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Beware of Democrats Cutting Unproductive Deals

Tuesday, May 14, 2013

Rumor has it that Senate President Andy Biggs (R-Atlas Shrugged) will be unveiling a “Tea Party” budget later today. Among other things, it reportedly includes a petulant $15 million cut to the Universities, and does not include the Governor’s proposed Medicaid expansion, despite the fact that it has bipartisan support.

The proposed budget was apparently drafted largely without the participation of his own Republican caucus. Even Majority Leader John McComish (R-Ahwatukee) was apparently kept in the dark, and reportedly members of the Governor’s staff were calling Democrats to find out what was up. Given all this, it should come as some surprise that a handful of Senate Democrats are rumored to be supporting this thing.

This is not the first time that something like this has happened. In 2007, a group of House Democrats mutinied against their own leadership, nearly scuttling a deal between legislative Democrats, a Democratic Governor, and Republican leadership in the Senate. It was a useless venture, as the House budget was not going to pass the Senate, and was certainly not going to be signed by the Governor. In her own defense, one of the mutineers said that she agreed to the budget because it was important that her “fingerprints” be on what passed, even though neither she nor her constituents got anything out of the deal. It was a deal for the sake of a deal, the sort of thing that gets one praised in the Arizona Republic as “effective” even though it accomplishes nothing.

The media will try to portray this as some sort of ideological fight among Democrats, pitting radical left-wingers against sensible moderates, even though it is no such thing. The truth is that, even though we have not seen the Biggs budget, we know enough about his priorities that we can assume that it targets the constituencies who depend on Democrats to fight for them. This is not about making deals or a debate about left and right, it is about real people who will, by neglect and design, suffer under this budget. Unfortunately, making friends is more important to some people than making good policy.

The tragic thing is that there are enough Republicans uncomfortable with his priorities that Biggs would not have the votes to pass this budget without the help of these Democrats. A little more solidarity among the Democratic Caucus would make it possible to pass a truly bipartisan budget reflecting a broader set of values and priorities.

Of course, this is all just rumors, reliable rumors, but rumors nonetheless. I have some suspicion about who the dissident Democrats are, but it would be irresponsible to name names. Lets just say that I suggest that folks in Tucson call their Senators.

Filed in Arizona Legislature, Uncategorized | | Comments (4)

In Other News, Ioan Gruffudd Will Play Cesar Chavez in an Upcoming Biopic

Friday, May 10, 2013

I have complained about this topic before.

Back in 1967, an episode of Star Trek featured as its villain, a genetically engineered superman named Kahn. The creative team took the unusual step of imagining this character as a Sikh rather than the usual stereotypical Aryan Übermensch. Then, in what was in its time a strangely courageous move, cast an ethnic actor, the late Ricardo Montalbán in the part. Fifteen years later, Montalbán reprised his role in the film Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn. His iconic performance as the superhuman and strangely sympathetic mastermind assurred that the character would be remembered as one of the greatest movie villains of all time.

Decades later, in the supposedly post-racial era of an African-American President, Kahn makes a re-appearance, this time played by Benedict Cumberbatch, an English actor so WASPish that his very name drips with Rugby School and cricket bats. It is as if, after all this time, there are still too many in Hollywood who cannot accept the idea of a genetically superior man being played by anything other than a white actor of Northern European extraction. Even if this is the not the case, it still begs the question of whether or not we have really made any progress after all these years.

Filed in Latino Issues, Other Blogs | | Comments (0)

Zaphod Beeblebrox is an Arizona Republican

Thursday, May 9, 2013

Recent chatter among folks who are ostensibly smarter than you and I tells us that Republicans are making an effort to appeal to “Hispanics.” An inter-party chingazo reported in Sonoran Alliance gives us some insight into why such efforts may be doomed.

Though no one has yet declared for the 2014 Republican primary for Secretary of State, everybody already knows that the race is between Representative Steve Montenegro (R-Litchfield Park) and Senator Michelle Reagan (R-Scottsdale). Because they have both accumulated solidly partisan and conservative voting records, there is little to distinguish the two of them other than personality and style, so it seems inevitable that things would get personal and nasty early on. In this case, some in Reagan’s camp have already resorted to race-baiting.

This arises from a letter sent out by Montenegro and 3 other Republican legislators which was critical of three Reagan-sponsored bills aimed at fixing the initiative process. Within 24 hours, a consultant working on behalf of Reagan fired off a tweet:

Tolino’s comment is not only racist and stupid, but it has little basis in fact. John Loredo has not been in the legislature in nearly ten years, and anyone who has actually followed the legislature knows that Senator Gallardo (D-Phoenix) and Montenegro can hardly be called “BFFs” on this or nearly any other issue. As far as anybody can tell, the only thing that ties the three of them is their Spanish last name. This is enough for a hack like Mr. Tolino.

Say, that name “Tolino” ends in a vowel. It sounds pretty close to Spanish…hurm.

It should be noted that Senator Reagan’s close working relationship with Senator Meza (D-Phoenix) might be considered “#PanderingToHispanics” under Mr. Tolino’s standards. This is to say nothing of Reagan’s own comments in a blog post regarding a Cinco de Mayo event she attended in Peoria:

The LD 24 GOP is doing an admirable job of reaching out to and interacting with the Hispanic community and I am highly supportive of their efforts.  Registering new voters is a priority and I thank all the volunteers who came out to help citizens engage in their most sacred right – voting!

In fairness to Senator Reagan, this Tolino guy may have been a rogue operator. It should be noted, however, that she has not publicly repudiated what her consultant said on her behalf. I am not even going to attempt to explain the bizarre culture of Phoenix Republican political consultants here, as my earthy and practical Tucson brain cannot get itself around how these people, often despite questionable judgement and competence, become so powerful, but suffice it to say, this story probably tells us more about Arizona Republicans than Senator Reagan. Like Zaphod Beeblebrox, the President of the Galaxy in Douglas Adams Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, whose brief term in office was hampered by the fact that his two heads were always arguing, Republicans seem of two minds about reaching out to Hispanics.

Historically, folks with Spanish surnames have not fared well in Republican primaries in Arizona. Montenegro, who is of Salvadoran and not Mexican extraction, is a notable, and very recent, exception. In 2002, Tom Horne defeated Jaime Molera, the well-regarded incumbent Superintendent of Public Instruction, in a Republican primary after a race-baiting campaign. In 2004, a Mexican-American Republican lost a congressional primary in Southern Arizona to the late Joe Sweeney, an openly racist perennial candidate. Numerous other, less high-profile examples, show that, at the very least, a Spanish name is a disadvantage in a Republican primary, and exploiting this fact is potentially a winning strategy.

Republican efforts to reach out to Latinos may well be sincere, even if these are largely clueless and clumsy, but it certainly undermines their cause when, at the same time, they make an appeal to bigoted sentiments. I am probably not someone who should be giving advice to Republicans, but I have a suggestion in this regard. A community that represents over a quarter of the State’s population is not a special-interest group to be “pandered to.” They are a part of the fabric that makes Arizona what it is and have values, needs, and concerns that deserve to be taken seriously. This will require more than showing up at a few events, and is certainly not helped by letting your consultants say bigoted things against members of your own party. If Republicans can learn this, maybe they can hold on a little longer.

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Tom Horne Drops The Ball. The Star Stupidly Blames The City Council.

Sunday, May 5, 2013

This week, there was a settlement in the State of Arizona’s case against two Tucson Transportation Department supervisors who misappropriated at least $83000 in public resources for personal gain. They will each have to pay just $5000 to the city.

This result is a failing by state, rather than city, officials. This fact cannot be allowed to get in the way of The Arizona Daily Star‘s usual narrative about the city, so the once-great morning daily chose to write about something else entirely.

First, they create a controversy where none exists. The story states that “officials were divided on whether the restitution is adequate,” but the two quotes which follow do not support this statement. Councilman Kozachik is quoted calling the settlement “a lousy deal,” while other city officials, including Mayor Rothschild, are quoted saying that they did their “due diligence.” The two sentiments are not at all contrary, so it is hard, at least from what is written, to see evidence of this reported disagreement.

Next, they are dismissive of those who point out that this was the Attorney General’s responsibility. The Star writes that city officials “said state prosecutors and the courts were responsible,” as if this notion was merely someone’s opinion. The equivocation in this regard is particularly troubling.

The prosecution of official corruption is the province of the Attorney General. This is well established in statute and by precedent. This is not someone’s opinion, or something someone “said.” It is a well-established fact and should be reported as such.

City officials did their job by identifying the problem and handing the evidence to the Attorney General’s office. Their responsibility ended there. It is Tom Horne’s office that deserves the blame for the inadequate response. The real scandal here, the one that is missed by the Star‘s reporters in their eagerness to toss red meat to the likes of Jon LoGiudice, is what this says about what has happened to the Attorney General’s office.

During Horne’s scandal-plagued tenure, he has packed his office with political hacks, then made unnecessary and counterproductive reorganizations of his department to make room for even more political hacks. His legal problems have been more than a minor distraction, as his staff have been made to deal with them on taxpayer time. It should come as no surprise that his office is no longer equipped to aggressively pursue this sort of case. The divisions that handle fraud, civil rights, and consumer issues have been eviscerated as well. All of this is the product of having an Attorney General whose priority is grandstanding rather than actually doing the work of the people of Arizona.

Part of the settlement requires that each of the two defendants pay $1000 into a fund that the Attorney General maintains to pay for efforts to prosecute racketeering. This is ironic considering that Tom Horne’s office barely does such cases any more.

There are plenty of things for which the City deserves criticism. In this case, however, the Star‘s very pointed reporting is, as it is too often, misdirected. Once again, in their enthusiasm to make the Council look bad, they have ignored the real story.

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Recommended Reading: Celebrating a Failure of Regime Change and Nation Building

Friday, May 3, 2013

When I started cross-posting on Blog For Arizona, Mike Bryan suggested that, at some point, I plug the book that I am working on. I am not going to do that, except to say that this post arises from someone else’s good book on the subject that actually cites my work.

El Cinco de Mayo: An American Tradition by David E. Hayes-Bautista, which was published by the University of California Press last year, traces the origins of May 5th celebrations in the United States to 19th century California. We hear all the time that the day is in many ways a bigger deal north of the border than it is in Mexico, and the book goes a long way toward explaining why. The holiday has its roots in Civil War politics and what amounted to a shrewd public relations campaign that reminds us once again that, contrary to anything we hear from Tom Horne, the history of our two nations is inseparable.

First, one has to straighten out some well-circulated misconceptions about what Cinco de Mayo represents. It is not “Mexican Independence Day,” rather it is a celebration of the 1862 victory of a Mexican army over a French expeditionary force that had arrived, doubtless expecting to be greeted as liberators, 6 months before to intervene in an ongoing civil war. Far from ending the conflict, the French regrouped, recaptured Puebla a year later, and oversaw the installation of a Austrian nobleman, Maximilian, as Emperor of Mexico. The triumph of May 5th was merely the beginning of a long and drawn-out war.

After a number of reverses, Mexico’s elected President, Benito Juarez, retreated to the northern frontier, where his Republicans remained in control, established his capitol there, and oversaw a guerrilla war against the French-backed imperialists.  He looked north for support, but the United States was tied up in its own internecine conflict, so even though Americans were sympathetic, they could give little help for the time being.

The exception would be California, where Juarez saw great potential. Not only was the state prosperous, but it was also home to thousands of Spanish-speaking people: natives and immigrants from Mexico and all over Latin America, who, it was believed, would be sympathetic with the cause of the Mexican Republic. Juarez had agents posted in San Francisco, where they raised money and did what they could to rally political support among Californians. They helped organize juntas patrioticas (patriotic societies) among the Spanish-Speaking community and supported sympathetic newspapers.

The juntas in San Francisco organized a formal Cinco de Mayo ball in San Francisco on May 5th, 1863, and several, smaller “spontaneous” celebrations occurred in other parts of the state. A rally in Los Angeles nearly erupted in violence when a group of rowdy French expatriates tried to disrupt the affair, but the festivities were generally successful. Speakers reminded the assembled that the United States was sympathetic to Juarez, and that the cause of the Union and the Mexican Republic were one and the same.

In the end, the Spanish-speaking community was united as never before, thousands of dollars were raised for Juarez (which was a lot of money back then), and political support for both the Mexican Republic and the Union were strengthened in California. Hundreds of Spanish speaking Californians joined the Union Army, thousands of Californian veterans joined the Republican army after the end of the Civil war, and Cinco de Mayo would continue to be celebrated, eventually spreading across the Southwest.

As for those Spanish-speaking Californians who joined the Union Army, they were organized into a unit called the Native California Cavalry. They were eventually posted to Arizona, where they got a chance to confront the Empire when a force of Maximilian’s partisans ventured across the border near what is now Lochiel. Some guy named Tom Prezelski has written about these guys in a book that has not been published yet.

Filed in History, Latino Issues, Uncategorized | | Comments (2)

ADI Swipes Story and Still Gets It Wrong

Tuesday, April 23, 2013

To quote Truman Capote: “That’s not writing, that’s typing.”

There is talk among the happy bunch over at Blog for Arizona that some response has to be made to a recent post at the Arizona Daily Independent regarding the discussion that happened last week after my post making a case for why my friend, Representative Chad Campbell, should not run for Governor.

There is no reason to provide a link to ADI. If you want to find the story, you are free to look for it yourself. I will also resist the temptation to point out all the things that are wrong with their article, except to say that the anonymous scribbler responsible for it outright misrepresents the exchange as some kind of effort by The Man to keep a brother down. He also misspells my name as well as Fred DuVal’s. Otherwise, it has the flaws of a typical ADI story: lousy grammar, poor sourcing, and just plain terrible writing.

The truly lazy part of their story is that it is clear that the writer made no effort to go to the original original blog posts, despite the fact that this is free of charge and it only would have taken a few minutes to do so. The story is obviously based on a single source: The Yellow Sheet Report, a regular gossip sheet which is available from The Arizona Capitol Times only to subscribers willing to pay a premium, or to those of us who still have a lot of friends who are lobbyists or capitol staffers. The story is essentially a re-working of someone else’s work, not original reporting. Some folks might call this plagiarism.

In example, this is what was written in ADI:

Campbell told a Yellow Sheet reporter that DuVal’s supporters have been trying to talk him out of the race for more than a year, and some have suggested that he run for secretary of state or another office instead. Campbell told the Yellow Sheet, “I’m the only potential candidate right now that has won a primary. I’ve won three primaries, in fact. And, in fact, I’m the only [one] who’s ever won an election, at this point, who’s thinking about running for the seat.”

This from The Yellow Sheet:

“With all due respect to Mr. Prezelski, a blog post doesn’t really mean that much to me,” Campbell told our reporter this morning. He said DuVal’s supporters have been trying to talk him out of the race for more than a year, and some have suggested that he run for secretary of state or another office instead. But he said he’s not running for office simply to run for something, and believes he would be the best candidate for governor. He added he’s not afraid of a primary and doesn’t think a contested one would be a bad thing for Dems. “I’m the only potential candidate right now that has won a primary. I’ve won three primaries, in fact. And, in fact, I’m the only [one] who’s ever won an election, at this point, who’s thinking about running for the seat,” Campbell said.

Here are the guidelines for what constitutes “plagiarism” from plagiarism.org, an accepted go-to website on the topic for classroom teachers and others (note: these quotes constitute “Fair Use” per the website’s own guidelines):

  • to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one’s own
  • to use (another’s production) without crediting the source
  • to commit literary theft
  • to present as new and original an idea or product derived from an existing source

In other words, plagiarism is an act of fraud. It involves both stealing someone else’s work and lying about it afterward.

They go on to give some examples:

  • turning in someone else’s work as your own
  • copying words or ideas from someone else without giving credit
  • failing to put a quotation in quotation marks
  • giving incorrect information about the source of a quotation
  • changing words but copying the sentence structure of a source without giving credit
  • copying so many words or ideas from a source that it makes up the majority of your work, whether you give credit or not (see our section on “fair use” rules)

Perhaps what ADI did does not rise to plagiarism in the legal sense, but it would certainly be rejected by most publications or even most high school teachers. The worst part is that they cribbed the story, and still made so many errors, the sort of mistakes one makes when they really do not care about what they are writing. It was sloppy and incompetent.

It would be easy to simply dismiss the ADI as so clumsy as to be irrelevant, but there are ostensibly responsible people in this town that take it quite seriously. The recent, completely fabricated, Tinkle-gate scandal story involving Councilman Kozachik made its first appearance in ADI before it was repeated on Jon LoGuidice’s radio show and elsewhere shows that the ADI has, unfortunately, been able to insert itself into the public debate. It is pretty clear that the lazy, craven and anonymous trolls behind this site do not deserve even the marginal credibility that they get.

(Note: The folks over at The Yellow Sheet have understandably been very protective of their material in the past. This blogger believes that the use of the attributed quote falls well within accepted fair use guidelines.)

Filed in Other Blogs, Tucson City Politics, Uncategorized | | Comments (4)

Why Resolve Anything Quietly When Sensational Rhetoric Gets You on The Teevee?

Friday, April 19, 2013

Senator Carl Hayden famously said that elected officials were either show horses or work horses. If you want to get your name in the papers, you should be a show horse. If you wanted to actually get things done, you should be a work horse instead.

Because of the traumatic events of the past week, a few stories have slipped past our attention. In the case of one story, this was the way it should have been all along.

This week, scandal-plagued Republican Attorney General Tom Horne called for a sit-down with city attorneys from across the state to discuss the limits of what local governments could do with regard to civil unions. This is in response to the Bisbee Crisis. In fairness, even folks in Bisbee have admitted that their sweeping ordinance may have gone a bit too far and they are revisiting some of its more problematic provisions.

Under normal circumstances, Horne would deserve praise for his efforts to resolve this question amicably. However, this came only after he linked hands with Cathi Herrod of the professionally prudish right-wing Center for Arizona Policy and went to the press with a pointed threat to sue the former Queen of the Copper Camps. Rather than finding a solution, Herrod and Horne’s rhetoric seemed calculated to intimidate and generally foment ill feeling across the state. At the same time, it got Horne’s face on television and helped assure a critical constituency of frightened bigots that the troubled Attorney General was on their side.

Now that he got what he wanted and the life-cycle of the controversy has run its course, Horne has decided to actually do his job and govern. In the process, he has elevated Cathi Herrod and given some of our state’s haters fifteen minutes of fame, but the potential long-term damage this could do is not his concern. Governing does not get your name in the paper, but strident rhetoric does, and this is all that really matters.

This is pretty much all one needs to know about Horne’s entire career.

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An Open Letter to Representative Chad Campbell

Thursday, April 18, 2013

Chad,

We have known each other for nearly ten years. In that time you have been my friend, ally, and occasional opponent. Through it all, I have known you to be one of the keenest and most articulate public policy minds in the state. We also share similar taste in music, which just further proves that you must be a genius.

However, I am writing this to ask you not to pursue a run for Governor in 2014.

In Fred DuVal, we have not only a universally respected and exceptionally well-qualified candidate, but also someone who has thoroughly thought through what a successful campaign will entail and has already done the work that he needs to have done by now. He has secured the endorsements of elected officials and leaders all over the state, including every living former Democratic Governor.

On the Republican side, there are perhaps half a dozen candidates who are making noises about running at this point. Even if some of them fail to follow through, you know as well as anybody that this promises to be a messy and ugly Republican primary which may well yield an extremist or otherwise damaged nominee. This bodes well for a well-positioned candidate, particularly one with a thoughtful reputation and a potential for bipartisan appeal like DuVal.

More than this, DuVal is already well on his way to building a statewide organization. With all due respect to the awesome work you have done not only in the legislature, but as an activist before you were elected, your reach does not extend much beyond central Phoenix. It will be impossible for you or any Democrat to win the nomination, much less the general election, without a substantial presence across the state. DuVal has left you little room to build such machinery, and there is insufficient time to work around him.

There are those that argue that contested primaries are inherently good for the party. I happen to disagree, and their best arguments do not apply here. There are few if any substantial differences in policy between you and DuVal, so there is no case to be made that this will give voters a choice, allow for debate, or give voice to some forgotten constituency. A primary here will be pointless at best and divisive at worst. All it can really accomplish is to delay DuVal’s general election campaign and make victory more difficult.

Every four years, we tell folks (some would argue that we tell ourselves) that this is a critical, if not the most critical election ever. This time, however, there is some real basis to say this. Despite your heroic efforts, much of what was accomplished to move Arizona forward under Governor Napolitano has been reversed, and most of the good things that have happened in this state during our lifetime are in peril under the current regime. With DuVal, we have a real, viable chance to restore sanity to the ninth floor. Though this is certainly not our last chance to elect a Democrat as Governor, it may well be our last chance to stop our current slide into backwardness. A contested primary can only jeopardize this.

I realize that you are term limited and want desperately to stay in the game, having been in exile myself I can sympathize with the sentiment, but this particular election is far too important. You know that I would support you under slightly different circumstances, but for the time being, for the sake of your party and your state, please do not run for Governor this time around.

Sincerely, your friend, fellow Concrete Blonde fan, and former colleague,

Tom Prezelski

Tucson, Arizona

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Tom Horne: Coward

Sunday, April 14, 2013

The Arizona Republic reports that scandal-plagued Republican Attorney General Tom Horne turned down a chance for a televised debate against once-and-future Democratic AG candidate Felecia Rotellini regarding his fit of rage over Bisbee’s civil unions ordinance. He said that he “didn’t feel comfortable appearing with Felecia.”

Rotellini is probably too gracious and professional to outright call Tom Horne for what he is. For her benefit, I present the eloquence of Tombstone Epitaph editor Pat Hamilton when the tough-talking Sam Purdy, a rival editor, backed out of a duel arising from a political dispute in 1882:

… your life has been a lie…you are a cur by nature, a traitor by heart and a scoundrel by instinct. I write ‘coward’ across your brow so clearly and legibly that every man and woman in Cochise County can read the brand of your infamy.

 

Filed in Cochise County Politics, GLBT, Uncategorized | | Comments (1)

This Blog Gives You a Reason to Pick Up the Tucson Weekly

Friday, April 12, 2013

In case you did not know, this here blogger got published in this week’s Tucson Weekly. Drop by Circle K and ask for it. After they complain that people keep asking for the Weekly, say “this should tell you something.” Then, go next door to Eegees, where they do carry it. I got mine at Casa Video, myself.

http://www.tucsonweekly.com/tucson/guest-commentary/Content?category=1063786

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