Blog For Arizona

Pod For Arizona: Oro Valley's Elections with Bill Garner and Salette Latas, and Blogger Art Segal

Recently, I had the opportunity to have a nice conversation with newly-elected Oro Valley Councilpersons Bill Garner and Salette Latas.

We discussed their astounding primary victories in which both of them managed to net over 60% of the primary vote, placing both of them directly on the Council from the primary: a first for an Oro Valley town election. In doing so, they beat three incumbents, knocking one of them out of the race and leaving the final two playing musical chairs for the final seat in the June general election.

We were joined in our discussion by Art Segal, the Bloggitor (my neologism of blogger/editor, like it?) of the Let Oro Valley Excel, or LOVE, blog. Art is something of a blog hero in my book: he stood up to legal threats and some fairly slimy political intimidation tactics by the Oro Valley Board through their Town Attorney before and during the town's election.

We discussed the many land-use, development, budget, tax, and water issues facing many of the swift-growing cities and towns of the desert Southwest. The conversation runs about an hour. Here is a chronology in case you are only interested in particular parts of our discussion:

1:00 What’s Happening in Oro Valley?
5:00 Motivation for Change
7:00 Transparent Government Popular Uprising
9:00 The Strategic Campaign Plan
13:00 The Vestar Tax Scam
17:00 Citizens Organize to Fight Back
18:00 The Online Campaign
20:00 The Coming General Election
25:00 The Issues the Next Council Will Face
28:00 Arroyo Grande
43:00 Zoning Hi-Jinks
45:00 Naranja Mega-Park
54:00 Growth Politics in Arizona (sorry, some brief audio difficulties)

Download OroValleyPolitics.mp3

On the Ground in Philadelphia

by David Safier

I'm in Philly visiting family and working on the Obama campaign. Does any other Arizona blog have a correspondent right here where the action is? I don't think so! (Mike, you said you'd pay my expenses, right? Mike? Are you there, Mike?)

I took the photo at around 3:30 Philly Time in front of the Constitution Center where the debate will be happening tonight (I saw Jonathan Alter walk past -- identified him by his hairline more than his face.)

The Clinton and Obama camps were across the street from the center waving signs and chanting slogans. The Clinton campaign way out-organized the Obama folks on this front. They had hundreds of people in matching t-shirts carrying triple signs on long poles. We had about half as many people, most of us waving small lawn signs. Ah well, signage doesn't matter much, does it?

On last night's 11pm local news, the lead story was the campaigns. They asked whether the recent dust-up hurt Obama, and their conclusion was, the polls say no. He's about 6% behind Clinton, which is where things were a few days ago. The words "bitter," "guns" and "God" were not mentioned, which says to me the whole story is over, unless something else revives it.

The two local papers were equally low-keyed about the Obama statement that the Clinton and McCain camps tried to turn into the elite, anti-God, anti-gun statement of the millennium. The worst they could say was, maybe the story slowed Obama's momentum.

On the education front, the Philly Charter Schools are up to have their contracts renewed, and it looks like a few of them might be in trouble. Two might have the plug pulled due to poor performance. And in a completely separate incident, it looks like a family has been paying itself lavishly to run two charter schools, and they could be in deep trouble. This kind of thing couldn't happen in Arizona, of course. Nobody's watching. The state has put no money in the budget for monitoring or oversight of charter schools, so we really don't know much about what they're doing. Some are probably wonderful. Others are probably awful. But no one is minding the store.

FEC Complaint Against Bee Ad Certain To Languish

by Michael Bryan

I am reminded by the Bee complaint (and legal eagles with whom I consult on these matters) that the FEC currently only has two members, which means it does not have a quorum and cannot conduct any official business.

This is why the DNC complaint against McCain for promising to take public funds to secure a multi-million-dollar loan and then exceeding the FEC primary caps has not been acted on, either.  The appointments to the FEC are tied up over a dispute between Republicans who want their entire slate of appointees approved in a single vote (because some of them are just too atrocious even for Republicans to be seen voting for), and Democrats who want individual up or down votes on each nominee.

If this dispute is not resolved, the FEC will not be able to issue checks for public  financing of the fall campaign, and the FEC also will not be able to address the complaint against Bee (though it may be assigned to an investigative staff member).

Tim Bee's campaign may have legal liability if there is evidence to show that his campaign coordinated this ad with the Educational Financial Reform Group (EFRG). Proof of such co-ordination could possibly be contained in the b-roll of the footage shot to produce the ad, which may be why Cox Communications and Public Policy Partners who created the ad have so far proven unwilling to release that material to the media. We'll see if they are more cooperative with the FEC investigators when they demand access to that material. Wouldn't it be convenient if that material were somehow destroyed or lost in an administrative SNAFU in the interim?

The fines, if any, against the EFRG and/or the school districts will likely not be too severe; probably 100-200% of the amount in violation ($16K, we know of so far). But in extreme cases, the fines can start with a base of $10K and add as much as 1000% of the amount in violation. So there are potential fines of approaching $200K involved, but such fines would not be applied to Bee's campaign unless he coordinated with the maker of the ad.

There is also the issue of just who the heck the EFRG actually is. Who are it's board of directors and officers? How are they organized and how do they report their activities? What is its budget and how is has it been spent? What is the organization's charter and does it actually provide for lobbying expenditures? Who actually made the decision to spend public funds in this manner? There needs to be much more transparency about these questions if public funds are to be spent to influence public policy. So far, none of those questions have been answered to my satisfaction.

There are really two issues here, however: a legal issue, and a moral issue.  It is not clear at this point whether the Bee campaign did anything legally wrong themselves. But it appears that the EFRG organization may have broken both federal and Arizona elections laws. Will they be held to account for it? Whoever 'they' may be?

But even if this instance of electioneering were perfectly legal, which I doubt, the school districts' spending district tax dollars in support of a candidate rather than on the education of our children is just wrong. Considering the the base funding rate for a pupil in Arizona is just over $6K, a year's worth of education for two children was spent on this silly "Thank You" to Bee.

Sheila Tobias on Donna Branch-Gilby for Pima County Supervisor

Sheila Tobias, a well-known educator and activist here in southern Arizona recently has been circulating her endorsement of Donna Branch-Gilby over incumbent Sharon Bronson in the Democratic primary for District 3 Pima County Supervisor. I thought it really well done, and worth a read for anyone trying to understand why Donna is challenging an incumbent Democrat:

Dear Friends:

A Board of Supervisors election rarely generates the passion and excitement of a presidential primary; or a congressional race; or even the contest for Mayor and City Council.

But, once you think about the power exerted by the Pima County Board of Supervisors over everything that matters, from plugging potholes to budgeting and managing the libraries, from juvenile detention to solid waste land fills, from ensuring the integrity of elections to waste water treatment, county property assessments and taxing, and approving (or rejecting) rezoning requests for homes and business development, you will realize, as I have come to realize: that the upcoming election to the Board of Supervisors matters very much to all of us who live here in the County.

The five supervisors sometimes appear to be a permanent body. With two of the Supervisors in their (well-paid by the way) positions for 12 and 10 years, a third for 8 and a fourth ensconced for six, I am supporting a challenger, Donna Branch Gilby, former Pima County Chair of the Democratic Party, most recently Vice-Chair of the State Party, because Donna is committed to voter integrity (see below) and balanced growth. She’s already been endorsed by the Election Integrity Committee of the Pima County Democratic Party.

Donna has explained to me the arcane workings of the Board of Supervisors – which we voters cannot alter; all we can do is to change the “cast of characters.”

Donna is running against a Democrat in a district that includes north Tucson and extends from the West side of Tucson to the Yuma County line and south to the Mexico border and includes the Tohono O’odham Nation. If you’re wondering why a Democrat would oppose another Democrat (and two of the other Democratic Supervisors are likely to be challenged by members of their own party this year as well), the reason resides in yet another responsibility that the Supervisors have, namely, determining voting modalities, and certifying elections. 

State law charges political parties with performing oversight of the election process; this includes monitoring the vote counting process.  When Donna chaired the Pima County Democratic Party, she spoke numerous times on this before the Board of Supervisors.  Her opponent in this election was the leading obstructionist.  Even after a 3½ day trial in December 2007, when Judge Michael Miller ruled that political party officials could examine the databases of the 2006 elections, Supervisor Bronson was calling for an appeal of the judge’s ruling.

With friends like these (on voter integrity), you don’t need enemies.

About Donna:

• Donna is a 40-year resident of Tucson with a Master’s in Public Administration from the U of A.  She taught supervisory and management skills to Dept of Economic Security staff for 20 years.  Was a member of AFSCME.

• Served as Chair of the Pima County Democratic Party in 2006 and then as 1^st Vice Chair of the Arizona Democratic Party in 2007

• Founder of the Arizona Women’s Political Caucus; served as a Director on the Boards of Tucson Peace Center, Planned Parenthood, Open Inn and as a Commissioner on the Tucson Human Relations Commission for 8 years. 

• She lives with her husband Bob Gilby at Milagro Cohousing - a Community in Balance with Nature, which they co-founded in 2001. She is the mother of Michelle Williams, MD, Tucson, and Toby Branch, AIA, Denver.

Donna’s priorities – including voter integrity – are ours:

• Balanced growth – to ensure that the population of Pima County doesn’t exceed our water supplies – employing the Board’s power over

  •      zoning,

  •      building  codes,

  • impact fees,

  • determining where sewer lines will go

  
  Thus, the Board could communicate to developers that in-fill rather than sprawl is a Pima County priority; and make that ruling stick!

• Transportation –through the budgeting process,

• Election process – through funding and supervision over the County Elections Division

• Open Decisions – Openly Arrived At

• Taking more leadership so that the professional County Administrator (who has also been on the job a long time, directing policy from behind the scenes) implements Board policy rather than his own.

The Pima County Board of Supervisors is required by law to hold open “Study Sessions” at which upcoming decisions (not laws – they do not legislate) are supposed to be publicly aired. But  for the past several years, these “Study Sessions” have been routinely canceled. Donna wants to bring in the kind of experienced people who invite input, criticism, and other (better) ideas when appropriate to a discussion or a decision.

Donna is likely to be opposed in her bid to unseat Supervisor Bronson (in office since 1996) by the Arizona Home Builders, Realtors, and others who have come to benefit from her long incumbency.

Once you meet Donna Branch-Gilby, you will know that she would make the Board of Supervisors more responsive to the views and the needs of people like us.

What you can do?:

• Offer your support publicly, by adding your name to a list of supporters.

• Volunteer, especially to do research on the impact of the Board’s actions/inaction on the utility service delivery boundary.

• Make a financial contribution. County elections are not part of “Clean Elections,” so candidates must raise funds traditionally – by asking. The maximum allowed contribution is $390 per person each election cycle.  Checks to “Branch-Gilby 2008” may be sent to P.O. Box 85781, Tucson, AZ 85754 

• Join me at a Meet the Candidate party at the home of

Bob and Joan Kaye Cauthorn
Wednesday, April 2,  5:30 – 7:30 pm
30 N Camino Espanol
One block North and East of Broadway and Country Club.

Our LD 28 State Representatives Deserve Your Support

My State Representatives, Steve Farley and David Bradley, are two of the good guys. They do a heck of good job and are just damned good liberal Democrats with solid progressive values. I don't mind that David is obsessed with the welfare of everyone's kids and Steve with his trains; I think it's charming, in fact.

And Steve is kind of freakishly into his job. His email Farleygrams are wonderfully informative, and he has a 100% perfect attendance and voting record—David's is good, too, of course, but Steve's a legislatin' machine. We are getting every dime's worth, and then some for the pittance we pay these guys.

If you want to subscribe to Steve's Farleygrams, fill in your email:

I wish David were running clean so that I could encourage you to send him Clean Elections qualifying $5s... but he's not, so just tell him you'd like to send him a little filthy lucre... but would rather be sending him Clean money.

Steve is running Clean and is now collecting his $5s. Download Steve's Qualifying Contributions Form (PDF). You can only contribute qualifying $5s if you live in LD 28. If you don't know what legislative district you live in, you can easily find out courtesy of our awesome Democratic Pima County Recorder, F. Ann Rodriguez.

Meet Sydney Hay, Republican Lobbyist and Ideologue Seeking to Fill Tricky Dick Renzi's Purloined Shoes

Mining industry lobbyist and candidate for Congress in CD 1, Sydney Hay put together a very nice introductory video for her campaign. It illustrates very clearly why the GOP won't manage to hang on to CD 1: they are absolutely bereft of ideas.

Hay's campaign looks like it was cobbled together out of most extreme rantings and wacky policies of the Right over the past 20 years, the dissicated corpses of Reagan and Goldwater, and the most disingenuous and empty rhetoric the Right has fallen back on in defense of the massive failures of the Bush years, all held together by a 'values' appeal that already passé among evangelicals and fundamentalists, let alone the general public.

You can always tell when a social movement is effectively dead by how nostalgic its members become about a claimed Golden Age. In the case of the Conservative Movement, their necromantic rites centering around Reagan and Goldwater are increasingly elaborate, central to their religion, and frankly pitiful.

Sure, we Democrats have our culture heroes—FDR, JRK, RFK, MLK—but we aren't nearly so strident about hearkening back to their particular strain of liberalism as a lost Golden Age that we must return to, and to which our politicians must pay obsequious obescience.

That's because Liberalism is alive and kicking and growing. Conservatism is a dead and discredited credo, destroyed by Bush and the Republican Congress of 1994-2006, now seeking a leader who can revivify it with a fresh perspective and newly invigorated values. That leader doesn't seem to be Sydney Hay—she's too ideologically rigid to acknowledge any new ideas.

I was really amused by the enthusiastic and detailed endorsement by Arizona Republican Congressman Trent Franks. Since the incumbent is in the dock, Renzi can't exactly pass the establishment torch, so Trent from next door is pinch-hitting. It should prove amusing to watch the Republican candidates in CD 1 madly scramble to avoid any association with Renzi.

Trent credits Sydney with a number of key accomplishments. He indicates she lead the campaign to require a super-majority for any tax increase in Arizona. The result has been to ratchet down tax rates permanently, destroying the Arizona state government's ability to fund essential services. Trent tells us that Sydney, a former teacher, also was largely responsible for the failed experiment of charter schools, and for diverting taxes to private and parochial schools.

Polices Sydney claims credit for have over the last two decades been largely responsible for Arizona's free-fall to nearly the bottom among U.S. states in almost every educational metric. With accomplishments like these in her past, electing her to office is sure to result in policies that will make us even more backward, poor, and uncompetitive.

Let's take a quick look at some of the 'ideas' Sydney wants to take to Congress...

Voter ID Laws: Voter Supression Under the Guise of Preventing Individual Voter Fraud

"The GOP has transformed the legal apparatus of the United States into an instrument of partisan force." - Scott Horton "Vote Machine: How Republicans hacked the Justice Department" (PDF)

The GOP has been engaging in a cynical and deliberate attempt to use the justice system to punish their political enemies, justify and legitimate their systematic voter suppression programs, and seek electoral advantage by undermining the neutrality and credibility of our criminal justice system. Any citizen of conscience, liberal and conservative alike, should condemn these practices before their entrenchment in our legal culture enables Democrats to abuse power in a similar fashion as they move into positions of power.

Once an instrument of power becomes legitimate through repeated use, it is naive in the extreme to expect those who seek power to lay such tools aside voluntarily. The GOP's misuse of our justice system in this fashion therefore threatens the freedom of every citizen and undermines the integrity of our democratic system of governance.

The GOP's campaign seeks to build a myth of individual voter fraud in which large numbers of ineligible persons (usually non-citizens) seek to subvert our elections by voting fraudulently or multiple times. Concern about such fraud is exploited to pass draconian voter ID laws, the purpose of which is to differentially reduce Democratic voter's effective participation (i.e. a voter's ballot actually counting) by 3-5%, thereby allowing victory for the GOP in more close contests.

The second, even more pernicious aspect of their campaign is to subvert the Justice Department (and even some local prosecutorial authorities, such as The Maricopa County Attorney's office) to bolster the claims of individual voter fraud by issuing voter fraud cases on flimsy and deficient evidence. This has happened repeatedly and is behind at least some of the U.S. Attorney firings that drew a great deal of attention last year.

In addition, the Justice Department has been used, as have the investigative resources of the FBI, to bring prosecutions for public corruption against political enemies and rivals of the GOP. From 2001 to 2006, the Justice Department had initiated 375 investigations of public officials: 298 of those investigations targeted Democrats, only 67 of them targeted Republicans.

The odds of such an imbalance being the result of random chance is 1 in 10,000. Based on the great number of public corruption scandals that have engulfed the GOP and dragged its reputation into the gutter with voters, neither is it based on the underlying proclivities of Democratic officials (who, being in the minority for those years, had much less opportunity to misuse their offices, in any case).

Recent Senate hearings have shown there is no evidence to support GOP concerns about individual voter fraud, which is the only kind of election fraud that could be addressed by voter ID laws. Watch the hearing (RealMedia).

Arizona's voter ID law, requiring proof of citizenship to register and to vote at the polls, is back in effect for the 2008 races. The effect of this law will not be to stop voter fraud, but to stop a class of people, including the poor and minorities, from effectively exercising their franchise, giving a preferential advantage to Republican candidates.

An Indiana voter ID law is now before the Supreme Court, and in the oral arguments the Justices admitted frustration that they haven't been provided any reliable data on which to judge the seriousness of the 'problem' of individual voter fraud. Download Oral Argument Transcript (PDF)

A State must have a compelling interest in preventing such fraud in order to burden a fundamental constitutional right such as voting. As the method of remedying the problem imposes a known cost of effectively disenfranchising a statistically measurable number of the most vulnerable Americans, there must really be a significant problem and the court must examine the State's method of addressing that problem to ensure that it is narrowly tailored to avoid burdening that right to the extent possible.

The Court has no such record establishing there is a serious problem with individual voter fraud, therefore the State's response cannot possibly be narrowly tailored to impose the least possible burden on the fundamental right to vote. If the Court upholds the Indiana law, the ruling will be utterly illegitimate and primarily based on the partisan bias of the Court.

Voter ID is merely a legal means of harassing certain classes of voters. Voter turn-out is not the issue, as turn-out is apparently not much affected by voter ID laws. Rather, it is the effective exercise of the voter's franchise that is the issue. A person without adequate ID may go to poll, and even cast a provisional ballot, but the likelihood of his vote actually being counted becomes much, much less.

Preventing people from coming to the polls and voting is much harder than simply creating a legal basis on which to ignore their votes. Provisional voting provides just such a legal mechanism that targets undesirable voters (i.e. preponderantly Democratic ones) by means of the ID requirement.

Many Republicans express derision for the idea that significant numbers of citizens lack a government issued ID acceptable under voter ID laws: an estimated 11% of the population (21 million Americans) lack such ID. Many of those citizens lack the resources (time, money, transportation, documentation) to obtain such ID in order to make their franchise effective. In the absence of any evidence that individual voter fraud is a significant problem, the burdens placed on these citizens to make their franchise effective is intolerable.

Every American should be outraged when any political party resorts to legalistic methods of voter suppression in order to win more elections. There is a clear echo of the legal methods of effectively destroying the franchise of black Americans for over a century in these laws, prompting many to call the new laws "José Crow."

Just as "Jim Crow" will forever stain the honor of my own Democratic Party, "José Crow" will become a source of eternal dishonor for the GOP. The temporary gains made as a result of such a shameful policy cannot even begin to compensate for the permanent reputational harm it imposes.

Konopnicki Stands Down

Bill Konopnicki will run for a fourth term in his state legislative seat. By implication, he won't be running for Congress in CD 1.

Bill's ability to self-finance (he made a pile off fast food) and his strong political base in CD 1 would have been great assets to the troubled effort to hold on to the district of indicted GOP Rep. Dick Renzi for Republicans.

Looks like Bill has allowed prudence to overcome ambition and decided that it's just not the GOP's year. Good call, Bill.

Foster Upset Victory Something for Super-Delegate Giffords to Consider

With Gabby Giffords holding an uncommitted vote for our next Democratic Presidential nominee, it would be wise of her to consider what that nominee can bring to her own race for re-election.

Rookie scientist-citizen candidate Bill Foster's 53-47 upset victory in former Speaker Dennis Hastert's old district demonstrates that Obama, who endorsed and campaigned for Foster, has the ability to provide strong cross-partisan coattails and heavy favorable turn-out in a Republican district, even before his nomination. The 14th District historically has been very Republican, re-electing Hastert with 60 percent of the vote in 2006 and giving President Bush 55 percent of the vote in 2004.

Gabby faces a similar challenge as a freshman Member in a formerly Repubulican-held, and still Republican-plurality district. Whose endorsement would serve her re-election chances better? Who does she want cutting ads for her as the Presidential nominee? Who does she want stumping for her in her district?

Many viewed the Foster-Oberweis contest as a proxy fight of sorts between Obama (backing Foster) and McCain (backing Oberweis). Clearly Obama had the home-state advantage, but McCain had the numbers in the district.

Come November, with McCain certain to be the nominee, he'll have a home-state advantage in Arizona's CD 8 that Tim Bee is hoping to parlay into a victory in this plurality-Republican district.

Gabby would be best served by the backing of a nominee who has a proven ability to provide coat-tails in even in a much more Republican district—IL's 14th—than AZ's 8th. At this point, the only alternative to Sen. Obama for Gabby is a nominee who has long-entrenched negatives among Republicans, and who—at least in comparison to Sen. Obama—leaves Independents cold. And Independents will decide the Congressional race in CD 8.

Gabby would do well to ponder deeply the miracle that Bill Foster pulled off with Obama's help when she decides who should get her vote for Democratic nominee at the convention.

Sharon Bronson's Promise to SEIU

Service Employee International Union won the right to represent County employees when the Board of Supervisors unanimously approved their representation last April. Nearly a year on and the County Administrator has continually dragged his feet on a 'Meet and Confer' process, throwing up numerous procedural roadblocks and legal hurdles in an effort to avoid direct talks with SEIU that would lead to a Memoradum of Understanding on working conditions and wages.

On the 28th of February, SEIU held a forum for Pima County Supervisor candidates to give them a chance to get behind the union's goals, and specifically the 'Meet and Confer' process with an eye toward determining which candidates, if any, the union would endorse. All of them expressed strong support for the union, even the two Republicans on the Board were very supportive of SEIU's goals.

So why, more than a year after SEIU was authorized by the Board, hasn't the county Administration yet begun a 'Meet and Confer' process with SEIU? How can it be that all 5 board members are fully in support of SEIU, but they have been unable to produce meaningful consultation and good-faith negotiation with the Administration? Who's in charge here, after all?

One board member who is up for re-election this year, Sharon Bronson, has drawn a primary challenge from former Pima County Democratic Party Chairwoman Donna Branch-Gilby. Faced by a challenge from a well-known, well-connected, and well-liked Democratic woman, Bronson has surely got to be very nervous about her prospects for re-election.

Bronson spontaneously promised SEIU that if CHuckelberry didn't move forward with 'Meet and Confer' within 10 days, she would place the matter on the agenda and force him to do so.

That was the 28th. By my generous reckoning, CHuckelberry has until next Monday, March 10th, to sit down with SEIU before Bronson lays down the law for him. That is, if she actually meant what she told SEIU. We'll see if Bronson has the brass to push CHuckelberry into doing something he obviously has no desire to do.

I certainly don't see any reference to the matter in the agenda as yet...

The Human-Readable Renzi Indictment

The following is based on allegations and purported evidence contained in the US Attorney's indictment, not personal knowledge. Renzi and others named in the indictment are considered by the law to be innocent until proven guilty by a court of law - but that's lawyer-blather for "he's guilty as sin, we just gotta get 12 folks to see what's plain as day."

There are two major conspiracies at the heart of the case against soon-to-be-former Representative Rick "Dick" Renzi: how he stole from his own insurance clients to buy his way into Congress in the first place and then lied repeatedly to try to cover it up, and how he then abused his office to bully legitimate businesses into a shake-down and kick-back land deal to cover his own debts and then lied to cover that up, too.

Continue reading about what the indictment means after the click...

Huckabee on Education

by David Safier

Here it is, your last installment of “Meet Your Candidate in the Classroom.” I’m not going to go into Ron Paul’s educational plans, because with his numbers, he’s not a major player. If you’re interested, you can find his ideas here.

I knew I should expect something a little different from Mike Huckabee when I saw the title of the issue paper: Education and the Arts. THE ARTS? What does art have to do with education anyway? I thought it was all about reading, math and standardized testing, sunup to sundown.

Well, Huckabee thinks art and music have lots to do with education. They are essential “Weapons of Mass Instruction.” (Cute phrase. He’s the best man on the stump with a folksy quip and a goofy grin.) He even talks about the importance of the left and right sides of the brain. “Our future economy depends on a creative generation,” he writes.

These are the moments when I start liking Huckabee. Then I wake up and remember he wants the Constitution to take a back seat to the Bible, after he abolishes the IRS. Oh well, you can’t have everything.

Huckabee’s educational ideas aren’t all soft, fuzzy and creative. He wants intensive, back-to-basics reading and math programs for the younger grades and a demanding high school curriculum, including lots of advanced placement classes.

He wants to be able to fire teachers who aren’t teaching, but he also wants to put money in the classroom, not into administration, and “provide bonuses and forgive student loans for high-performing teachers to work in low-performing schools.” So he’s not a teacher basher by a long shot.

Huckabee loves the idea of charter schools and home schooling. He wants “public school choice,” which doesn’t sound like vouchers for private schools to me, unless I’m missing something. Again, I’m pleasantly surprised. He even brags that his three children attended public schools K-through-12, as did he and his wife.

No Child Left Behind has value, Huckabee says, but it shouldn’t get in the way of states' abilities to develop their own educational benchmarks.

Huckabee’s a funny guy. Most of his agenda scares the hell out of me, and then I read something like this. If anyone among the major Republican candidates deserves the label “straight shooter,” it may be ol’ Huck.

Two Hundred Questions for Congressional Candidates

NOTE: For a while, new posts will appear below this bulletin. Please scroll down for the latest from BlogForArizona.

When did it become acceptable for candidates for public office to refuse to answer questions? Or, as is more common, to answer without responding?

When did we become so complacent that the people who want to represent us feel free to stone-wall and obfuscate their views on vital matters of public policy, their values and philosophy?

When did having well-thought-out views on difficult issues stop being the primary qualification for holding public office, replaced, by all the evidence, by the ability to talk without communicating anything?

When did public officials seize the right to make vital decisions about public affairs in private without explaining themselves to anyone?

It seems to be the rule rather than the exceptions that major candidates blow off questionnaires from public interest groups like Project Vote-Smart. That's just a shame. I've frankly had enough of that non-sense. I'm just one guy with a blog, but I'm fortunate that a fairly large number of people who together can exert a lot more influence than me actually take the time to read what I have to say. What I'm saying now is that I've had enough.

I want some answers. Two hundred of them to be exact.

With your help, I seek to craft 20 pointed, well-framed questions on each of 10 topics. These questions will be asked of the candidates in CD 8, incrementally, 20 at a time, until the project dies a well-deserved death because nobody can be arsed to participate and make this experiment work, or until all 200 questions have been fully and responsively answered by the candidates over the course of the campaign.

I don't think that I am the only one who can frame a good question. Nor are good questions limited to a particular political viewpoint; just the opposite, in fact. So I am asking for everyone's help in creating the questions, too. That includes my bloggity pals on the red end of the spectrum.

Whether we'll get any answers is pretty much up to you. If you want answers as much as I do, and you make just the slightest effort to ensure that adequate answers are given, then I'm confident that answers are what we'll get. I am more than willing to share those answers with anyone and everyone in the media willing to listen. I don't want a scoop, or exclusivity, or credit; I just want the answers.

I have created a wiki for collaborative work on this project. Anyone can read and comment on the pages. If you want to actually edit the wiki, you need to be added to the group by me. To be added, send me an email expressing your interest and listing any group or groups you are associated with that may be interested in co-sponsoring the questions.

Read more about the 200Q project and the 10 topics after the click...

Who Will Replace McCain?

Now that our McCain is the acknowledged front-runner and almost certain nominee of the Republican Party for President, what will happen to his Senate seat?

If McCain follows the example of others in the race, such as Obama and Clinton, and nominees of the recent past, such as Kerry and Lieberman, nothing will happen to his seat unless he's elected President. Should he resign in order to signal his intent to win, or to mute criticism of his neglect of his Senatorial duties while on the campaign trail, however, then there may be a more immediate effect on his Arizona Senate seat.

The mechanism for replacement of a Senator in Arizona is for the Governor to issue a writ of election to authorize a special election to replace the Senator, and to appoint a member of the former Senator's party to serve in an interim capacity until the special election is held on a date determined by the Arizona legislature.

Thus, the question is three-fold: who might the Governor appoint to the interim term, who would likely run in a special election, and, keeping in mind the compressed electioneering period a special election often entails, who might win such a race?

I don't have any pat answers, so I am asking for your ideas and advice on this one - especially that of my friends on the red end of the spectrum.

I don't think McCain is likely to resign his Senate seat, but he's a surprising old bird - one never quite knows what he's up to. I don't think he'll win the Presidency, either, but if he were to do so, then his seat goes up for grabs via interim appointment and special election in November 2008 at the earliest, January 2009 at the latest. If he were to resign for the campaign, it could all begin tomorrow.

The first question is who would Napolitano appoint to an interim term? I don't think she's timid enough to just roll over and appoint some presumptive Republican pretender, giving a Republican a clear advantage in the special election. More likely, it seems to me, she would appoint a Republican she is close to, and wants to see get more of a political profile, but not someone who is established enough to seek the Senate seat for his or herself.

One person who comes to mind as fitting that bill is Kris Mayes. The big draw-back of appointing someone like Mayes, is what she might do with the profile an interim U.S. Senate seat would give her. There has been rumblings about her challenging for the CD 1 Congressional nomination, so her appointment might backfire by creating a strong Republican challenger where there is currently little real energy, and possibly handing CD 1 to the GOP.

A second option is an appointment that, while no one could question the legitimacy and appropriateness of the appointment, the GOP would likely come to rue it none-the-less. An inspired move, in my opinion, would be for the Governor to appoint state GOP Chairman Randy Pullen. It's an inspired move in my view: you get to bring Pullen's trademark nuttiness to a national audience, embarrassing the national party (who hates Pullen's guts so much they've choked off the state party's funding), and likely setting off another internecine struggle between the alienated factions of the AZ GOP.

Either way, the Governor has lots of latitude to really cause some mischief with the appointment or to help a moderate Republican she favors. The possible interim appointees are a good source of speculation, and I encourge you to share your thoughts, especially the naughty ones.

Who might run in a special election to replace McCain? One obvious Democratic contender is Jim Pederson, who tried to bring down Senator Jon Kyl last cycle. He's got the name recognition, experience, and, most importantly in a short campaign, the money to bring off a credible short-notice compressed campaign. Other notable Democrats with a state-wide profile without other pressing engagements in 2009 are rather sparse on the ground.

The most chilling prospect is if Janet Napolitano herself decides to put her hat in the ring. She would, of course, likely have to resign to run (she would have a hard time taking a play from Tim Bee's book "How to be a Schrödinger's Candidate" as her term expires all the way out in 2010) so that would mean SoS Jan Brewer would become our Governor. Perish the thought.

Surely, we have a deeper bench than this? Isn't there an Obama cooling his heels in the State legislature just waiting to burst upon the national stage? There are many who have the potential for a greater leadership role in the state, but none with the sort of burning ambition and talent it would take to prevail in the hyper-compressed schedule of a special election. Even Obama might not have broken out in such circumstances. I like my State Rep., Steve Farley; I think he would make a fine U.S. Senator, but I don't see him raising the millions a U.S. Senate campaign would require. Who do you see as a possible break-out contender?

On the Republican side, there are a number of pretenders waiting in the wings, if only because they've lost more state-wide races lately. Matt Salmon seems like a possible contender, having both the connections and name-recognition to gear up quickly for a state-wide special election. Despite having about zero chance of prevailing, Len Munsil and Don Goldwater would likely have to make some noises about running, if only to save face.

An intriguing possible contender would be J.D. Hayworth, who might be interested in trying to erase the stain of his loss to Harry Mitchell with a stretch at the big brass ring. And who knows? Maybe he'd be more palatable to a state-wide constituency that he was to the increasingly moderate voters of CD 5.

In the "slightly batty possibilities" category is disgraced former Governor Fife Symington who keeps threatening to put down his pastry bag long enough to run for something again. In the "certainly not lacking self-importance despite all evidence to the contrary" category is Arizona Speaker of the House Jim Weiers. Despite his tenuous hold on power, not to mention his own House seat, he might get a signal from god that he's to be the next Senator from Arizona.

Of course, the best is saved for last. What if Senate President Tim Bee decides that he has a better shot at retaining a Republican Senate seat than displacing Gabby Giffords' hold on a now-Democratic House seat? Would he abandon his bid against Gabby to go for a seat in the 100 Club? Better yet, since he seems to have so much time on his hands to run the Senate, and run for Congress, why couldn't he just ALSO run for U.S. Senate in the special election should McCain resign soon? That way, he can have his cake, eat it too, and still have seconds.

Who else, on either side of the aisle, do you think might decide to take a run at the Senate if McCain were to resign, or win the Presidency?

Tucson Weekly's White House Stunt Slows Hand Count Audit of Primary in Pima County

Jimmy Nintzel must have thought it would be a cute PR stunt for his paper that would widen voter participation and engagement with the primary election, but the Weekly's Project Whitehouse turned out to be a big waste of time for the volunteers who performed the hand count audits of the election returns. It may have been cute, irreverent, obnoxious, silly, creative and iconoclastic (all adjectives I strongly support), but it had real world consequences that need to be acknowledged.

Almost 50 vanity candidates, publicity hounds, and outright wackadoodles were placed on the primary ballots of both parties with the help and encouragement of Nintzel and and Weekly - far more of that ilk than normally populates presidential primary tickets.

The result was an appreciable amount of volunteer time burned needlessly by the counting and recounting of ballots because of these dead-weight candidates.

Secretary of State Jan Brewer, who seems to be hostile to any citizen involvement in or oversight of our elections, issued ridiculously obtuse guidelines this year for the hand count audit procedures that seemed designed to annoy, harass  and waste the time of anyone involved in the process; even the County Attorneys involved with the count took a "don't shoot the messenger" attitude toward the SoS's procedure. The result was that the sampled precincts' ballots had to be counted and re-counted multiple extra times because of all the minor candidates added to the ballot by The Weekly's stunt.

Next time, Weekly, consider the poor poll workers, elections employees, and audit volunteers whose time and resources are wasted by stupid and extravagant PR stunts with our elections that don't produce any public good whatsoever.

Well, maybe not quite no public good at all; the Project did demonstrate how ridiculously lax ballot access rules in the Presidential primary actually are. We should probably ensure that Nintzel and his band of merry pranksters can't do this again in 2012.

PSA: Report Presidential Primary Election Irregularities and Problems

Your Democratic Election Integrity Committee is collecting Presidential Primary incident reports.

Members of our committee will work through these identifying patterns to prepare for future elections. If you saw something happen be very specific in your report – who/what/when/where/how – please. 

Avoid hearsay, which would cause us to waste time as we attempted to trace down sources (“they said” and “I heard”). If possible, include names and phone numbers of persons we might contact to verify and/or fine tune the information. The better reporter you are, the more effective we can be. 

You may also send clippings of newspaper stories, letters to the editor and the like. Don’t assume we saw the coverage, send it in.

Title each email: PPP Incident Report : your county name.

Remember, the advantage of the AZ Dem EIC is that, by comparing counties and incidents, we can detect and develop strategies for mitigating recurring patterns. 

Protection of our elections begins with you.

Please send reports to your County Chair for collection.

Thank you,

Ted Downing
Election Integrity Committee Chair

Clinton on Education

by David Safier

Yesterday, I posted a summary of Obama’s education agenda. Today it’s Clinton’s turn. You can read about her proposals on the Improving Our Schools page on her website. For more detailed information, follow the “Hillary’s Plans” links.

I have to say, Clinton’s bold, innovative program for education surprised me, in a good way. Many of her ideas are way outside the usual education-reform box and are far more exciting than the ideas Obama proposes. Here’s hoping that a Democratic president, either Clinton or Obama, gives a few of her education advisors a role in the administration.

Clinton proposes a universal Pre-K program for three and four year olds, staffed by teachers with specialized training. “Universal” doesn’t mean "mandatory." It means it will be available for anyone who wants it. Nothing new here, but an idea that needs to happen.

Clinton begins to think outside the box when she proposes having nurses visit first-time mothers at home to prepare them to care for their newborns. Programs of this kind already exist in the U.S. and in other countries around the world, but Clinton clearly wants to make the service more available. She is linking a child’s earliest years to later educational achievement. We need more of that kind of thinking.

Clinton’s dropout prevention ideas are also innovative and far reaching. Like Obama, she recommends beginning to work with potential dropouts in middle schools. She wants to make sure at risk students get academic experiences that prepare them for college, and she wants to create partnerships with businesses and colleges that give students direct contact with some of the opportunities that exist outside of their neighborhoods. Again, good stuff. It’s hard for young people to imagine themselves in college or in a profession if they have never had any direct contact with those worlds.

Clinton proposes “Early College High Schools” where students can earn high school diplomas and community college associate’s degrees. She has other ideas that she refers to as “multiple pathways to graduation.” I applaud her desire to get rid of the one-size-fits-all approach to education, especially for high school students whose needs tend to vary so greatly.

Clinton even thinks about those who have already dropped out in her educational program, providing training and jobs to give them the ability to earn a decent living. Along with this, she wants to increase enforcement of anti-discrimination laws in the workplace, to make sure that someone who is willing to work will not be passed over for reasons that have nothing to do with ability.

Clinton wants to increase the payment of child support by absent fathers – not the amount they should pay but the guarantee that they will pay - and she suggests some plausible ways to accomplish this. Her concern for the precarious economic situations of many single mothers as an educational issue is another insightful leap on her part.

Finally, her plan to get more students in college and completing a degree involves a $3,500 tax credit for college, increased Pell Grants, and financial incentives for students interested in public service to have some of their loans forgiven.

Clinton does not put a pricetag on all these proposals, and she says she will pay for them by closing tax loopholes. Neither she nor Obama is willing to admit that we have to spend lots of new money to improve education significantly. Unfortunately, saying, “We need more taxes to pay for better education” these days is another way of saying, “Don’t vote for me.”

I’m impressed that Clinton is willing to go out on a limb here, proposing bold programs that think about “education” as more than traditional schooling. Many of her ideas are untested, and I imagine some of them would prove unworkable or unsuccessful. But that’s fine by me. We need to open our educational system to the possibility of diverse approaches and innovation.

Same old, same old ain’t gonna get it done.

Ron Paul Points the Way For Democrats in Congress

Rs and Ds at all levels, but especially among those competing to be the next Commander in Chief, constantly fight over which party is the champion of our armed forces.

The Rs claim that title by dint of massive and reckless appropriations and a belligerant, wooden-headed foreign policy that gives the armed forces plenty of opportunity to ply their craft.

The Ds claim the honor by lavishing as much attention and money as possible on veterans benefits, trying to improve the conditions and equipment the soldiers must endure during active duty, and, of late, madly shoveling money in the maw of the Iraq occupation in the vain hope that no Republican will be mean to them.

It is deeply ironic, therefore, that the odd man out in the Presidential race, the Republican who advocates for a much more limited and humble foreign policy than any Democrat dares, and who demands an immediate withdrawal from Iraq, and who levels an even harsher criticism of the policies that led us there than most Democrats can (because he actually voted against the invasion), leads by a very wide margin in fund-raising among armed forces personnel.

In fact, one can clearly see that the more of a "surrender-monkey" the candidate is on Iraq and foreign policy in general, the better our men and women in arms likes him (or her).

Military donations in the 4th quarter of 2008:

Paul: $286,764 (1349 donors)

Obama: $81,037 (466 donors)

McCain: $79,597 (413 donors)

Clinton: $49,523 (181 donors)

Romney: $29,250 (140 donors)

Huckabee: $24,562 (94 donors)

Nor is this a one-time anomaly, it is an established pattern. Ron Paul is the bottom-line choice of the active duty military.

The one exception to the trend is McCain, who obviously gets points and well-deserved respect from the troops for his biography. Were it his position on the Iraq occupation that soldiers were rewarding, he would be bracketed by Romney and Huckabee, who also support the continuation of the failed Iraq occupation, rather than Obama and Clinton.

If McCain would have reversed himself on Iraq earlier, he wouldn't have wandered in the political wilderness until GOP primary voters got panicked enough to turn to him, and he would be a much stronger Presidential candidate for it -- and likely the top pick of the military instead of Paul.

As Democrats running for Congress carefully triangulate to ensure that they "don't abandon the troops" by cutting off funding for Iraq to bring Bush to the bargaining table, they might keep Ron Paul's overwhelming military support firmly in mind.

That means you, Gabby Giffords and Harry Mitchell -- as well as you hopefuls, Bob Lord and Ann Kirkpatrick. The troops want brave leadership willing to bring a misbegotten war to close every bit as much as most other Americans.

Our troops have tremendous esprit de corps and a steely determination to accomplish the mission - even if it is an impossible one. It's their job to lock their jaws and squeeze the life out of our enemies.

The job of the political leadership is to have the wisdom to know when and where it is prudent to unleash the dogs of war -- and when to put them back in the kennel. Our troops clearly recognize and value the kind of political leadership needed to end this mission-less war, even as they say they are determined to stay the course when the pols come wandering through like baby ducklings on yet another fact finding tour through the international zone.

Lena Saradnik Passes the Torch

Lena sent a letter to her supporters in LD 26. It included the news that Cheryl Cage will be seeking a seat on the Oro Valley Marana town council in the May 2009.

Full text after the jump...

Tim Bee's Big Surprise

Tim Bee stunned the Arizona political scene with a completely unexpected announcement that he is challenging Gabby Giffords for the CD 8 Congressional seat.

Seriously, though, Tim made it official -- he's in. I know, I was there. And, no, I didn't get tazed, Bro.

It was the kind of non-news news event one expects in the kabuki dance of American politics. But there were a few interesting bits.

Much more after the flip...

Nancy Young Wright: Second Choice of LD 26, First Choice of CHuckelberrians

UPDATE 12pm: The Board voted 4-1 (Ray Carroll being the dissenter, as he so frequently is) to select Nancy Young Wright as the new State Representative for LD 26. Interestingly, even though Jorgenson got the most support among the PCs of 26 (not to mention Lena's) the Board nominated Nancy immediately, and Ray Carroll couldn't get a second when he suggested that Don deserved an up or down vote on the record before considering Nancy. Nancy is going to file papers to run today, so she will definitely be seeking re-election. She also said that she will be resigning her current job with the county, as she was a direct employee, not a contractor. Don Jorgenson and Cheryl Cage were both in attendance at the Board's meeting and were very supportive of Nancy once the vote confirmed what everyone expected. Don is certainly still running as Nancy's running mate. I don't know whether Cheryl Cage will also run, or if she will return to running the LD 26 campaigns. I will be sitting down with Nancy as soon as her schedule allows to give everyone a feel for her priorities for this and future sessions.

Pima County Election Integrity Standoff Ends

And so it ends, not with a bang, but with a whisper of data flowing between two computers. The Democratic Party and it's staunch allies, the Republicans (try to get used to that idea, at least on this issue...) and the Libertarians, and a great number of Independent active citizens, have prevailed in the battle for the databases.

Pima County activists have won an absolute first: the first ever complete time-series GEMS databases of multiple elections in progress. This is a national treasure for the election integrity movement. Now, of course, comes the hard work of analyzing that which has been won, fully understanding the architecture of the normal data operations of an honest election, and building tools to sniff out signs of fraud. A team of top experts from across the political spectrum is assembling from across the county and they are calling themselves: The Royal Purple Team.

They are setting up a wiki to collaborate on analysis of the data and the tool building and distribution. Let the word go forth to the world, Pima County has the map to the Diebold fortress of security through obscurity, and we fully intend to take over the fortress and replace their silly, increasing etiolated topiary maze with real security measures and millions of citizens' eyes on the prize which that fortress protects: our democracy.

Huzzah!

Pima Couny Election Integrity Goes Back to the Board of Supervisors

The Pima County Supervisor's regular meeting on January 8th at 9am is swiftly approaching this Tuesday. If election integrity matters to you, you should be there. Discussion of the lawsuit will be one of the very first items on the agenda, so try to be at the Board's Chambers by 9am.

One of the best things you can do is to contact the Supervisor's offices and let them know that is a critical issue for you. Sources near the case indicate a belief that the Board will vote to appeal unless Ann Day decides to vote with Ray Carroll. She should be the target of heaviest lobbying. Ray Carroll is already in support of election integrity; call and thank him for his leadership on this issue.

Ann Day, District 1
(520) 740-2738      

Ramón Valadez, District 2
(520) 740-8126   

Sharon Bronson, District 3
(520) 740-8051      

Ray Carroll, District 4
(520) 740-8094

Richard Elías, Chairman, District 5
(520) 740-8126

The County Attorney has filed an apparently unauthorized notice of appeal, presumably purely on the word of County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry or on the initiative of County Attorney's office itself. Only the Board has the right to make a decision as to whether to appeal the court's ruling, and they haven't yet met and made any decision on the matter. See the Democrat's Motion to Strike (Download Mot_to_Strike.pdf) for more details.

The Democrats have also taken issue with several of Judge Miller's findings of fact as not supported by the testimony, and some of his conclusions of law as erroneous. See Democrats Motion to Amend (Download Mot_to_Amend.pdf) for more details. I will take a closer look at this when and if the County Attorney responds. In my first reading, however, Bill Risner make a powerful case that Judge Miller would be hard-pressed to ignore that the Judge quite simply got several points wrong in his under-advisement opinion.

Pima County Supervisor Ray Carroll Endorses Salette Latas for Oro Valley Town Council

Today, Pima County Supervisor Ray Carroll announced his support for Salette Latas in the race for one of three seats on the Oro Valley Town Council.

This may be the beginning of a much-needed non-partisan alliance against the profligate give-away of our local tax base in the name of "economic development" in Arizona's communities. Carroll, a Republican, and Latas, an Democrat, both quite obviously get it, and aren't respecting party labels in supporting others who also get it. Such a non-partisan, issue-based focus is a perfect fit for the non-partisan Oro Valley race.

 

Carroll's statement announced, “Salette Latas is a champion of local businesses and residents of Oro Valley. She will listen to the community, and work with all members of the Council to do what is best for Oro Valley's residents, not what special interests tell her to do.”

 

“At a time when economic growth is slowing, adding more burden on taxpayers makes no sense,” stated Carroll in his announcement. “After over $50 million in tax subsidies were given to out-of-town developers, and after passing a utility tax in 2006, Oro Valley’s Council members are now advocating further tax subsidies for a foreign corporation and pushing for a new property tax. The people of Oro Valley deserve a fiscally responsible Council that will stop tax subsidies to special interests.”

 

Earlier this month, Supervisor Carroll was awarded the Arizona Federation of Taxpayers’ first-ever Local Hero Award (http://www.aztaxpayers.org), for dissenting when the Pima County Board of Supervisors voted to increase its budget by 14.3 percent and increase property tax levies by $34 million, and also for leading the successful resistance to imposing a new half-cent county sales tax.

 

Following Carroll’s announcement, Latas stated “I truly appreciate the support from an Arizona Taxpayers’ Hero. It’s time to end subsidies to corporations at the expense of taxpayers. Supervisor Carroll understands that this trend must stop. I will fight to represent the public interest and locally owned, independent business over the special interests of out-of-town corporations.”

Dan Spahr is a Jingo

Many of you probably don't even know who Dan Spahr is. That's a symptom of his less-than-memorable campaign for Ward 4 City Council against Shirley Scott.

Once he was quite-predictably crushed at the polls, I never expected to give him another thought, unless he got it into his head to take on another kamikaze political mission in the future.

But then, driving down 1^st Avenue on my way home from work, I spotted a not-yet-removed Dan Spahr bumper sticker. I hadn't seen any of these during the campaign, so for all I know, I just got lucky and had stumbled across Dan's own car.

But what stuck me was the slogan:

Support Our Troops
www.DanSpahr2007.com

Yes, the font sizes are a reasonably accurate reflection of the ratio of the font sizes on the sticker. And on his web-site you'll note the prominence of the American flag - not the Arizona flag, nor the Tucson city flag.

Just what office did Dan think he was running for? The City Council has no power to support or undermine our troops, except in a purely symbolic way. The issue is completely irrelevant to the a race for City Council.

Then I realized it: in Dan Spahr's mind, a City Council race has everything to do with supporting the troops, because Dan Spahr is a jingoistic idiot. And his campaign was focused on appealing to jingoistic idiots, which might have something to do with why he lost.

Now, I will allow that perhaps some misguided jingoistic idiot supporter of Dan Spahr maybe went off the reservation and created his own asinine jingoistic bumper sticker that really had nothing to do with Dan Spahr's doomed campaign. But that doesn't seem likely.

What seems much more likely is that Dan Spahr, at a loss for anything actually relevant to politics or policy in the city of Tucson with which to define his campaign, reached immediately for the last refuge of scoundrels. Thus was born the "Support Our Troops" city council race bumper sticker.

So if you remember nothing else about Dan Spahr -- and it seems very unlikely that you would -- remember this: he's a jingoistic idiot. And that's really