Rum, Romanism and Rebellion

As much as I believe Governor Janet Napolitano to be an extremely intelligent and capable politician, she has benefited a great deal from the narrow mindedness and bullheadedness of her opponents. This week, for example, I heard a report about the number of vetoes that the governor has issued. It is more than twice as many as the next highest tally for all Arizona governors (Gov. Hull). The reason for this is simple, when she vetoes something, it is almost guaranteed to come back to her desk a few weeks later. As if, somehow, she will have changed her mind. The guys in charge of the legislature seem to believe that the public is fully behind every pin-headed measure they put forward, and all of this public anger will be inflicted on poor Janet. It hasn’t happened yet, she and her veto pen are just as popular as always. I think it would help if a few of the Republican members took their noses out of their ALEC newsletters and asked actual Arizonans what they think.
Two of her vetoes towards the end of last week stuck in the craws of the Republican leadership. They are claiming that Napolitano lied to them. I doubt she did, and such an argument will only hold sway if the public trusts them in the first place. Both vetoes were because the leadership, as usual, thought they could pull one over on the governor. Both could have been easily avoided by the leadership. On one, all the governor wanted was a “sunset” provision in a tuition-tax credit bill. These are common in tax-credit bills. For some reason, it was not included here. It probably didn’t help much that the leadership was bragging after the passage that they cajoled governor into supporting “vouchers”, there is an excellent way to build comity.
The other veto was regarding the Flores lawsuit on English language instruction. All the governor asked was that the Democrats be included in the negotiations on the bill. You’d think that wouldn’t be hard. I guess it was. Well, these are the same guys that tried to prevent Democratic members from asking questions and even offered deals to a few if they wouldn’t speak on the floor.
One of her more interesting vetoes was of a bill requiring an ID to vote. This was another example of these guys attempting to pass the same bill over and over again. The bills provisions were clearly illegal, and there is little evidence of “illegal aliens” wanting to vote in Arizona elections. It seems like the typical recipie for Arizona legislation: no real problem that exists, and a solution that is unworkable, illegal and possibly catastrophic. The basic premise of the bill is flawed though, we can’t get actual citizens to vote, and someone who is trying to hide from la migra is putting his name and address on a government list? Give me a break. Of course, that doesn’t keep the talk radio types from claiming that Napolitano and Grijalva were elected by “aliens.”
I can see the conversation among the desperately poor in Chiapas or Guerrero:
“Hey, Miguel, when are you going across?”
“Soon, man, I’m going to work the chicken plants in Arkansas.”
“Naw, I ain’t doing that. When I go across, I’m going to stay in Tucson, so I can vote for that Napolitano and Grijalva.”
“Really? I get to vote for them? Well, heck with the good money then. I’ll stay in Arizona. Do I get to vote for Ted Downing?”
Such are the fantasies of the far right.