Photo radar worker murdered

From AZCentral.com -

Doug Georgianni, 51, was parked inside the DPS-owned Ford Escape, used as a photo enforcement vehicle, on the eastbound State Route 101 near 7th Avenue when the vehicle was attacked, according to DPS spokesman Harold Sanders.

DPS and police officers responded to the scene just before 9 p.m., where they found both the vehicle and Georgianni shot several times, Sanders said. Georgianni was taken to an area hospital, where he later died.

The Phoenix PD has a suspect in custody, and will give details at an afternoon press conference.

My deepest sympathy goes out to Mr. Georgianni's family and friends on their loss.

Generally, I don't find myself in agreement with any of the writers at Exurban League or Sonoran Alliance, but even they, in the persons of Kevin at Exurban League and Carnelian Saloon at Sonoran Alliance, came out and publicly stated that no matter how uncomfortable one might be with photo radar, shooting the people operating the vans is wrong.

I'm not a huge fan of photo enforcement either (the cameras aren't primarily a safety measure, they're a revenue generator), but the ballot box is the way to go here. If someone disagrees with the use of photo enforcement traffic cameras, he can talk to his legislator or vote for the ballot measure banning them.

This may be a bit of a surprise coming from someone who has such a demonstrably low opinion of AZ's political extremists, but it wouldn't be shocking if the real motive for the murder was either something more personal than "Ugh. Photo radar guy. Must shoot. Ugh." or was the act of someone stupid enough to think that no one was in the van when he decided to shoot at it.

Of course, given the fact that Mr. Georgianni was shot multiple times, that second possibility seems less likely.


Again, my deepest condolences go out to the victim's family and friends.


Laurie Roberts of the AZ Rep has her thoughts here.

The coming week...

As usual, all information culled from the websites of the relevant body/agency, and is subject to change without notice.

...For the first time in three weeks, the U.S. Congress will be in session.

- In Senate news, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee will be in Phoenix to hold a hearing on the wave of violence breaking across Mexico and occasionally (thus far) into the U.S.. The hearing will be held in the chambers of the Phoenix City Council, 200 W. Jefferson St., Phoenix at 9:00 a.m. The public is invited to attend on a first-come, first-served basis, but will not be allowed to ask questions or comment.

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio has chosen to skip the hearing in favor of an appearance on The Colbert Report.

Hey, I love The Colbert Report as much as the next wiseass with more than three working braincells, but I've got to wonder where Arpaio's head is - not only is the hearing right up his professional alley, if he went, he'd get to bash immigrants on national T.V.

- Over in the House, while it will be in session, it still looks to be a quiet week. Most of its planned agenda is filled with post office namings and housekeeping measures and the like. The most controversial bill looks to be H.R. 1145, the National Water Research and Development Initiative Act of 2009. Anything that involves scientific research will be opposed by many Republicans for that fact alone, and anything that involves money will be opposed by the rest. The bill will be the subject of a House Rules Committee hearing on Wednesday; expect to see Jeff Flake to offer up one of his anti-earmark amendments.


...In the AZ lege, there are signs that the budget battle, heretofore mostly conducted behind closed doors, is going public.

- Most of the Senate's committee agendas are still filled with presentations and executive appointments (when the committees are meeting at all). However, the agenda for Thursday's meeting of Senate Appropriations (9:30 a.m., SHR109) has a number of items on it - 10 bills with possible strikers to serve as the main budget bill as well as the budget reconciliation bills (BRBs exist because the lege cannot change laws in the actual budget bill, so any statute changes needed in order to make a budget work are put into a BRB.)

It's still early, so don't expect these moves to be the end of the budget battle, or even the beginning of the end, but they may be the beginning of the beginning, signalling that the lege is finally going to get down to some real work.

On the other hand, Senate Approps is chaired by Russell Pearce (R-National Alliance) and he is behind all of the budget strikers, so this week could just be an exercise in posturing for the wingers. If it happens at all - the text of the strikers has yet to be posted anywhere on the lege's website (as of this writing, anyway) and the underlying vehicle bills have yet to be referred to Appropriations by the Senate President.

- Over in the AZ House, most committees other than Rules are not meeting, and those that do are just meeting to hear presentations, not bills. None of the bills on the Rules agenda (so far) looks controversial.

In House floor action (actually COW, or Committee of the Whole), the most controversial bill on the agenda is HB2357. The sponsor, would-be State Superintendent of Public Instruction Rich Crandall (R-Mesa) title the measure "The Students' Religious Liberties Act" but it would be more aptly named "The Sponsor Wants To Appease The Religious Right Wing Before Running A Statewide Campaign Act."

The bill would place all sorts of restrictions on schools on their ability to deal with students who use religious dogma to complete academic assignments as well as those who wear clothing with anti-gay (or anti-whatever group they're getting their hate on for that week) messages to harass other students.


...As yet, the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors has no meetings scheduled for this week. However, given the amount of litigation that the supes are involved with, the emphasis is definitely on the "as yet." :)


...The Arizona Corporation Commission has a number of utilities hearings scheduled for the week, but no meetings of the Commission itself. The hearing matter that could affect the most people is for docket number E-01345A-08-0172, a rate hike request by APS. Tuesday, 10:00 a.m., Phoenix.


...The Board of Directors of the Maricopa Integrated Health System (MIHS) will be meeting on Wednesday, April 22, 2009 at 1:00 p.m. at Maricopa Medical Center, Auditoriums 1 and 2, Administration Building, 2601 E. Roosevelt Street in Phoenix. The highlight of that agenda seems to be item 7 (Financial Report).

It looks bad, in that according to the income statement, the system experienced an operating loss of over $3.3 million in March. However, because of the nature of the Maricopa Medical Center, an operating loss was budgeted-for, a loss of over $2.8 million. Total income for March, including non-operating revenues, was $1.76 million.

...The Central Arizona Project has a couple of committee meetings scheduled, but none for the whole governing board.

...The Governing Board of the Maricopa County Community College District isn't scheduled to meet this week.

...The Scottsdale City Council will hold a regular meeting on Tuesday at 5:00 p.m. in the City Hall Kiva. The agenda looks pretty mundane at this point, though fireworks could start bursting out in unexpected places. The most likely candidate for that is Mayor Lane's proposal to establish a Citizen Charter Review Task Force. The wording of the proposal would have that each member of the City Council appoint one member of the task force, with the mayor appointing the task force's chair.

...The Tempe City Council will be meeting on Thursday in the Harry E. Mitchell Government Center. That agenda includes a request to give Redflex $3 million more to administer Tempe's photo enforcement program. Apparently the money has already been budgeted and this matter is just a formality, but given the (lack of) popular support for photo radar, it wouldn't be shocking for some members of the public to argue against this one.

Karen Johnson for Governor and other campaign committees

...In a story that's been percolating through the AZ blogosphere, both lefty and righty, former State Senator Karen Johnson (R - formerly Mesa, now Snowflake) has formed a committee to run for governor next year.

If Johnson turns out to be Governor Jan Brewer's main competition in next year's Rep primary (she won't be, but this far out, it's all about the "if"), it could actually help Brewer. Johnson is far enough right to make the very ideological Brewer look moderate by comparison. In addition, while Johnson is so far out on the fringe (her name was on bills like "guns in schools", "guns in bars," and "secede from the United States if the feds mess with our guns," even Democrats in the lege that I've spoken to have said that she was among the warmest and most civil legislators while she was in the Senate.

Even if she stays in the primary all the way to the vote, Johnson probably won't get nasty enough to cause Brewer to spend a lot of money for the primary.

R-Cubed coverage here; Blog for Arizona coverage here.

...In LD8, someone named Ted King has filed paperwork to run for state senate. No party affiliation is listed, and the committee is one of the $500 threshold variety.

His name is utterly lousy for an internet search, but with that committee type, his candidacy isn't a serious one, regardless of his party affiliation. He's not going to upend incumbent Carolyn Allen or either of the putative front-runners for her seat when she steps aside, current state reps. Michelle Reagan and John Kavanagh on $500.

...For State Treasuer, Democrat Andrei Cherny has announced his candidacy (he'd been "exploring" a run before this) for state treasuer. He's a best-selling author and former Clinton-era White House speechwriter.

More impressions from Thursday's Republican "town hall" on the budget

...From the beginning of theThe Reps liked to talk about the state's "structural deficit" - the state doesn't take in enough in revenue every year to cover its basic annual fiscal commitments. Every budget is balanced by an array of loans, federal money, and accounting gimmicks (and more!) just so the lege can say that it didn't raise taxes.

The funny thing is that most of the "non-tax revenue enhancements" that they talked about using to address the state's budget deficit - selling state assets like parks, prisons, and the like or securitizing future lottery revenues (basically a loan using lottery revenue as collateral) are have one-time only benefits. Their ideas would do *nothing* to address that very stuctural deficit that they discussed.

In fact, but reducing the state's assets and committing future revenues to debt service instead of public services would only worsen the state's structural deficit.

In short, the Reps don't want to *solve* the state's budget problems, they want to *aggravate* them.

That way even if there is a change in the lege next year, the structural damage to the state's public service infrastructure that they are inflicting will continue to have devastating effects long after they are consigned to electoral irrelevance.

...One thing actually made me a little proud - in spite of all of the anger in the audience on Thursday, people were civil and respectful.

There was a group of ASU students who called out from the audience for a statement on the $1200 fee that Michael Crow wants to impose on students to offset the lege's cuts and a home school mom who stormed out of the hall in protest of all of the public school teachers there arguing against cuts to public ed, yet neither of them stepped out of line. They just added a little color to the proceedings. :))

...The Reps, especially Kavanagh, liked to call the expectations that education faces cuts of upwards of $900 million misinformation and a "doomsday scenario." He said that number was thrown around by Democrats to scare people.

The only problem with that position? That "$900 million" number was the Reps' own number.

I'm not sure if the Reps' disavowal of the "$900 million" number is because of the outrage of the citizenry, even some Republicans, or if the plan all along was to frighten folks with *massive* cuts before settling on cuts that are merely *huge*, and then patting themselves on the back and saying "Hey - it could have been worse. We really went to the mat for education."

Later...

Went to a "town hall" on Thursday night, and an ideological indoctrination session broke out...

Forgive the posting style tonight. I was taking notes on my laptop and trying to write the post while listening to the meeting.

That method didn't work too well. :)

Anyway, on to the post...

On Thursday evening, more than 150 interested voters (and a few of their babies :)) ) attended a Republican propaganda session budget town hall at the Scottsdale Library.

The mouthpieces for the session were Sens. Russell Pearce, Chuck Gray, and Thayer Verschoor and Rep. John Kavanagh. Other than a couple of Rep county party functionaries, no other Rep officials showed up.

Perhaps 40 members of the audience were Kool Aid drinkers - Libertarians, at least one home school mom, and assorted nativists from Pearce's posse - and all were seated front row center, BTW. The rest were teachers, members of the disabled community, and citizens concerned about the state of the state.

Eric Kurland of the Scottsdale Education Association organized a group of more than 100 educators at the front entrance of the library (SPD sent 4 cops on bikes!! We're raucous rebels!! Whoo hooo!!! :) )

The crowd in the auditorium.

The Republican spiel was predictable - taxes bad, government bad, stimulus money bad because of strings attached, the causes of our problems are named "Napolitano" and "Obama", etc. They also pounded on the point that all government bureaucracy is "wasteful." While they were (usually) careful to say that they don't want to cut services to needy Arizonans, they made it clear they want to gut the administrative infrastructure that delivers such services.

They made some noises about protecting "the most vulnerable in our society," but protecting the GOP's touchstones, big business and the wealthy, was clearly a higher priority. As in for every mention of the disabled or education, there were 10 mentions of "no taxes."

Literally.

They also tried to shift the blame for the state's revenue problems on the Voter Protection Act and on Prop 301, funding for transportation and education.

Pandering to the large number of teachers present, Chuck Gray strongly hinted that if voters opened up the VPA and its protections, Clean Elections' funding would go to education. He called Clean Elections "welfare for politicians."

Gray also decried the VPA and the motivation behind it, the lege's override of the voters' passage of the legalization of medical marijuana.

Oh, and in a shout out to the wingers, Gray called the property tax "extortion."

Russell Pearce, as is his wont, blamed undocumented immigrants for all that ails the state and country. That rant went on for more than 10 minutes, though he slipped in related jibes at other times.

Pearce also demonized the medical marijuana initiative from the 1990s...and he proclaimed, yet again, that "we have been very generous to education."

Laughter of the derisive variety ensued. :)

John Kavanagh opined that "the wealthy already pay their fair share."

More laughter.

Kavanagh spoke of "logical fallacies," saying that there were other possible courses beside program cuts and raising taxes. He wants to sell off state assets (parks? prisons?) and securitizing future lottery revenues. To be fair, even he admitted the lottery revenue scheme is just another word for "borrowing."

That was about the only sensible thing (lottery securitization is borrowing) that any of them said all evening.

Pearce, when he wasn't harping on undocumented immigrants, was excoriating the federal government for not letting private industry operate unfettered by regulation.

Of course, what he didn't mention (and perhaps didn't know because the library isn't part of his district) was to warn people about the tap water - the library is located in the northern reaches of the North Indian Bend Wash Superfund Site. A designation necessitated by private industry dumping toxic chemicals into the groundwater there.

Something they did until they were stopped by some of those pesky regulations.

Of course2, the library is part of his nativist saddle partner's (Kavanagh) district. Maybe Kavanagh should have mentioned it to him.

Kavanagh spouted about misinformation circulating about cuts to education, saying that reports of devasting cuts were misleading. He said that reports of pending cuts in the vicinity of $900 million were overstated by double, projecting cuts for FY2010 at less than $450 million. He reserved a special comment for ASU President Crow, calling his actions and words on the topic of university cuts "despicable."

In the end, the Reps tightly controlled the forum. For the vast majority of the forum, they either gave statements or answered pre-selected questions.

At the end, they *did* open the floor up to a few questions/comments, but with only a few minutes left in the forum. The time for the forum ran out with more than half of the people interested in addressing the panel still standing in line, waiting their turns at the mic.

In way of comparison, consider the format for Democratic budget hearings - 10 minutes of presentation on the state of the budget, and two hours listening to Arizonans talk about the effects of the draconian cuts have had on their lives.

In short, where the Democratic caucus of the lege listened to the concerns of voters, the Republicans lectured at the voters.

Hopefully, enough voters will see and understand the difference, and vote to make some changes come November 2010.

More pics tomorrow or Saturday....

Red meat day in the AZ Republic

Wednesday's edition of the AZ Republic featured a number of articles that were sure to tweak the radars of AZ's Republicans (the Nativist, anti-all taxes, and the white supremacist branches, anyway).

- There was an article concerning AZ's income tax rates, and how they are among the lowest in the country.

From the article -

Today is not usually a day for which taxpayers are grateful.

But, for Arizonans, there is some comfort to take on April 15, the deadline for filing income-tax returns: Among the 41 states and the District of Columbia that assess individual income taxes, Arizona charges less than all but a handful.

The Arizona Republic used income-tax rates collected by the non-profit Tax Foundation to see how Arizona stacked up with other states at three taxable-income levels: $50,000, $150,000 and $1 million. At each level, Arizona had lower tax bills than all but three to six states.

- Next up in the hit parade was an article about how the percentage of blacks as part of America's prison population in custody for drug offenses has fallen while the percentage of white drug offenders making up the prison population has risen.

From the article -

For the first time since crack cocaine sparked a war on drugs 20 years ago, the number of Black Americans in state prisons for drug offenses has fallen sharply, while the number of White prisoners convicted for drug crimes has increased, according to a report released Tuesday.

The Washington-based Sentencing Project reported that the number of Black inmates in state prisons for drug offenses had fallen from 145,000 in 1999 to 113,500 in 2005, a 22 percent decline. Over the same period, the number of White drug offenders rose, from 50,000 to more than 72,000, a 42 percent increase. The number of Latino drug offenders was unchanged at about 51,000.

- Then there was the piece de resistance - a piece on a study showing that 73% of the children of undocumented immigrants have been born in the U.S., meaning that the children are citizens.

From the article -

Nearly three out of four children of illegal immigrants are U.S.-born citizens, a growing trend that could complicate the national political debate over how to deal with millions of undocumented migrants now in the country, a comprehensive new report suggests.

An estimated 4 million children of illegal immigrants, or 73 percent, are U.S.-born, according to the nonpartisan Pew Hispanic Center.

Now, each of the articles mentioned above generated dozens of comments from AZCentral.com visitors, but the one that generated the most furor, and a blog post (from the ever-reliably nativist Seeing Red AZ - not linking to it; use Google if you really want to read it), was, of course, the last one concerning undocumented immigrants and their children.

Seeing Red AZ's post (and the comments on it) could be summed up thusly - "immigrants bad, immigrants' babies worse, 14th Amendment worst. Real Americans would get rid of all three."

Of course, as loud and prolific as the responses to these articles were, it could have been worse.

All the really extreme GOPers were out protesting President Obama's tax cuts for better than 95% of Americans at grassroots-based astroturf-based "tea parties" around the country.

...One comment on the drug/prison article - guess what could inspire real reform of our country's overly harsh and woefully unfair drug laws?

More white people facing prison because of those laws.

Later...

Democratic budget hearing to be rescheduled

Showing a little courtesy toward their Republican colleagues, perhaps because the Reps are so new to the whole "reach out to the public" thing regarding the state's budget crisis, the Democratic caucus in the state lege will reschedule one of their planned public budget hearings. Instead, they are graciously encouraging the public to attend the Republicans' first-ever public budget-related "town hall."

The Democratic hearing was scheduled for Thursday, April 16 at Mesa Community College; details of the rescheduled hearing will be announced shortly.

The Republican "town hall" will be held on Thursday in the auditorium of the Civic Center Branch of the Scottsdale Public Library (3839 N. Drinkwater Blvd., Scottsdale, 85251) at 5:45 p.m. The Maricopa County Republican Party is requesting $5 donations to the party at the door. More info here.

Minnesota closer to having a full allotment of U.S. Senators

From AP via Yahoo! News -

A Minnesota court confirmed Monday that Democrat Al Franken won the most votes in his 2008 Senate race against Republican Norm Coleman, who had already announced plans to appeal the decision.

For more than 3 months, Minnesota has been deprived of full representation in D.C. by Coleman's and the GOP's dilatory tactics.

The thing is Coleman has known since January his candidacy was over - he took a lobbyist job.

Still, petty obstructionism is the only arrow left in the national Republicans' quiver these days, so they are working it for all that it's worth.

It's been five months since the election. Yes it was close enough to warrant a recount, but every recount since the election, including those supervised by Republican officials, has favored Al Franken.

Coleman needs to give it up. If he still wants to be a U.S. Senator, he can set up a committee to run for Amy Klobuchar's seat in 2012.


Once I read the article I wanted to title the post "Franken keeps winning; Coleman keeps stamping his feet and screaming 'Wahhhhh!!!' "...but that was too long, even for me.

Wonder how the nativists rationalize this?

From AP via Yahoo! News -

Pedro Guzman has been an American citizen all his life. Yet in 2007, the 31-year-old Los Angeles native — in jail for a misdemeanor, mentally ill and never able to read or write — signed a waiver agreeing to leave the country without a hearing and was deported to Mexico as an illegal immigrant.

{snip}

In a drive to crack down on illegal immigrants, the United States has locked up or thrown out dozens, probably many more, of its own citizens over the past eight years. A monthslong AP investigation has documented 55 such cases, on the basis of interviews, lawsuits and documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. These citizens are detained for anything from a day to five years. Immigration lawyers say there are actually hundreds of such cases.

While nativists such as Russell Pearce (R-National Alliance) always take great pains to emphasize that they only have a problem with undocumented immigrants, not with legal immigrants or with U.S. citizens of Mexican descent, the targets of their ire seem to always have one thing in common - brown skin.

I fully expect to hear something about "acceptable collateral damage" or something similar from from the nativist side of this issue.

And I'll start believing that they believe their own BS when they volunteer to go to prison for crimes they haven't committed.

Anybody want to volunteer to hold their breath until *that* happens?

Anyone????

The week ahead...

...As with last week, the week in Congress will be uneventful - they're still in recess.

...In the AZ Lege, things are still fairly quiet in the "official actions" department, at least until the budget logjam breaks up.

- In the House, the only committee agenda that has been posted is for Monday's meeting of the House Rules Committee (1:00 p.m., HHR4). That agenda looks to be mundane, but that is subject to change. The Committee of the Whole agendas (COW) (here and here) look a little more interesting - the nativists have a couple of their measures up for consideration.

HB2331 is a proposal from Rep. Tom Boone to bar "sanctuary city" policies. Specifically it "prohibits cities, towns, and county boards of supervisors from enacting ordinances or resolutions or adopting policies which limit or prohibit the lawful enforcement of United States immigration laws." (from the fact sheet associated with the bill). HB2331 was passed by the Judiciary Committee on March 3 on a party-line vote (Reps supporting, Dems opposing).

HCR2024 is even more "special." Among other things, it demands that -

"all compulsory federal legislation that directs states to comply under threat of civil or criminal penalties or sanctions or requires states to pass legislation or lose federal funding be prohibited or repealed."

Wonder why the Republicans want the ability to accept federal funds without having to expend them in the way intended by the feds (you know, for things like education, human services, and infrastructure)?

That's a rhetorical question, folks.

- Over in the Senate, the committee meetings mostly have to do with executive appointments. There is no floor schedule posted as yet.

...The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors will be holding an "informal" meeting on Monday at 10:00 a.m. and a "formal" meeting on Wednesday at 9:00 a.m. The highlight there looks to be Monday's budget-balancing fund transfers. That's an issue that has resulted in litigation (aka - a lawsuit) from some of the agencies that have seen their funds swept up. It's probably no coincidence that an executive session is also on the same agenda.

...The Arizona Corporation Commission has a securities meeting on Monday at 10:00 a.m. Not sure how significant the short agenda is, but something tells me that unless you are part of, or a customer of, Citigroup Global Markets Inc., Highline Estates LLC, or Trademark Capital Management LLC, this meeting won't be too interesting.

However, if you *are* in one of those groups, the meeting could be *very* interesting, if not exactly fun.

Those organizations all are part of agenda items that have "cease and desist" and "restitution" in them. :)

...The Board of Directors of the Central Arizona Project, the Maricopa Integrated Health System Board of Directors and the Governing Board of the Maricopa County Community College District are not meeting this week.

...The Scottsdale City Council isn't meeting this week. However, it is possible that one or more members of the Council will show up for the McDowell Road/South Scottsdale Economic Summit on Saturday, April 18 (9:00 a.m. until 1:00 p.m., Granite Reef Senior Center).

The agenda is here; the sign-up/RSVP page is here.

While the "public is invited" it looks as if the city is more interested in the viewpoints of the Chamber of Commerce (and the Goldwater Institute!) than in those of actual residents of south Scottsdale.

While those organizations are well-represented on the various panels, there are no panelists there to specifically address the needs and ideas of the residents of the area.

You know, *residents.* The people who are the driving force of almost any local economy, and the people who will be most affected by any scheme hatched at the summit.

Anybody remember when the City declared that south Scottsdale was “economically blighted” (or somesuch B.S.) to facilitate the use of eminent domain to take property from folks and give it to developers in the name of “redevelopment”?

Don't be shocked if something just as monumentally stupid and contemptuous comes out of this.

...On Thursday, the City of Phoenix and Valley Metro (aka - metro Phoenix public transit) is holding a public hearing on proposed capital projects to be funded by federal stimulus money. (5:30 p.m. - 7:00 p.m., Public Transit Department, 302 N. 1st Ave., 4th floor, Phoenix, Arizona. )


...Of course, the political highlight of the week should be the Republicans' version of a budget town hall at the Civic Center Branch of the Scottsdale Library on Thursday, April 16 at 5:45 p.m.
Expect a good turnout, as a number of people who have been adversely affected by the goings-on down at the lege (aka - laid-off teachers) plan to attend.

Contact Eric Kurland for more details at erickurland6[at]aol.com.

...Thursday looks to be the busiest day of the week. In addition to the two previously mentioned events, from 6:30 p.m until 8:30 p.m. Legislative Democrats will be holding a budget hearing of their own at Mesa Community College (Library and High Technology Center (Building 11), Room #145 - 1833 W. Southern Ave, Mesa ) and over at the Love of Christ Lutheran Church (1525 N. Power Rd. Mesa, AZ) there will be a town hall meeting on healthcare reform from 7 p.m. until 9 p.m.

While both the Dem hearing and the healthcare forum are highly worthy events (as is the Valley Metro hearing), I'm going to be at the Scottsdale Library - it's closer to home, and has the potential to be high comedy. (Republicans trying to spin the mess that they've made of the state? The Daily Show should do a remote broadcast that night :)) )

Later!!

More 2010 candidate committees

Other bloggers are starting to cover the early filing trend (such as Katie at Democratic Diva), but there are a couple that even they haven't gotten to yet.

- John Paul Mitchell has filed for a run at Governor as an Independent candidate.

- Brenda Burns has filed as a Republican candidate for Arizona Corporation Commission.

- Hugh Kealer has filed as a Republican candidate for Governor.

Mitchell is *NOT* the hair care company; he's the anti-tax blogger.

Burns is the former State Senate President. Greg Patterson at Espresso Pundit has more here. He lists as one of her career highlights the fact that she was President of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). According to Sourcewatch, ALEC "favours big business and rollbacks [of] environmental regulations."

Something tells me that if elected, Burns' priorities won't include protecting the interests of those she was elected to represent.

As for Kealer, I couldn't find out much about him during a cursory internet search. That's actually not much of a surprise, given that he listed his campaign email addy as "hughk[at]steelersfan.net."

Yes, he's running for governor of Arizona as a fan of the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Steelers.

Perhaps one of Mr. Kealer's advisors or friends could advise him on how to set up a gmail account. It's free and doesn't scream "Will trade campaign swag for Iron City!!"

:)

Later!

Legislative Republicans - finally realizing that they have lost the PR battle

...And while they are finally taking steps to make up ground, even those belated attempts are making things worse.

For weeks now, the Democratic caucus of the Arizona Legislature has been travelling across the state, talking about the state's budget crisis with literally thousands of Arizonans.

On Thursday, April 16, the Maricopa County Republican Party will playing catch-up. Well, trying to, anyway.

They'll be holding a "Town-hall" regarding the state budget. It will be held in the auditorium in the Civic Center Branch of the Scottsdale Library. The panel will feature well-known Kool-Aid drinkers legislative Republicans such as Rep. John Kavanagh, Sen. Russell Pearce, Sen. Thayer Verschoor, and Sen. Chuck Gray.

The notice for the town hall promises discussion on how illegal immigrants and Democrats are responsible for the state's revenue shortfall. (What did you expect? They're on the receiving end of some serious heat over the devastation they are wreaking upon the state's education and human service infrastructures. They will be pointing fingers at everybody but themselves until November 2010. And after.)

Anyway, the meeting looks to be aimed at shoring up their support among the GOP's true believers.

As mentioned earlier, literally thousands of people attended the Democratic budget events, and the Reps know this. They know that people are seriously pissed, and are looking for ways to make their elected officials aware of their unhappiness.

This apparently presented a dilemma for the organizers of the event - how to encourage the participation of those who already support them while discouraging the "riff-raff" (you know, like those laid-off teachers) from getting in the way of their little blame train.

So some bright-eyed and bushy-tailed type** came up with the following line (emphasis mine) -

"A $5 donation will be taken at the door. "

Yep, when faced with an epic budget crisis, brought on in significant part by their own caucus' slavish devotion to tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy, and when faced with a population that is livid over the reckless and heartless "cut, and cut until the patient stops bleeding...and breathing" approach promulagated by the Reps, the Reps want to *charge* Arizonans extra for the privilege of speaking to the people who are supposed to represent them in the lege.

AZ Republicans - people who, when they find themselves in a hole, immediately start digging. Down.

**In this context "Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed type" = "crack-smoking nimrod"

Thousands of teacher layoffs beginning...

and the sad part is that it's *only* the beginning...

From AZCentral.com -

The Scottsdale school board laid off almost 250 teachers, administrators and staff during an emotional board meeting Tuesday that brought some administrators and board members to tears.

It wasn't just Scottsdale losing teachers and other educators, though. Others include -

Litchfield Elementary - 78

Gilbert - more than 400

Tucson - 600

Apache Junction - 49

Mesa - 500

Flagstaff - 300+

There are more, too many more, but you get the point.

There will be *many* more notices going out in the next week or so.


Too reiterate something that has been said before this - votes have consequences.

I attended two rallies at the state capitol in support of education in AZ. Some of the teachers in attendance told me that they were Republicans.

I told them that if this year didn't convince them to give the Democrats a chance, it should at least convince them to become more active Republicans.

By doing so, they would be in a better position to make sure that their party produces candidates who are more interested in protecting the interests of their constituents than they are in imposing an extremist ideology on the state.

State Sen. Jack Harper - Kool-Aid drinker extraordinaire

Ahhhh...Jack Harper...the GOP's gift to every writer in the state...

From AZCentral.com's Political Insider -

When it comes to cutting the budget, tax credits have been the domain of the Democrats. Why, they've even offered up one of their own, so to speak, proposing a suspension of the after-school tax credit which goes to fund extracurricular activities in the public schools. Of course, they also add on the credit for contributions to school tuition organizations, which provide scholarships for low-income students to attend private schools.

Sen. Jack Harper, R-Surprise, wants to take the suspension one step further and eliminate the after-school credit as well as the credit for donations to programs that assist the working poor. But not the STO credit.

Harper claims that his support for the STO tax credit is because it funnels students away from the public schools that the lege has to help pay for.

The fact that at least one of his legislative colleagues has found a way to profit from funnelling students (and taxpayer monies) away from public schools and into private schools and STOs has *nothing* to do with Harper's zeal to protect STOs, right?

Yeah, sure. {said with a tone of cynical sarcasm}

Oh, and the shot at the working poor? Protecting businesses and attacking the poor is just gravy for almost any Rep in their legislative caucus...

Later!

Coleman's desperate moves fail - Franken Widens Lead

From The Hill -

Norm Coleman has just made his appeal more difficult.

Al Franken extended his lead in the Minnesota Senate race to 313 votes Tuesday, after about 350 improperly rejected absentee ballots were added to the ballot pool.

The total is 87 more votes than Franken led by at the beginning of the day and all but assures that Coleman’s current court challenge will fail.

Don't be surprised if the GOPers' appeals and dilatory tactics to last for six years, the entire term of office up for election - as much as the GOP wants to protect one of its own (Coleman), they want to prevent the seating of someone they *despise* - the loudly liberal Franken. They hate him with a fiery passion they once reserved for Hillary Clinton.

- In other ongoing elections news, the race in NY-20 to replace former Congresswoman now Senator Kirsten Gillibrand in the U.S. House is still too close to call, with Democrat Scott Murphy and Republican Jim Tedisco swapping the lead in the race on an almost-hourly basis.

Of course, given that the Reps have a more than 64,000 voter registration advantage in the district, the fact that they didn't win this one in a walkover is something of an embarrassment.

- In IL-05, there is a special election today to select a replacement for former Congressman now White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. That one is expected to stay in the Democratic column, though with the events in NY-20, it may be worth keeping an eye on this one.

Later...