Sunday, January 22nd, 2006...1:16 pm
The Haps in the Lege
There were plenty of things for me to write about that went on in the legislature this week, but I neglected to write about any of them. I don’t really have a good reason for that. I was planning on making a reason up. I don’t feel like it though.
One debating tactic that I found amusing was the one used by Rep. Steve Yarbrough, who was pushing yet another so-called “school choice bill.” Yarbrough scolded legislators that represent “minority districts” by saying that the minority community is clamoring for school vouchers. Being that I work in South Tucson with actual Hispanics, Native Amerians and African Americans, in alternative education no less, I wonder why I haven’t heard about this. Apparently, winning a few thousand votes in a Republican primary in a lilly-white East Valley district qualifies you to speak on behalf of Arizona’s minorities.
I read early in the week about Sen. Linda Gray and her withdrawl of a bill restricting eminent domain. Did she withdraw it because of objections from some element of the citizenry? No, she withdrew it because there wasn’t any. Yeah, whether or not a bill gets pushed through should be based on whether or not it ticks the right people off. Evidently, she was hoping from more opposition from the cities, but evidently they could live with the new restrictions, so she pulled the bill.
In other words, the bill only existed to punish the cities.
This is one of the things that galls me about the legislature. It seems that so many of the things that get done up there seem to be based on some grievance against government, schools or one segment of our community or another. Is this any way to run public policy?
The governor vetoed four bills. The Republicans were suprised by this, but she vetoed the same bills last session. Did they think she’d forget or something? Maybe she’d slip up and misplace the veto pen:
“George? Mike? Did I leave that pen at Matador?”
Maybe they thought this was the Earth-Two Janet Napolitano, you know, it’s that alternate earth where the Flash has the funny helmet and the governor is a right-wing toady that thinks that Jim Weiers is a heck of a guy.
5 Comments
January 22nd, 2006 at 4:16 pm
Yo Tedski -
You forgot about the latest exciting update on The Human Stain
January 22nd, 2006 at 4:18 pm
I really meant to put that in…I’ll get something up about it.
January 23rd, 2006 at 6:34 am
Tedski wrote: “It seems that so many of the things that get done up there seem to be based on some grievance against government, schools or one segment of our community or another. Is this any way to run public policy?”
You mean this ISN’T how Republicans run the country?
January 23rd, 2006 at 12:58 pm
While I agree with the substance of the comment, let me point out that, according to the Arizona Department of Health Services, Steve Yarbrough’s legislative district 21 is 44.7% non-white, which works out to about 95,000 non-white residents of his district, which is probably comparable volume-wise to many other parts of the state not caricatured as lily-white. It is easy for those outside Republican strongholds to assume that everyone is homogenous; however, just like assumptions by Maricopa County residents about Southern Arizona bother Southern Arizonans, I thought this was worth pointing out. Our party has done absolutely nothing I am aware of to reach out to non-whites in areas that aren’t historically non-white, and we have suffered as a consequence.
-Joaquin Rios
January 23rd, 2006 at 2:13 pm
Joaquin-
Point well taken. I suppose I should have said something like “a lilly white Republican primary electorate” instead of characterizing his district that way.
It appears that his district includes Queen Creek, which has been far more hispanic, historically, than folks would think.
And, you have a very good point about the lack of outreach to such areas. The party, especially at the state level, has always assumed that talking to the same four or five “gatekeepers” is what will “turn-out” the hispanic vote. This seems to be done every time, whether or not those leaders are interested in turning out the vote. Some, have been detrimental to hispanic turnout in their areas.
One of the reasons I like Grijalva is that he has not tried to build his influence by demanding to be a gatekeeper, but instead by -gosh- actually turning out the vote for candidates.