a Republican hero.  However, he seems to have realized that the USSC's main strength is its credibility and and years of deciding cases on a partisan basis instead of their merits is pissing away the credibility of the Court.

At roughly the same time that the Court released its decision on health care reform, the Republicans (aided and abetted by a few spineless Democrats, including AZ's Ron Barber) in Congress snapped-to and voted to find US Attorney General in contempt of Congress when gun industry lobbyists at the NRA crooked their little fingers.

Not a good thing for the president (and certainly not for Holder himself), but not as bad as it could be, if the vote wasn't a purely political stunt/hatchet job.  Even the Republicans realize that this one could come back to bite them in the ass, which may be why the vote was deliberately scheduled so that it would be lost in the hubbub surrounding the USSC's ruling on health care reform.

...Still, while the focus this week was on Washington, not all of the political news came out of DC this week.

- Former AZ state representative Daniel Patterson, who resigned his office earlier this year after some allegations of domestic violence arose, withdrew his application for membership on a municipal planning and zoning board in New Mexico after it became known that the "D.R. Patterson" on the application was the disgraced former AZ lawmaker "Daniel R. Patterson."

Left unexplained is how someone who is supposedly a resident of Arizona (one of the requirements to be a member of the AZ legislature) could also be a resident of New Mexico (one of the requirements to be on a municipal board there).  I'm not a lawyer, so I can't say for certain, but his withdrawal from consideration in NM may allow him to avoid fraud related charges (or something similar).  On the other hand, he has hinted that he will run for office again in 2014 (in AZ, as of last hint); expect this matter to come up again if he chooses to do so.

- Not wanting to be out-"get-a-clued" by Patterson is his former legislative colleague, former state senator Scott Bundgaard. 

Like Patterson, he resigned from office before he was expelled from the lege over domestic violence issues.

Like Patterson, he has a history of domestic violence allegations, both involving an ex-wife (past divorce matter) and a girlfriend (the more recent case).

Like Patterson, he blamed the victim rather than taking responsibility for his actions..

Like Patterson, he said his troubles were part of a conspiracy to destroy his political career.

Unlike Patterson, however, he's not going away to New Mexico; he's going to court.

From the Arizona Republic, written by Mary Jo Pitzl -

Former state Sen. Scott Bundgaard is seeking $10 million in damages from the city of Phoenix, alleging the city bungled his arrest and investigation stemming from a freeway fight with his ex-girlfriend 16 months ago.

In a notice of claim, a precursor to a lawsuit, Bundgaard, a Peoria Republican, alleges Phoenix police withheld reports of the February 2011 event and colluded with the state Senate's Ethics Committee as it examined a complaint against him. That left him with little choice but to resign rather than be expelled from the Legislature, Bundgaard said in an interview Friday.

Truth be told, I'm not sure which one is more pathetic...

...Related to the first item above (SB1070 ruling) - news broke this week that the costs to Arizona's taxpayers aren't limited to just the costs of defending Russell Pearce's (and Jan Brewer's) bigoted legislation in court.  After the bill passed in 2010 and Brewer signed it.

From the Arizona Republic, written by Yvonne Wingett Sanchez -

Gov. Jan Brewer's office paid about $98,000 in fees after she canceled the Border Governors Conference scheduled to take place at the Arizona Biltmore in September 2010, The Arizona Republic has learned.

Brewer canceled the annual conference between the governors of U.S. border states and their counterparts in Mexico after the Mexican governors refused to attend because of immigration law Senate Bill 1070.

Guess that in Jan Brewer's world fiscal responsibility takes a back seat to nativist posturing...or making sure that her "friends" in the private prison industry have plenty of bodies filling their revenue generators.

...Later...

The gloves are coming off: Primary Edition

As the Arizona weather heats up so are some of the primary campaigns, and it's not just between candidates.

...The AZGOP succeeded in knocking (subscription required) some Libertarian candidates off of the ballot in races that are expected to be close, figuring that any votes would have gone to the Libertarian candidates will now go to the Republican candidates in the affected races.  The Libertarian Party is most assuredly not amused.  Expect more moves, but for now, they've turned around and upgraded their outreach efforts to non-affiliated voters, opening up their August primary to all voters who aren't otherwise registered in a ballot-eligible party. 

...A former leader of the AZGOP is calling for the head of the current communications director of the AZGOP because he suggested that there it may be best for the Republican Party to consider a policy toward immigrants that is milder than "kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out."  It's not a primary campaign issue per se, but an internal party rift could impact the results of August's primaries (and there are more than a few on the R ballot)

...Freshman GOP Congressmen David Schweikert and Ben Quayle are running against each other in CD6, a safe R district that encompasses north Scottsdale and other areas of northeastern Maricopa County.  They've turned what had been a campaign of intermittent sniping from the two camps into withering artillery barrages. 

The latest, from the Arizona Capitol Times, written by Jeremy Duda -

A long-anticipated shoe dropped in Arizona’s 6th Congressional District, escalating the intraparty battle between U.S. Reps. Ben Quayle and David Schweikert.

After Quayle dubbed his opponent “Dishonest Dave” and accused him of distorting Quayle’s position on President Barack Obama’s recently announced deportation policy, Schweikert fired back by dredging up the scandal that roiled Quayle’s campaign in 2010.

...In the GOP primary to nominate a candidate to fill the US Senate seat currently filled by the soon-to-be retired Jon Kyl, Congressman Jeff Flake and businessman Wil Cardon are the leading candidates.  Flake is considered to be the presumptive front-runner but Cardon is well- (and self-) funded.  Both candidates have access to large amounts of money and have turned the campaign into a raft of "I'm more conservative than thou" TV spots.

...In CD9, the new Congressional District that is based on the Phoenix area, the race for the Democratic nomination has seen the uncovering of a number of interesting tidbits about candidate Andrei Cherny and his past campaigns. 

The latest: videos of him speaking to a tea party group during his 2010 run for Arizona State Treasurer. 

In the videos, it appears that Cherny caters his message, his positions on issues, to suit his audience.

Not the best publicity, coming ~five weeks before early ballots hit mail boxes across the district, but the Cherny campaign may have reached the point where any publicity is good publicity.  There's a strong rumor going around that more than one poll has shown Cherny with support in the single digits.  The measures of his name recognition among Democratic voters are higher, but still lags behind the other candidates in the primary.

To be sure, the campaign isn't over.  Cherny has raised the most money, and has the cash to run a ton of TV spots and to fill mail boxes across the district with his literature.  However, that won't do more than raise his name recognition unless he goes very negative in an attempt to reduce the support for his two opponents, David Schapira and Kyrsten Sinema, who are considerably better known than Cherny.

Look for "elevated mud level" in CD9's air quality reports over the next couple of months; it's going to start flying.


Later...

Arizona politics is like New England weather - don't blink or you might miss something

Damn.  Miss a few days due to technical difficulties, and all kinds of crazy-@$$ $#!t goes down in Arizona's political realm...OK, so it wasn't all that crazy, by AZ standards anyway.  I just wanted to use the phrase.  :)


Oh, and the "technical difficulties" weren't all bad - I finally finished the Gabby Giffords book (finally!), read Cannery Row by John Steinbeck (pretty good.  That Steinbeck guy has some potential. :) ), watched the final season of the Battlestar Galactica reboot on DVD (good, but a little too mystical for this fan of hard SF), and re-read Pearls Sells Out, a Pearls Before Swine treasury (not quite as literary as Steinbeck, but more likely to induce audible laughter.  :) )

...On Thursday, Russell Pearce, Arizona's leading nativist demogogue, experienced a PR and fundraising nightmare.

First, a Pearce campaign fundraising event was booted from one Mexican restaurant, Macayo's, after the corporate office found out that there were going to be protests of the event and that efforts were underway to organize a boycott of the chain by Latino customers.

Second, the Pearce campaign tried to move the event to another Mexican restaurant, Oaxaca Restaurante y Cantina, which also put the kibosh on the event, for much the same reasons.

Third, when the Pearce campaign tried to move his event to the library of a public high school with a heavily Latino student population, they (and he) were rebuffed by the school district .because of the short notice.

...On Friday, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio showed both his solidarity with his fellow traveler on the nativist railroad AND his peevish self-righteous outrage at President Obama's new DREAM-like policy on immigration by arresting a six-year old girl.  Wonder how that helps his self-publicized rep as "America's Toughest Sheriff"?

...Speaking of the new policy, Arizona Congressmen David Schweikert and Ben Quayle, Republicans both and facing each other in the August primary in CD6, responded to the new policy by trying to out-redneck each other with duelling bills to overturn the policy.

...News broke that a grand jury is looking into alleged campaign finance violations committed by Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne.  I don't expect it to go far though. 

The FBI is handling the investigation, but the Maricopa County Attorney's Office is shepherding the grand jury itself.


...Candidate challenges have been dropped or adjudicated or candidates have withdrawn.  The list from the AZ Secretary of State is here.  Highlights:

- Jonathan Paton had to drop his challenge to the candidacy of one of his opponents in the CD1 Republican primary.  He had filed suit, to great fanfare, challenging the signatures of Gaither Martin.  It must have been embarrassing to Paton to have to back off, so the Arizona Democratic Party did its part to help Paton move past the pain of his humiliation over the failed challenge by launching a website to help publicize Paton's past.  Awfully considerate of them, doncha' think? :)

- Jean Cheuvront-McDermott was removed from the Democratic primary ballot in LD24 because "Cheuvront-McDermott" isn't the name she has been using, just "McDermott."  She's the mother of former state senator Ken Cheuvront, who is running for a return to the senate.  Rumor has it that because the current electeds in LD24 wouldn't step aside for him, Ken got his mom to run as payback.  That plan seems to have gone by the wayside.


...Arizona Secretary of State Ken Bennett, not coincidentally Arizona co-chair for Mitt Romney's presidential campaign, is continuing to ramp up his 2014 campaign for governor.  First, he threatened to keep President Obama off of the November ballot unless the state of Hawaii provided a copy of Obama's birth certificate that met Bennett's standards.  He backed off of that after bringing a load of national ridicule down upon Arizona.

Now he has taken the next step to sew up the wingnut vote in the R primary.  Now he is saying that the President was actually born in Hawaii, but lied and said he was born in Kenya to help him get into college.


...And finally, in response to a poll that shows Democrat Richard Carmona within 2 points of him in the race for US Senate, Republican Jeff Flake went to Facebook to brag about his "real world" experience as a lobbyist for foreign corporations and the Goldwater Institute.

Flake is almost as out of touch with the "real world" as Mitt Romney.  Probably not a coincidence there.

Candidate withdrawals and challenges

Still have technical issues, but I'm visiting a friend right now.  Should be back fully online Monday afternoon...

Even though it has been only a couple of weeks since nominating petition were due, but there are already a number of withdrawals and challenges to report.

The full list of Congressional and state-level primary candidate challenges, from the AZ Secretary of State, is here; the list of candidates who have already withdrawn is here. 

One name of a challenged candidate that is not on the list is that of Doug Quelland, because he is facing a challenge that is based on alleged campaign finance violations, not alleged nomination irregularities.  Quelland was removed from the state legislature because of Clean Elections-related campaign finance.  The Republican-turned-Independent is running for state senate in the new LD20, and the Republican establishment there is not amused.  Hence the challenge.

Note: all challenges will be heard in Maricopa County Superior Court.

The nomination challenges include:

John Allen State House LD 15: Republican Nomination

Kim Allen State Senate LD 11: Libertarian Nomination

George H. Benavides Sr. State House LD 20: Republican Nomination

Sheila Bilyeu U.S. Senate: Libertarian Nomination

Jean Cheuvront-McDermott State House LD 24: Democratic Nomination

Joe Cobb U.S. House CD 7: Libertarian Nomination

Doug Coleman State House LD 16: Republican Nomination

Rich Crandall State Senate LD 16: Republican Nomination

Jeff Davis State House LD 16: Republican Nomination

Rebecca DeWitt  U.S. House CD 7: Democratic Nomination

Dean Dill State House LD 8: Libertarian Nomination

Toby Farmer State House LD 13: Republican Nomination

James Iannuzo State Senate LD 28: Libertarian Nomination

Gaither Martin U.S. House CD 1: Republican Nomination

Anthony Prowell U.S. House CD 1: Libertarian Nomination

Raquel Teran State Senate LD 30: Democratic Nomination

The list of Maricopa County candidates, including withdrawals/removals, is here.  A few candidates have already withdrawn

I can't find a list of challenges on the county recorder's website, but the highest-profile challenge is the one challenging Mike Stauffer.  He is a former Republican who is running as an Independent for Maricopa County Sheriff.

More as the cases are decided...

Technical issues

Due to technical problems (i.e. - interruption of internet service at home), posting will be light to nonexistent for the next few days.

Which is disappointing when stories like President Obama finally coming around on immigration, and Russell Pearce, the anti-immigrant and anti-public education politician, having a fund-raising event thrown out of two Mexican restaurants and one public high school are breaking without my 2-cents' worth. 

And you know how important my 2-cents' worth is. :))

Talk to you in a few days...

AZGOP spokesman references women by a derogatory epithet, and says it is OK

Aren't spokespeople supposed to talk their employers out of, not into, controversies?

From Channel 3 (KTVK), written by Dennis Welch -

The top spokesman for the Arizona Republican Party didn't like a column published recently in the state's largest newspaper.

So on Monday he slammed the female reporter and another woman quoted in the piece for having what he called a, "bitch session."

Shane Wikfors, the communications director for the state GOP, said there's nothing wrong with using the derogatory term when referring to women.

Wikfors used the term in his response to the column that he disliked, a response posted at Sonoran Alliance, a blog that he created.

From that response (with enough of the text so that Mr. Wikfors and any of his associates can't truthfully complain that it was taken out of context) -

As the spokesman for the Arizona Republican Party, I would have at least expected Ms. Roberts to call and ask a few simple questions about Kathy Petsas’ assertions before going to print, but she didn’t.

And Kathy Petsas never made any attempt to provide any constructive criticism to the State Party. Not surprisingly, I’ve never seen her come to the office to volunteer. Instead, Ms. Petsas ran off to Laurie Roberts and engaged her in a “bitch session.”

Frankly, I’m getting a little tired of people like Kathy Petsas and even some of the political consultants who don’t do a damn thing for their Republican Party. They prefer to stand off in the corner and whine, complain, backstab and do absolutely nothing constructive.

In Welch's article, Wikfors is quoted as defending his use of the term as saying that it is completely acceptable in any corporate boardroom in America.

The fact that the GOP follows the behavioral and moral standards of corporate America isn't surprising; the shamelessly offhanded admission of that by a GOP spokesman is a huge surprise.

They usually aren't that honest, and with this incident, they were honest twice -

First, in expressing their official attitude toward women, particularly those who don't toe the establishment line.

Second, in letting folks officially know from where they draw their behavioral cues.

Balsz School District stands up and just says "no" to TCE

From ABC15.com, written by Steve Kuzj -

A Valley school district had to decide between money and ensuring their students’ health 100 percent.

Freescale Semiconductor offered Brunsun-Lee Elementary School $20,000 a year to build a waste-water pipe underneath their elementary school.

The waste-water the pipe would carry is contaminated with a very dangerous chemical.

{snip}

The board voted unanimously to deny the waste-water pipeline. Members said even the smallest risk was too much for their students.

The five members of the Board, Vic Grace, Todd Schwarz, Fred Andersen, Brenda Janicsek, and J. Will Roberts, should be commended for standing up for the students of their district.  In fact, a webform to do just that can be found here.

CD8 Live blogging results

...And the first results are in...

...8:02 p.m. - Cochise County and Pinal County are the first to report numbers (33 precincts out of 352 overall) -

Jesse Kelly (R) - 12,811
Ron Barber (D) - 11,165
Charlie Manolakis (Green) - 693


...8:12 p.m.  - Precincts from Pima coming in now.  Looks like early ballots, but I'm not absolutely sure of that...

Jesse Kelly (R) - 67,409
Ron Barber (D) - 80,403
Charlie Manolakis (Green) - 3,837


...8:16 p.m. - Santa Cruz County numbers coming in now...

Jesse Kelly (R) - 68,093
Ron Barber (D) - 81,381
Charlie Manolakis (Green) - 3,879


...8:31 p.m. - More results -

Jesse Kelly (R) - 68,144
Ron Barber (D) - 81,417
Charlie Manolakis (Green) - 3,880


...8:36 p.m. - More results, and as with the last update, the changes aren't large ones -

Jesse Kelly (R) - 70,637
Ron Barber (D) - 83,960
Charlie Manolakis (Green) - 3,950

...8:56 p.m. -

Jesse Kelly (R) - 73,739
Ron Barber (D) - 86,095
Charlie Manolakis (Green) - 4,079


...9:01 p.m. -

Jesse Kelly (R) - 77,286
Ron Barber (D) - 90,513
Charlie Manolakis (Green) - 4,185


9:09 p.m. - OK, I'm finally breaking down and calling it for Barber. 50% of the precincts in, the outstanding precincts are from D-friendly Pima County, and Barber is hovering at just under 53% of the vote.

It may get a little closer, but Barber won't go below 51%.

If there are any significant changes, I'll update tomorrow.  Good night!

AZ Political round-up

It's not really a comprehensive look, but it sounds more professional than "killing time until the results start coming in from the special election in CD8"...


...Quartzsite: Making Arizonans of all political stripes wish that the AIRC had "accidently" drawn the new district maps with Quartzsite on the California side of the lines...

From the AZ Republic, written by Dennis Wagner -

Quartzsite residents who thought they voted in new municipal leadership found out otherwise last week when the Town Council decided not to seat Mayor-elect Ed Foster and Councilman-elect Mark Orgeron, claiming the two men are not eligible to hold office.

{snip}

The election hullabaloo is just the latest political clash in the dusty desert town along Interstate 10, the freeway to California. Years of feuding have resulted in numerous criminal and civil investigations.

Foster and about a dozen other critics of the establishment who have been jailed repeatedly say they are victims of false arrest and civil-rights violations. A town attorney was replaced last year after he refused to prosecute cases that he described as politically motivated.

Wonder if the electeds in Maricopa County say a prayer every night, thanking God for the existence of Quartzsite to make Maricopa County look functional and civil?


...And so it begins...

From AP, via KTAR.com -

A Marana man is seeking to have one of his Republican contenders in the 1st Congressional District race removed from the ballot.

Jonathan Paton filed a lawsuit Monday in Maricopa County Superior Court, alleging that signatures gathered by Gaither Martin are invalid. More than half of Martin's 1,099 signatures either were fraudulently collected or gathered under a petition sheet that did not list Martin's actual address in Eagar, the lawsuit contends. Striking those signatures would put Martin below the 568 he needed to join the race, Paton said.

``Running for public office and gaining the trust of voters means following the rules,'' Paton said in a statement. ``Gaither Martin failed a candidate's most basic test: earn the support of residents in the district to qualify for the ballot.''

Paton should probably be careful here.  Considering that to him, CD1 is a set of lines on a map, not "home".

Having said that, this only the first of what will probably be many challenges.  Look for a one to two...dozen.


...The current list of withdrawn/removed candidates for legislative, statewide, or Congressional offices is here.

On the list so far: 

Democratic US Senate candidate David Ruben, or the guy best known to most Democrats as "who?"

Republican LD24 State Senate candidate Scott Fistler

Republican LD25 State Representative candidate Christoper Montijo


...The schedule of legislative primary debates sponsored by the Citizens Clean Elections Commission is here.  As near as I can tell, this will be it for the CCEC debates because I didn't see any districts where both the Democratic and the Republican candidates for the same office are running with CCEC funding (if I'm in error, leave a comment and I'll update the post).

...There will be a general election debate between the candidates for Arizona Corporation Commission because they are all running as CCEC candidates, but the schedule for that debate hasn't been posted yet.

Dear Balsz School District Governing Board: Just say "no" to TCE

Oh, the joys of living in and going to school in a "less than affluent" (aka - "poor") part of town...


From the Arizona Republic, written by Emily Gersema -

For $20,000 a year, an east Phoenix elementary school could be in the pathway of a new pipeline that would carry treated wastewater from a Superfund site.

Freescale Semiconductor would pay rent to the Balsz Elementary School District to bury the pipeline in the district's easement at Brunson-Lee Elementary, which has an estimated 450 children in kindergarten through sixth grade and is near 48th Street and McDowell Road, less than 2 miles west of the company's plant.

{snip}

Freescale has been discharging the treated water into Phoenix's sewer lines. State environmental maps show the plume of contaminated groundwater stretches nearly 7 miles from the plant, and Arizona Department of Environmental Quality documents have raised questions about the efficacy of the Freescale water-treatment facility.

However, ADEQ in December approved the the Freescale pipeline route through the school property and has encouraged the five-member governing board at Balsz to approve it.

"If I lived here, I would not have any concerns," said Wendy Flood, an ADEQ official.

{snip}

The governing board is expected to vote on the pipeline at its 6:30 p.m. meeting on Tuesday at the district office, 4825 E. Roosevelt St.

I don't know if any members of the Balsz Elementary School District Governing Board read this blog, but if they don't (and if they don't, they should.  The people running AZ's schools should be better read :)) ), I hope someone who does read this blog forwards this to them -

1.  The proposed pipeline will contain TCE, or trichloroethylene, a known carcinogen.

2.  Children are the group most vulnerable to the effects of TCE.

3.  While I have no reason to believe that the spokewoman for ADEQ who was quoted in the article is anything but a decent human being, ADEQ as a whole does *not* exist to protect Arizona's children.  It exists to protect business interests from having to do more than the bare minimum to clean up any messes they make in the environment.

4.  Among many responsibilities, and perhaps the culmination of those responsibilities, school boards exist to protect the long-term interests of the students in their districts.

5.  Running a pipeline full of poison underneath a school may be in the best financial interests of the company responsible for cleaning the mess in the groundwater in east Phoenix (meaning it's cheaper than bringing their TCE remediation facility up to par), it's not in the best long-term interests of the district or its students.  The first time the pipeline leaks (and rest assured, it *will* leak), the Board (and the parents, and the students) will find that the $20K/year "rent" won't even begin to cover the associated legal, medical, and environmental clean-up costs.

The best interests of the students, faculty, staff, parents, and residents of the Balsz District would be best served by the governing simply saying "no" to Freescale and ADEQ.

Note: the board's agenda for Tuesday's meeting is here.

Voter Suppression 101 tactics in CD8 Special Election

It looks as if the Kelly campaign's guiding philosophy is "if at first you don't succeed, cheat."

One of the oldest gambits in electoral politics is to try to suppress the turnout of the opposition's base by telling them to show up to vote on a day after the scheduled election day or to misdirect them to the wrong polling place.  Either way, the lie is usually delivered in the guise of "helping" voters.

It looks like the Rs in the Tucson area are going with misdirection.

A Facebook friend from the Tucson area posted this earlier this evening -

A reminder was left at my door informing me of my polling location for Tuesday's Special Election. The problem is that the information was wrong! Fortunately, I got a call from one of Ron's volunteers reminding me to vote. If he hadn't told me my correct voting place, I wouldn't have known there was a problem until Tuesday! Please contact Ron's Tucson office at 520-207-0937 if you have questions about your polling place. Or call the Pima County Recorder at 520-740-4330.

The list of polling places in Pima County is here; if you don't know your precinct, the Pima County Recorder's precinct locator page is here.

The list of polling places in Santa Cruz County is here.

The list of polling places in Cochise County is here.

Short Attention Span Musing

...It's nice to know that even in my own small way, I make an impact...

- Last week, I put up a post on soon-to-be former state legislator Jack Harper's Twitter feed.

Before the post, the feed displayed gems like this one -

After the post, the feed displays this message -

It may qualify as a "little victory" but in a week that saw unfortunate ends to both the season of the Boston Celtics and the Wisconsin recall, even a little victory is welcome...

...Speaking of Wisconsin, and speaking with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, it seems obvious now that a couple of major mistakes were made, one strategic, one tactical.

The strategic mistake was in going after Scott Walker mainly on the policies he pushed while in office.  The recall of Russell Pearce here in AZ was successful because it targeted his arrogant and abusive conduct in office - ordering the arrest of people who disagreed with him, taking "gifts" from the Fiesta Bowl and then going into "lie and deny" mode when he was caught, declaring that one of his colleagues who assaulted his girlfriend by the side of a Phoenix freeway was actually the victim in the incident, etc. - and not the anti-immigrant policies that Pearce has pushed.

Walker's anti-worker policies may be just as despicable as Pearce's nativism, but thus far, in his conduct in office, he hasn't made the kind of missteps that Pearce did.

The tactical error was one that may have been unavoidable.  Going after someone like Pearce who, while loud, is relatively unimportant in the larger picture, and wasn't ever going to bring out the big guns (financially speaking). 

Going after the likes of Walker, who is a big part of the effort to marginalize the working and middle classes for the benefit of the 1%, brought out the "big gun" in the form of millions of dollars of PAC and third-party expenditures on behalf of Walker.

Turns out that even the best "ground game" can be beaten by enough money.  It's not the first election that was bought by deep-pocketed special interests, but it may be the first one where it was done so brazenly.


...Remember high school yearbook superlatives like "best looking", "class clown", and "most likely to succeed"?  Time to start the nomination process for this year's election cycle.

The first nominee for the category of "most likely to commit a campaign finance violation" is Sylvia Allen.  She's currently a state senator, but is running for a spot on the Navajo County Board of Supervisors.

To bankroll that run, she transferred $10,359.90 from her state senate campaign committee to her county supervisor committee (documented on page 7 of this report).  Her senate committee is designated filer ID "201200086" (remember the "2012" part of that filer ID; it'll be important).

To be clear, that move, in and of itself, is allowed.

However, things get interesting when one reads the relevent sections of ARS 16-905, covering elections and campaign finance -

F. A candidate's campaign committee or an individual's exploratory committee shall not make a loan and shall not transfer or contribute money to any other campaign or exploratory committee that is designated pursuant to this chapter or 2 United States Code section 431 except as follows:

{snip}

2. A candidate's campaign committee may transfer or contribute monies to another campaign committee designated by the same candidate as follows:

(a) Subject to the contribution limits of this section, transfer or contribute monies from one committee to another if both committees have been designated for an election in the same year.

Hmm...

Now Allen is known as someone who isn't shy about accepting money from PACs and other political committees - she's taken more than $10K from them in each of her campaigns for the state senate.

The current contribution limits, as set by the Arizona Secretary of State:

Combined total from all Political Committees other than political parties: $10,880

So to sum up:
1. Allen transferred $10359.90 from one 2012 committee to another.
2. Because the contributing committee and the receiving committee are both 2012 committees, campaign finance limits apply.
3.  That leaves Allen $520.10 from reaching the political committee limit.

Anybody want to speculate on how much she will exceed that limit by?

Navajo County campaign finance reports can be found here.  Should make for interesting reading.