Early ballots are beginning to arrive

And mine has already arrived.

The ballot is long this year -

I was going to skip one race (CD1) if the Democratic nominee ran as R-lite in the general election campaign.

Amish Shah, the Democratic nominee, has done so; however, a Republican, House Speaker Mike Johnson said something on NBC's Meet The Press today that made change my mind on the topic.

Johnson stated the the U.S. had a peaceful transfer of power after the election in 2020.

From the NBCNews transcript of today's MTP episode (emphasis added by me) -

[snip]

SPEAKER MIKE JOHNSON:

That’s – no, the point is the process works. We have the peaceful transfer of power. We did in 2020. We will in 2024. Everybody can sigh and take a deep breath. Our system is going to work. We have the greatest system in the history of the world because we live in the greatest country in the world. But that last part is in jeopardy right now. This is a decisive election, and everybody knows it, and that's why we're going to be -- have given the chance to run this country again and we're going to turn it around, and I can't wait.

The people who feared for their lives and the families of those killed during the insurrection of January 6, 2021 may disagree on that subject.

Bottom line:  There's no way that a shameless liar like him should be allowed to continue to be speaker and this race may end his speakership, if Shah wins the race.

Another race that was, interestingly, also decided for me by a Republican (many Republicans, in this case) was the race for Maricopa County Recorder.

If Republican incumbent Stephen Richer made it through their primary to face Democratic challenger Tim Stringham in the general election, I would have had a decision to make.  I value competence.

However, R voters my decision an easy one - they nominated Justin Heap, an unqualified ideologue, for the job.

My take on statewide ballot questions is here;

As for the retention of the judges who are on this year's ballot, Civic Engagement Beyond Voting has a scorecard here.

The complete report from the Arizona Judicial Performance Review Commission (JPR) is here.  One caveat:  a commission that is part of the state's judicial branch believes that all of the judges on the ballot meet their standards. [start sarcasm] Quelle surprise! [/end sarcasm]

What JPR doesn't evaluate or even care about are judges who are lousy human beings and worse public servants.

I'll be voting to not retain Clint Bolick and Kathryn King of the AZ Supreme Court and Angela Paton of the AZ Court of Appeals.  Bolick and King voted to uphold Arizona's pre-statehood abortion ban and Paton is unqualified for two reasons: 1. she's a Federalist society stooge and 2. she's married to former legislator and current industry lobbyist Jonathan Paton, who was one of the authors of Proposition 137, the scheme from legislative Republicans to do away with judicial retention elections.

Note: Bolick, King, and Paton were appointed by former governor Doug Ducey.

The one Maricopa County judge I'll be voting to not retain is civil court judge Christopher Coury, who's got temperament issues.

GOP nominee for House Speaker withdraws his candidacy; the GOP's need for a clown van continues unabated

Someone else is in the dock now that Tom Emmer is out.

From AP via Yahoo! -

Republicans nominate Mike Johnson for House speaker after Emmer's withdrawal, desperate to end chaos

House Republicans chose Rep. Mike Johnson as their latest nominee for House speaker, hours after an earlier pick, Rep. Tom Emmer, abruptly withdrew in the face of opposition from  and hardline GOP lawmakers.

Johnson of Louisiana is member of House GOP leadership, a lawyer specializing in constitutional issues who had rallied Republicans around Trump’s legal effort to overturn the 2020 election results.

[snip]

Republican Rep. Tom Emmer abruptly abandoned his bid to become House speaker Tuesday, withdrawing within hours of winning the internal party nomination after Donald Trump objected and hardliners refused to support him for the gavel.

Emmer becomes the third House Republican to fall short in what has become an almost absurd cycle of political infighting since Kevin McCarthy's ouster as GOP factions jockey for power. Refusing to unify, far-right members won't accept a more traditional speaker and more moderate members don't want a hardliner.

Johnson looks to be the kind of hardliner that the "moderates" claim not to want

And the 'green' grades are in...

Credit for the heads-up on this goes to the AZ Rep's Plugged In...

Congrats to LD17 State Reps. Ed Ableser and David Schapira for making the honor roll of the Arizona League of Conservation Voters and the Grand Canyon Chapter of the Sierra Club for their work during the 2007 session of the legislature.

Both scored 100% under the LCV's weighted grading guidelines!

Sen. Meg Burton-Cahill slacked off this session, weighing down the overall D17 score by coming in at only 97%.

If only she'd used 'green' crutches while recovering from foot surgery this winter. :))

It was also nice to see that many of the legislators that have received praise here and in other blogs for their fine work in the lege also scored well with the AzCLV (Steve Farley's 100%, for example), while others that have received criticism scored poorly with the AzCLV, too -

Sen. Ron 'Confederate Flag' Gould (R-LD3) .....18%
Rep. Trish 'DUI' Groe (R-LD3).....19%

Maybe it's something in the LD3 water, though if there is, expect Groe and Gould to be OK with that, particularly if some company is making money off of it.

Of course, the same might be said in LD18 -

Rep. Russell 'National Alliance' Pearce (R-LD18).....26%
Sen. Karen 'UFO Sighting' Johnson (R-LD18).....29%

And the district most likely to welcome a toxic waste dump?

LD22, with Sen. Thayer Vershoor (R) scoring 37%, Rep. Andy Biggs (R) scoring 23% and Rep. Eddie Farnsworth scoring 25%.

By comparison, my [least] favorite state senator, Jack Harper (R-Surprise!) did remarkably well, scoring a 48%!

His loyal constituents should take heart though; I have no doubt that Jack will see this score and use it as motivation for next session.

That score will be in single digits faster than you can say 'culture of corruption.'

:))

Note: The AzCLV's legislative scorecard is here; Sierra Club's press release is here.

Dennis Johnson (1954 - 2007)

From ESPN:

AUSTIN, Texas -- Dennis Johnson, the star NBA guard who was part of three championships and teamed with Larry Bird on one of the great postseason plays, died Thursday after collapsing at the end of his developmental team's practice. He was 52.

I know that his 'good' years were with the Suns, but I didn't know about him until he was traded to the Celtics for center Rick Robey (I'm not sure that the Suns' franchise has ever recovered, but that's a post for another day :) .)

When he played for the Celtics, he wasn't one of the 'Big Three' - Bird, McHale, Parish - but he was vital to the success of the Celtics during the '80s, and everyone knew it.

My condolences go out to his family and friends...

AZRep coverage here, their online 'guestbook' here.

On edit: I should have put this in my original post. I actually met D.J. briefly, about 6 or 7 years ago at a sports card show. He autographed a Celtics 50th Anniversary Team t-shirt for me. We talked about it for a few minutes.

At the time, he was an assistant coach for the LA Clippers (who did he tick off in a previous life to deserve that? lol), and the show was in Phoenix, so seeing the Celtics shirt was a bit of a surprise for him. I mentioned my family that is still in Massachusetts, and he spoke about his years there. It was was of the nicest autograph experiences that I've ever had.

He was definitely one of the good guys.

End edit.