The county government is sending letters to its six representatives in the new state Legislature, both to congratulate them on their general election victories and to urge them to stop passing the state’s financial responsibilities on to Arizona’s counties.
The letters, approved by the board of supervisors on Wednesday, express confidence in the legislators’ leadership while at the same time criticizing the previous Legislature’s efforts to balance the budget “not by cutting state spending but by shifting state responsibilities to counties.”
The letters can be found here, starting at page 9 of the .pdf download.
Not to sound *too* pessimistic here (OK, that's foreshadowing - I'm going to be REALLY pessimistic), but the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors are going to be disappointed.
The few Rs at the lege who would even consider placing the interests of their districts ahead of staying in lockstep with extreme GOP ideology (Carolyn Allen, Tibshraeny, Konopnicki) are no longer there, and none of those had districts that covered Santa Cruz County.
Even with those members in the last session of the legislature, the Rs running the show on West Washington had no problem with shifting burdens onto municipalities and counties while at the same time restricting the ability of those municipalities and counties to adapt to the higher level of responsibility.
Santa Cruz County is so overwhelmingly Democratic that only one Republican candidate for state office, State Sen. Frank Antenori, won a majority of votes in the part of his district that includes Santa Cruz County (and even then, his margin there was only 88 votes). Just because of basic partisanship, they're not going to feel any love for Santa Cruz County to begin with.
Add in the fact that the population demographic in Santa Cruz County is 80% Hispanic and the overwhelming majority of the R candidates in the state in 2010 ran on a campaign platform that could best be summarized as "I'm a bigot."
Arizona counties in general are going to be screwed in 2011, but Santa Cruz County should expect to be targeted for "special" treatment.
Maybe it'll be a Jack Harper-sponsored toxic waste dump in Patagonia, maybe it will be a Russell Pearce-sponsored concentration "undocumented immigrant detention" camp in downtown Nogales, maybe it will be some other even more creative bit of nastiness, but the Santa Cruz County Supervisors should spend less time crafting meaningless letters and more time filling sandbags.
Naivete: Thy Name Is Santa Cruz County Board Of Supervisors
by Craig McDermott, crossposted from Random Musings
From the Nogales International -
The letters can be found here, starting at page 9 of the .pdf download.
Not to sound *too* pessimistic here (OK, that's foreshadowing - I'm going to be REALLY pessimistic), but the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors are going to be disappointed.
The few Rs at the lege who would even consider placing the interests of their districts ahead of staying in lockstep with extreme GOP ideology (Carolyn Allen, Tibshraeny, Konopnicki) are no longer there, and none of those had districts that covered Santa Cruz County.
Even with those members in the last session of the legislature, the Rs running the show on West Washington had no problem with shifting burdens onto municipalities and counties while at the same time restricting the ability of those municipalities and counties to adapt to the higher level of responsibility.
Santa Cruz County is so overwhelmingly Democratic that only one Republican candidate for state office, State Sen. Frank Antenori, won a majority of votes in the part of his district that includes Santa Cruz County (and even then, his margin there was only 88 votes). Just because of basic partisanship, they're not going to feel any love for Santa Cruz County to begin with.
Add in the fact that the population demographic in Santa Cruz County is 80% Hispanic and the overwhelming majority of the R candidates in the state in 2010 ran on a campaign platform that could best be summarized as "I'm a bigot."
Arizona counties in general are going to be screwed in 2011, but Santa Cruz County should expect to be targeted for "special" treatment.
Maybe it'll be a Jack Harper-sponsored toxic waste dump in Patagonia, maybe it will be a Russell Pearce-sponsored concentration "undocumented immigrant detention" camp in downtown Nogales, maybe it will be some other even more creative bit of nastiness, but the Santa Cruz County Supervisors should spend less time crafting meaningless letters and more time filling sandbags.
They've got a deluge coming.
Dec 5, 2010 10:12:52 AM | Arizona State Legislature, Commentary, Counties, CPMAZ Craig McDermott
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