Monday, June 25th, 2007...7:03 am
Oh, They Aren’t So Ineffective After All
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Saturday, the Arizona Daily Star ran a short interview with Senate President Tim Bee. Interestingly, Bee names his cooperation with Senate Democrats as a major accomplishment. Also, he also says that he responded “to the reality that Democrats had gained numbers in both chambers” and the reality that there is a Democratic governor.
Good to see that the usefulness of the Democrats is being recognized. Contrast this to an article in late March that derided Southern Arizona Democrats as ineffective. Both Democratic caucuses are led by Southern Arizonans, and yet somehow, they were able to have a major effect on the most important bill of this session. Hmm. Go figure.
6 Comments
June 25th, 2007 at 8:41 am
Hey, Ted.
June 25th, 2007 at 8:43 am
http://monsoons.blogspot.com/2007_06_24_archive.html#1654784078950188195
June 26th, 2007 at 7:47 am
Given the lack of comments on this post, I guess it’s just me….But how come Bee gets not one but TWO glowing stories, and Phil Lopes, who pulled off a major miracle by holding together House Democrats, doesn’t even get a mention?
June 26th, 2007 at 9:02 am
Here’s why, SonoranSam,
1. You don’t get credit for waking up in the morning. Why should he get praise for House Demcrats voting for a measure that the Governor created? That’s kind of a “dog bites man” story.
2. He played almost no role in the budget (everyone negotiated with the Senate Democrats where you have a normal person like Marsha Arzberger to deal with).
which brings me to:
3. Why is there no focus on Marsha Arzberger? She is the most effective democrat in the legislature. She gets more bills passed than even some republicans and she is from Southern Arizona, yet you guys virtually ignore her.
4. Despite #1, Lopes almost lost his caucus with his name calling and his divisiveness.
June 26th, 2007 at 10:17 am
I don’t what session you were watching Billie, but it wasn’t the same one I saw.
I agree with you that Marsha Arzberger is a good leader who deserves much of the credit.
But your statement that Phil is “devisive” is totally off the mark. He worked his butt off to hold the Democrats together, despite some spiteful efforts by certain members to divide the caucus, simply because they were on the wrong side of a leadership fight. Your allegation that Phil is “devisive” has no basis in fact.
If Lopes did not hold the Democrats together during the House vote, a very bad Republican budget would have been put on an equal footing with the bipartisan plan that Marsha and the Senate Republicans negotiated. And then, the Senate budget passed with the solid support of the House Democrats, and only a handful of Republican votes.
This was a team effort. Marsha Arzberger and the Governor deserve credit. So does Phil Lopes.
June 27th, 2007 at 8:58 am
I am not sure where Mr. Barue gets his information, but I was actually there and I have a different memory of what happened during the session than what one would glean from a Republican press release.
1) House Democrats did actively work on creating this budget by working with the Senate. It should be noted that Lopes and the other Democratic leaders took a lot of criticism from both the Republican leadership and the media for not cutting deals. As can be seen by the abortive attempt to cut a deal with the Speaker by a handful of Democrats, such wrangling yielded nothing and would have done little to improve a bad House budget even had it worked. This should have vindicated Lopes in the eyes of his critics, but it did not.
2) Mr Barue is patently wrong here. See item #1. It was the Speaker and the House Republican leadership who effectively chose to have no role in the final budget.
What exactly does “normal person” mean anyway?
3) No one is ignoring Senator Arzberger except, of course for the Star, which is ignoring Lopes as well. Otherwise, I have heard her praised in public for her work over and over again.
4) The members of his caucus that Lopes “lost” all voted for the budget that he helped negotiate. The Democrats who attempted to cut a deal with the House Republican leadership on issues were unsuccessful, not for a lack of support from fellow Democrats, but an absence of support from Republicans.
Can Mr. Barue cite an incident of Rep. Lopes “name calling?”
The lack of reporting of the accomplishments of Democrats in the legslature in the Star is rather appalling. If they are going to praise Tim Bee for two days, they should give Lopes and Arzberger their props as well. I predict that when Democrats take the House in 2008 that the Star will fold up its legislative coverage alltogether. So much for the “liberal bias” of the “Red Star.”
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