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.

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.

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.

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.

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.