Taking out the trash/Friday newsdump: Az Supes side with the AZ Legislature against society

[start sarcasm]

I'm as shocked as I know you are.

[/end sarcasm]

On Friday, December 30, the justices on the Arizona Supreme Court handed down a unanimous decision (justices Brutinel and Bolick recusing) upholding a decision by the Maricopa County Superior court, one overturned by the Arizona Court of Appeals, that summarily dismissed a 2019 lawsuit by some nonprofits against the Arizona Legislature.

From the decision by the supes -

Yes, they're ruling that (alleged) public servants acting in a manner that is contemptuous of the public constitutes a "nonjusticiable political question".

If this were football, that would be called "punting the ball away"...if the special teams unit for society and the officials for society were helping the other team.

The opinion by the AZ Supes is here.

The case number in Maricopa County Superior Court is CV2019-014945.  The case history page is here.

The opinion forom the AZ Court of Appeals is here.

Arizona Legislature: The coming week

This week is shaping up to be a relatively quiet one (with "relatively" being the key word here).

While there are a few colorful bills and strike-everything amendments (strikers) going before committee this week, the most interesting lege-related events will be after hours.

Some of the interesting bills/strikers:

A striker to SB1316, bringing back payday loans.  Previously discussed here. (House Ways and Means, Monday)

SB1241, barring the use of photo radar traffic enforcement systems on any state highway

HB2048, mandating that ADOT (Arizona Department of Transportation) give updates of driver's license records to the SOS (Arizona Secretary of State) (address changes, etc.) for comparison to voter registration records (Senate Transportation, Tuesday)

HB2133, making "agricultural aircraft" (aka - "cropdusters") exempt from sales tax (known in AZ as "transaction privilege tax", TPT), retroactive to 1985 (Senate Appropriations, Tuesday)

HB2030, letting retired police officers carry a gun in a bar (Senate Public Safety, Military, and Technology, Wednesday)

HB2224, barring any "encumberances" on private transactions involving firearms (Senate Government, Wednesday)

HB2402, micromanaging county and municipal bond elections


However interesting some of these bills may be, the most interesting stuff will take place away from the Capitol.

On Monday, many members of the lege will gather at the Ben Avery Shooting Facility for their annual "Cast and Blast" event.  No word if they will be hosting Dick Cheney as a guest speaker...

On Tuesday, many of the same members (and more) will gather at Donovan's Steak and Chop House on Camelback Road in Phoenix for the annual ALEC Membership Drive and Dinner.  As was documented in the past, the meeting is a schmoozefest for lobbyists and unethical public officials to meet.



The rest -
Notes:
All committees meetings and agendas are subject to change without notice, and frequently do.  If you plan to travel to the Capitol to observe or weigh in on the consideration of a particular measure, check with the lege ahead of time to confirm that the meeting that you are interested in is still on schedule and your item(s) of interest is still on the agenda for that meeting.
Meeting rooms designated "HHR" are in the House of Representatives building.
Meeting rooms designated "SHR" are in the Senate building.

All House committee agendas can be found here.
All Senate committee agendas can be found here.

Committee schedule (mostly just copied and pasted from the lege's website.  The agenda links work, as of this writing, but may not later in the week if an agenda is modified in some way):

Agenda Date	Committee	Time	Room	Agenda
03/03/16	Agriculture, Water and Lands	10:00 A.M.	HHR 3	Click Here
03/03/16	Government and Higher Education	9:00 A.M.	HHR 1	Click Here
03/03/16	Military Affairs and Public Safety	9:00 A.M.	HHR 5	Click Here
03/02/16	Appropriations	2:00 P.M.	HHR 1	Click Here
03/02/16	Commerce	9:30 A.M. NOTE TIME CHANGE	HHR 1	Click Here
03/02/16	Education	2:00 P.M.	HHR 4	Click Here
03/02/16	Federalism and States' Rights	NOT MEETING	HHR 5	Click Here
03/02/16	Insurance	NOT MEETING	HHR 4	Click Here
03/02/16	Judiciary	10:00 A.M. NOTE TIME CHANGE	HHR 3	Click Here
03/01/16	Banking and Financial Services	2:00 P.M.	HHR 3	Click Here
03/01/16	Health	NOT MEETING	HHR 4	Click Here
03/01/16	Rural and Economic Development	2:00 P.M.	HHR 5	Click Here
03/01/16	Transportation and Infrastructure	2:00 P.M.	HHR 1	Click Here
02/29/16	Children and Family Affairs	2:00 P.M.	HHR 5	Click Here
02/29/16	County and Municipal Affairs	NOT MEETING	HHR 4	Click Here
02/29/16	Elections	NOT MEETING	HHR 4	Click Here
02/29/16	Energy, Environment and Natural Resources	2:00 P.M.	HHR 1	Click Here
02/29/16	Rules	UPON RECESS OR ADJOURNMENT OF FLOOR	HHR 4	Click Here
02/29/16	Ways and Means	2:00 P.M.	HHR 3	Click Here
02/25/16	Agriculture, Water and Lands	9:00 A.M.	HHR 3	Click Here
Agenda Date	Committee	Time	Room	Agenda
03/03/16	Education	9:00 A.M.	SHR 1	Click Here
03/03/16	Judiciary	9:30 A.M.	SHR 109	Click Here
03/02/16	Finance	9:00 A.M.	SHR 3	Click Here
03/02/16	Financial Institutions	2:00 P.M.	SHR 109	Click Here
03/02/16	Government	2:00 P.M.	SHR 3	Click Here
03/02/16	Health and Human Services	2:00 P.M.	SHR 1	Click Here
03/02/16	Public Safety, Military and Technology	9:00 A.M.	SHR 1	Click Here
03/01/16	Appropriations	2:00 P.M.	SHR 109	Click Here
03/01/16	Federalism, Mandates and Fiscal Responsibility	9:00 A.M.	SHR 3	Click Here
03/01/16	Transportation	2:00 P.M.	SHR 1	Click Here
02/29/16	Commerce and Workforce Development	1:45 P.M. OR UPON ADJ OF FLOOR (NOTE TIME CHANGE)	SHR 1	Click Here
02/29/16	Natural Resources	10:00 A.M.	SHR 109	Click Here
02/29/16	Rules	1:00 P.M.	Caucus Room 1	Click Here
02/29/16	State Debt and Budget Reform	NOT MEETING*	SHR 3	Click Here
02/29/16	Water and Energy	2:00 P.M.	SHR 3	Click Here

Floor Calendars:
The House has four  COW (Committee of the Whole) calendars (here, here, here, and here) and a Third Read calendar scheduled for Monday.
The Senate has both a COW calendar and a Third Read (final approval) calendar posted for Monday.
There will be floor calendars later in the week, but those are generally posted the day before, or even the day of, consideration.

The lege's Capitol Events calendar is here.

AZlege going local in its search for corporate anti-science propaganda

The things you see when reading AZ lege committee agendas...

From the agenda for next Tuesday's meeting of the Arizona State Senate Committee on Federalism, Mandates, and Fiscal Responsibility (aka - the "Executive Committee of the Black Helicopter Caucus"):

Intrigued by the name "Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change", I did a little research.

Eye-opening stuff, but nonetheless, not unexpected.

From Sourcewatch's page on the group -

The Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change is one of Mother Jones magazine's 2009 global warming skeptic "Dirty Dozen of Climate Change Denial"^[1]. Founded in 1998 by members of the Idso family, its income has increased in recent years.

{snip}

In August 2011, Center founder and Chairman Craig Idso spoke on "Benefit Analysis of CO₂" (previously known as "Warming Up to Climate Change: The Many Benefits of Increased Atmospheric CO₂") at the Energy, Environment and Agriculture Task Force meeting at the 2011 American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) Annual Meeting.

From Mother Jones, written by Josh Harkinson -

The Idso clan is the von Trapp family of climate change denial. In 1980, paterfamilias Sherwood Idso, a self-described "bio-climatologist," published a paper in Science concluding that doubling the world's carbon dioxide concentration wouldn't change the planet's temperature all that much. In years that followed, Idso and his colleagues at Arizona State University's Office of Climatology received more than $1 million in research funding from oil, coal, and utility interests. In 1990, he coauthored a paper funded by a coal mining company, titled "Greenhouse Cooling."

According to IRS filings from the group (OK, its Form 990 for 2013, available here) and the group's filings with the Arizona Corporation Commission, the "Center" is less a "center" than a "house", in Tempe (turns out that the Idso clan has ties to ASU).

Oh, and considering the group's ties to ALEC, it probably isn't a coincidence that this is taking place during the same week of ALEC's annual recruiting dinner/schmoozefest with the Arizona lege.

KPHO expose: AZ Lege and ALEC - $ = access

Alternate title: "Chutzpah, thy name is Republican legislator"

Once in a while, some of the denizens of AZ's chapter of the MSM do some actual good work.

In this case, Morgan Loew of KPHO (Channel 5) took a camera to the Arizona recruiting dinner of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).

ALEC is a notably shady organization that serves as a front for lobbyists looking to influence (mostly) Republican legislators.  In many states, Republican legislators have pushed or are pushing ALEC- (and industry-) written measures that benefit Big Business, such as bills expanding private prisons, reducing anti-pollution laws, and creating industry-friendly (and human-unfriendly) Stand Your Ground laws.

The video of the KPHO's story -

CBS 5 - KPHO

Some of the legislators who attended the closed-to-the-public meeting (Republicans, one and all):

Representatives -
Debbie Lesko
Eddie Farnsworth
John Kavanagh
Carl Seel
Brenda Barton
Bob Thorpe
David Livingston
J.D. Mesnard
Justin Olson
Michelle Ugenti
T.J. Shope
Adam Kwasman
Jeff Dial

Senators -
Senate President Andy Biggs
Nancy Barto
Chester Crandell
Don Shooter


Rep. Lesko is ALEC's chair in AZ, and she was quoted as saying that ALEC is "a great organization".

It would have been more believable if the late John Gotti had defended the Gambino crime family as a "benevolent neighborhood improvement association".

Sen. Shooter spotted the camera near the end of the event, and he demanded that it be shut off.

Guess he had a problem with being seen as dirty.

But not with being dirty.


Anyway, have to give credit where credit is due (even if it is of the backhanded variety).  They weren't really trying to hide their interest in the event.

From the lege's events calendar on its website -

 



For the record, if a Democrat had attended the meeting, I would have called him/her out on it - corruption is corruption.