John McCluskey caught; Report shows private prison was unacceptable

Thank God that last night, three weeks after it began, the private prison break ended. As much as she doesn't want to talk about it, it was Jan Brewer's call to shift some public prisons to private control. Her chief of staff and a top campaign aide both are lobbyists for the private prison industry, and it was her decision in January to allow the transfer of over 100 dangerous maximum security inmates, including murderers, rapists and other violent felons, to a medium security private prison that was built for DUI offenders.

We should salute the professionalism of law enforcement officers from several states and the Federal U.S. Marshal's Service, and a U.S. forest ranger that finally ended the private prison break yesterday after three weeks, two murders, a kidnapping, a shootout, auto theft and millions of dollars worth of man-hours. In contrast, this is how private prisons work:

Shortened hours that led to no patrols of the perimeter fences during shift changes, alarm systems that often did not work or resulted in false alarms, guards who took over an hour to respond when the alarm did go off, a prison door propped open with a rock...

Let's also not forget underpaid and poorly trained guards resulting in high turnover.

State prisons director Charles Ryan almost grudgingly had to admit that it was time to move almost 150 especially dangerous inmates, including all the convicted murderers, out of the 'medium-security' facility and back to a maximum security facility run by the state. No word on why it took them three weeks to even recognize it was time to do that.

The most telling paragraph:

Washington [spokesman for the private prison company] offered up this explanation for the blatant security failures: "We have a lot of new and young staff that have not yet integrated into our security practices, so we're going to go back to basics with that staff."

OF COURSE THEY DO!! I used to live near a private prison in New Mexico and they had people getting hired and moving on out of there almost like they do at a truck stop or a carnival. If you pay people just what you need to pay them to keep warm bodies present (which private prison companies do, after all they are mainly interested in maximizing profits) then an inexperienced workforce will be the usual situation, not something that is rare or remarkable. If anything, they probably have a more experienced than usual workforce now, because at least they have the recession to hold people in their jobs a little bit longer.

Once the economy picks up, they will leave even faster. If anyone remains there it will be the misfits and incompetents who can't get a job that pays any better. Anyone who is actually competent enough to be worth more will find a better paying job elsewhere, very likely with a state or federal prison or law enforcement agency.

Here's the absolute kicker: It took them SEVERAL HOURS to find this hole:



Private prisons are NOT the way to go. In a public prison with professional, career prison guards, there is nothing the inmates know that the guards don't know. Any other model is not as secure.

Jan Brewer's phony outrage

The local news is full of Jan Brewer's faux outrage at the Obama administration for daring to challenge the new immigration law, especially the part about Hillary Clinton apparently first spilling the beans during a trip to Ecuador.

This may play well with the Republican base that Brewer is trying to hang onto as she heads into a competitive primary contest but hardly anyone who knows politics is fooled by this. As evidence, just last week Brewer got into a fight with Terry Goddard, who would have to defend the law in his capacity as Attorney General over precisely this matter. So for her to now claim that she is surprised is the height of hypocrisy. Goddard for his part (and keeping in mind that if Brewer survives her primary she would be running against Goddard in the fall) did voluntarily step aside today (giving Brewer what she demanded from him last week) and wisely isn't going to be defending this law.

The immigration bill was certain to be challenged in court from the moment it was signed, not only because it places the state in the position of the Federal Government, but also because one can seriously question the constitutionality of requiring that all citizens (because it is not only non-citizens who will be questioned) carry identification with them in order to avoid possibly being detained as a 'suspected undocumented' immigrant. This seems contrary to the fourth amendment protection against unreasonable searches.

True that if you are driving a vehicle you need a drivers license with you but that is only while you are driving. If you are not driving a vehicle (such as if you are walking down the street, standing on the corner or only a passenger in a vehicle) there is no current requirement for I.D. but the Arizona law in fact if not in letter does now require I.D. (certainly for anyone-- read that Hispanics or people who may be mistaken for Hispanics such as American Indians-- who may be 'suspected' of being an undocumented immigrant.)

Brewer knew very well that this law would certainly be challenged in court, and virtually certainly by the Justice Department, so her expressions of shock are purely contrived. As to the matter of Secretary Clinton first disclosing this in Ecuador, it may have been a slip of the tongue, or it may have been intentional. Either way, official notification will follow when the Justice Department is ready to file their suit. Likely as not they are carefully wording their official court briefs in order to comply with all necessary legal requirements, whereas the Secretary of State, as she is not the one who will be filing the suit, is under no obligation to wait for them to file the official suit.

If she wanted to avoid a lawsuit there was an easy way to do that-- veto the law last month. But Governor Brewer made it clear which side she is on. Fine, but then don't turn around and claim to be shocked and surprised when the inevitable consequences roll around.

Jan Gump

In the movie, Forrest Gump, Forrest, as a man of limited mental capacity but strong convictions and played ably by Tom Hanks, always was just in the right place at the right time to gain fame and fortune and to be there during important moments in history.

It seems that in real life, we have something of a parallel here in Arizona. Good things keep happening to Jan Brewer, but in fact many of them come to her despite her own actions in the past.

Fifteen years ago, as the majority whip of the Arizona Senate, Jan Brewer was instrumental in pushing through the massive Symington-Brewer tax cuts. When combined with a 1992 referendum which made it virtually impossible for the legislature to raise taxes, these cuts undermined the fiscal stability of our state by plunging recklessly down a road which assumed that growth would continue forever and provide an increasing stream of revenue to fund state services. Accordingly, under the legislature that Brewer was one of the leaders of spending levels were cut to the point where many schools and state agencies were on a shoestring budget in good times, with no thought apparently given to what this would mean for bad times.

Common sense dictates that if you can't back up, then you would proceed forward with caution. But I guess not according to then State Senator Jan Brewer.

In 2001 and 2002 we got a taste of what bad times meant. Due to the incompetence of former Governor Jane Hull and the outright deception of former House Speaker Jeff Groscost, the legislature passed the 'alt-fuels' bill that essentially bought cars for a lot of Groscost's neighbors in Mesa at state expense and when combined with the recession of that year meant that incoming Governor Janet Napolitano entered staring down a $1 billion hole. She went to work and fixed the hole, but because of when Napolitano took office (at the beginning of 2003) Jan Brewer was given a ready made 'excuse' that she could use to claim years later that Napolitano had 'overspent'-- conveniently overlooking the fact that much of the spending 'increase' under Napolitano was simply climbing back up out of the hole the budget was in when she took office.

But the excuse was there for Brewer and she has been taking it liberally, blaming her predecessor for the problems that in fact Jan Brewer helped create years earlier by weakening the state's tax structure! Nobody remembers her role now. Wow, talk about catching a lucky break!

She caught another one in 2002. Because of the very tight gubernatorial race between Napolitano and Matt Salmon, nobody paid much attention to the race for Secretary of State, despite the fact that (now counting Brewer) the past six Governors of Arizona have all either left office without completing their terms or been the Secretaries of State who succeeded them. It would be like not bothering to ask who the Vice President is. But that's what happen so she escaped scrutiny of her far right record.

In January of 2009 Brewer acceded to become an unelected Governor the day after Barack Obama was sworn in as President of the United States in, demanding an expensive and exhorbitant ceremony much more like the swearing in of an elected Governor, rather than the very plain and unremarkable swearing in that the previous two Secretaries of State to become Governor (Rose Mofford and Jane Hull) had done. This despite the fact that the state was in fairly good fiscal shape for those two but already gripped by the collapse of the housing market for Jan 'Money is no object' Brewer.

But luck shined her way again. The legislature became ensnared in a months long fight between very conservative Republicans and extremely conservative Republicans. The unecessary expenses of Brewer's elaborate swearing in ceremony were soon forgotten. So, she was free to propose a 1 cent sales tax increase to help balance the budget without anyone asking why she had spent so much tax money on her own vanity, and as such she did propose the tax.

And she got even luckier. The House and Senate agreed to pass a budget with only Republican votes. But that put them at the mercy of the most extreme members of their own caucus, so that Jack Harper, Ron Gould and Pamela Gorman blocked all progress towards a budget that included Brewer's proposed tax. Things got so bad between Brewer and the legislative leadership from her own party that she even took them to court to make them try and send her the semblance of a budget they did pass just so she could veto it and throw it back to them. Because the GOP budget they finally did pass was so extreme, Brewer got to look like the more responsible party.

Of course vetoing a Republican budget made Brewer unpopular in her own party ranks. As a weak Governor who was never elected, if she faced a single challenger she would probably be a goner. But she has drawn at least three credible challengers, which means she could easily win nomination with 30% of the GOP primary vote. Yet another stroke of luck.

She was still in the midst of a heated primary with today's vote on the sales tax-- unpopular with key elements of the Republican base looming-- when she caught, yes, another stroke of luck. The legislature sent her SB 1070. This was a tough decision: sign a bill that will repel Hispanics-- now 30% of the population of Arizona but 40% of the under 20 population of Arizona and growing rapidly, or veto it to further alienate the GOP base. She cast her lot with the nativists. As the bill became national news, Republican activists both in Arizona and around the nation praised Brewer. So, today the sales tax vote is an afterthought.

The timing couldn't be better. But remember this: Forrest Gump was a movie. Jan Brewer's string of good luck is bound to end sooner or later, and when it does Arizona will likely be on the receiving end.

Brewer to sign SB 1070

It appears that Jan Brewer has decided that it is more important to her to look good to the Republican primary electorate than to show the kind of leadership that fellow Republican Governor Charlie Crist showed last week when he vetoed a bill that was popular with his partisans because it was a bad bill.

The word is that Brewer will sign SB 1070, which makes it a crime to be an undocumented alien in Arizona and will force all local law enforcement agencies to profile and round up potential undocumented immigrants and force them to prove their citizenship.

This has of course already been going on for several years in Maricopa County (and in fact one of Brewer's opponents in the GOP primary is our good friend the Sheriff of Nottingham himself) and if what has happened there is any indication a lot of people in Arizona who happen to be Hispanic are in for a lot of trouble. Numerous Americans who happen to be Hispanic have been detained and in some cases taken to jail by Sheriff Joe's minions even though they are American citizens-- a clear case of racial profiling.

Arizona already has a reputation (well-deserved, I'm embarrassed to say) for being intolerant. One has to wonder what kind of long term damage this is likely to do to our state-- especially since tourism is supposed to be one of the few 'growth' industries in the state.

Arizona GOP meltdown pushing the tide back towards Democrats

Whatever the national environment is, the Arizona GOP is in a meltdown and doing everything they can to help Democrats in the Copper State in 2010.

Exhibit one, of course, is the continual failure of the legislature and Governor to produce a budget. Republicans have controlled the Arizona legislature since 1964, and during most of that time have also run the Governor's office. For most of that time we've had a steady diet of tax cuts, lax regulations on business (and of course right-to-work and the worst workers comp rules in the nation) and well below the national average in per capita state spending. And even when the Governor has been a Democrat Arizona has either had gridlock or compromise. The decades long Republican domination of the legislature has guaranteed that liberalism has never had its day in Arizona, certainly not since Barry Goldwater swept the GOP into control of the legislature when he carried the state against LBJ in 1964. So if conservatism was the panacea, Arizona would be about the most prosperous state in the nation right now. Only it's not, because conservatism doesn't work.

Remember too that Jan Brewer has now been Governor since the day after President Obama was inaugurated and Janet Napolitano was confirmed as Secretary of Homeland Security, and it's not surprising that her record of failed leadership (including leaving the state as a special session she had called collapsed into chaos) has caused her standing even in her own party to fall into the cellar. Say what you want to about Janet, but she always managed to work with the Republican legislature to get a budget done. Things got so bad between Brewer and her own party leadership in the legislature this year that it featured bizarre lowlights like the Governor going to court to get the legislature to send her the budget so she could veto it, and the leadership turning off the clocks on the last night of the regular session so they could claim that it had not yet struck midnight until well after the sun was up the next morning.

Remember in June Arizona voters gave the legislature lower marks than even Congress (notoriously unpopular) was drawing. And that was before the end of the regular session. Four special sessions later and the year has been marked by complete failure as the majority party could not get their own members together to put together a budget. Remember that in the Arizona legislature there is no filibuster so the Democrats have been irrelevant (particularly since the GOP leadership has not bothered to actually negotiate with them, with house speaker Kirk Adams just telling them to vote for what he worked out.) The biggest hangup has been GOP members of the legislature who are so ideologically rigid that even after making enormous cuts in schools and services in the face of a huge budget hole, they have refused to refer a proposed temporary sales tax to voters unless it is coupled with permanent tax cuts. In some cases they have refused to refer the sales tax even with the tax cuts (though it is amazing that they tried to cut taxes at all given the present fiscal reality-- largely caused by years of huge GOP-backed tax cuts that kept state budgets on a shoestring even in times of relative plenty.)

More recently we've seen the most popular Republican in the state, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio and his best buddy, county attorney Andrew Thomas (a.k.a. the Sheriff of Nottingham and Prince John) openly flouting the law, arresting and filing spurious charges against political opponents, including the majority of the county Board of Supervisors and a judge who had issued some rulings they didn't like and was scheduled the next day to hear the case of Adam Stoddard, one of Sheriff Joe's Henchmen who was shown on national media openly and brazenly taking documents out of a defense attorney's file during a court hearing (if you haven't seen the video by now you should-- it's truly bizarre.) In fact, the charges that Sheriff Joe had chief Supervisor Don Stapley arrested and taken to jail for were so flimsy and contrived that they couldn't even find an attorney in Arizona willing to prosecute it and had to hire someone from outside the state. And after that fell through it appears that Thomas will try and get Stapley himself. And just to protect himself, he's filed a pre-emptive ethics complaint against Attorney General Terry Goddard (the most powerful political opponent he has in the state) to ensure that Goddard will be hamstrung in any attempt to prosecute this obvious and illegal power play by Arpaio and Thomas due to a 'conflict of interest.' Even conservative columnist Robert Robb, who rarely criticizes Republican officeholders, took issue with the way the duo are engineering what is effectively a coup against county government:

What's happening in Maricopa County government isn't a circus. And it's not a joke.

Not anymore. It's now a deadly serious business.

County Attorney Andrew Thomas and Sheriff Joe Arpaio are alleging that there is a massive corrupt conspiracy involving at least four Superior Court judges, the entire Board of Supervisors and senior county management.

If Thomas and Arpaio are wrong about the existence of such a massive conspiracy, they are themselves guilty of an assault on the independence of the judiciary and the rule of law in Maricopa County.

I'm glad I don't live in Phoenix, but if this stands it could endanger everyone in the state (especially with Thomas mulling a run for Attorney General.) Arpaio may get most of the press but Thomas is the more dangerous of the two.

And a lot of people are realizing how dangerous they are, and that the term, 'loose cannon' may not even describe a cannon which is deliberately being aimed directly at the main masts of government.

Of course in addition to that Sheriff Joe is still running saturation patrols which may be popular with the nativist crowd (who will turn out and vote anyway if predictions for next year are right since most of them are also 'tea partiers') but by arresting dozens of American citizens simply because they are Hispanic and forcing them to prove their citizenship before being released he's certainly guaranteed that even if Hispanic turnout next year lags last year's total everyplace else, that probably won't be the case in Arizona because they will have at least one really good reason to come to the polls and vote Democratic.

Now, we learn that Brett Mecum, the Executive Director of the Arizona Republican Party, who has in the past been accused of inappropriate sexual behavior towards women, is facing felony charges for misusing information in voter registration files to stalk a woman and show up at a party at her home without being invited or told otherwise where she lived. I've been a precinct committeeman for years and I know exactly what the law is regarding voter files and who can access them and for what purposes, and it is incomprehensible that the executive director of the state Republican Party didn't know what the restrictions were (I mean, even common sense dictates that his personal life isn't an authorized use of the file!) Further she has said that she didn't tell him where she lived precisely because she found Mecum to be creepy and didn't want his advances.

Remember that earlier this year Mecum was clocked driving 109 mph on an urban freeway in metro Phoenix. Yes, folks, this is the executive director of the Arizona GOP.

Maybe the national climate is shifting to favor Republicans (though it may be radically different by next November) but here in Arizona it's hard to imagine voters wanting more of this next year.

Jan Brewer's glass house

Governor Jan Brewer has signed most of the budget, according to reports out today. She vetoed the repeal of the state property tax and at least for the moment plans to use the revenue it generates (a quarter billion a year) to plug holes still left in the budget and restore some funding to education and state services. She blamed 'a few Republicans and Democratic extremists'.

This sentence makes no sense at all. Democrats were locked completely out of the negotiations for almost eight months, including a spate in which they were told that they were really negotiating with Republicans (who were in fact actually secretly negotiating with the Governor behind closed doors) in a ploy that even Robert Robb agreed that the Democrats were negotiated with in bad faith. And even a couple of weeks ago when Democrats were allowed into the budget negotiations they were essentially told that the budget was a done deal and they could tinker around the edges in exchange for passing her sales-tax ballot initiative, most of which would go to backfill tax cuts including the property tax cut.)

It is true that the reason we got to the point that we did had a lot to do with the Governor's lack of leadership. I mean, let's face it-- Janet had far deeper disagreements with the same bunch of morons in the legislature and they always got the budget done.

You can't just blame the economy either. Many states have had a terrible economy and correspondingly tough choices to deal with in terms of the budget. For a long time, the spotlight was on California in particular. But it's been a month since the legislature and Governor Arnold Schwarzeneggar got a budget agreement hashed out.

You can blame Arizona's tax structure to a degree. In 1992 the voters passed a 'supermajority' requirement to raise taxes. This means that the legislature can only raise taxes with a 2/3 vote of both houses of the legislature plus the Governor's signature (and if the increase met a gubernatorial veto it would require an even larger supermajority to override.) Note, by the way, that California has the same requirement since the notorious 'prop 13' vote of 1978 (yes, another good conservative idea). This means that it is virtually impossible for the legislature to raise taxes, and they have never done so since then. What they have done since then, however is to cut taxes massively. For example, in the mid 1990's we had billions of dollars worth of tax cuts enacted under then-Governor Fife Symington. And to get them through the Senate he needed the help of then Senate majority whip Jan Brewer (!!)

That's right. A huge part of why we are in the budgetary toilet we are in is precisely because, after disabling the mechanism to back up on tax cuts, our legislature in the 1990's went full speed ahead. And like a driver who starts down a road which becomes a trail and eventually a stream bed that is too narrow to turn around, Arizona has gotten into a budget pickle because in the full knowledge that the tax cuts could not be reversed the legislature chose during the times of relative prosperity to cut taxes virtually every year, not adequately fund the 'rainy day fund' (in case you're wondering it ran dry earlier this year just balancing the 2009 budget) and assume that the booming economy would continue forever. Taxes were cut so that schools, state services and other areas which were left to subsist on a shoestring budget even when times were good, had to make massive cuts this year which resulted in everything from teacher layoffs (making Arizona's class sizes, already among the worst in the country, even worse) to literally putting the state capitol building up for bid and committing ourselves to paying rent on it in the future -- and in a year when the commercial real estate market is at rock bottom so we won't even get much for it.

I will say this though-- Republicans have always been for tax cuts and 'smaller government.' So they did what they said they would. What this also shows is the hazard of electing the same party to be the majority party in the legislature for decades. In particular, since the 1992 referendum, we've had Republican governors for 11 out of 17 years and the GOP has controlled both houses of the legislature for all of that time except for a two year stint in which the senate was split 15-15 and still elected a Republican leader.

The return of the state equalization property tax, which was suspended for three years by a 2006 agreement and will return because the Governor had little choice but to veto its permanent repeal, is a small restitution of the revenue that was lost to the yearly reckless and deep tax cuts the legislature voted for every year for at least a decade. As both a parent and a homeowner I look forward to paying it this year because of how badly the revenue will be needed, but I know how inadequate a step that will be toward restoring the quality of our schools and other institutions that will take years to fix even if we get someone better in charge than the collection of incompetents running the state now.

And if Jan Brewer wants to blame someone, perhaps she should go back a few years. And look in the mirror. Because she was right in the middle, as senate majority whip, helping drive the car down that one way path to fiscal damnation.

Republicans own the Republican budget.

The latest word from the capitol is that the GOP legislature is, as it looked like they might do last week, going to pass exactly the same budget that Governor Brewer vetoed on July 1, and this time she will sign it.

She will blame this surrender, ironically enough on Democrats.

Yes, you read that right. After being frozen out of budget negotiations for months (and the proposed Democratic budget was never considered at all by the GOP leadership, by the way) the only times when Democrats were consulted was when it became clear that the GOP leadership was all tied up in knots with themselves with a deadline looming and they needed one more vote-- and then it was never the Democratic leadership, but individual Democrats (Hale and later Miranda) who they tried to get to defect and vote for a terrible budget for a price, and as I noted they were consulted literally hours before deadlines and not at any other time or with any other Democrat. Luckily neither of those two took the bait.

Zelph at AZ Netroots has a pretty good summary of all the times that Democrats were consulted at all here. As you can see the number of times when even individual Democrats were courted is a short list, and never once did the Governor bring together a 'five party' solution (herself, and the majority and minority leaders from both houses of the legislature,) something Democrats had been repeatedly asking for. You'd think she was superstitious about the number five or something.

Blaming Democrats that a bad budget passes with only Republican support because none of them actually was willing to sell out and vote for the bad budget? That would be bad enough in and of itself.

However we can go further, and point out that this isn't just a bad budget full of budget cuts. It's a bad budget full of tax cuts (especially the permanent repeal of the state property tax.) Asking any thinking person to vote for a sales tax referral when all it will do is backfill a tax cut that mainly benefits the rich and corporations who can pay good lobbyists is a sham in and of itself.

Let's be clear. This is a Republican budget, written exclusively by Republican leaders, passed with only Republican votes in a legislature where Republicans have absolute control, and if it is signed it will be a Republican Governor. This turkey will be their budget, they will own it and there will be no way one could argue otherwise. Democrats can't do anything about this budget because they've been locked out of the room for a long time. Blaming Democrats would be like blaming the person you outbid at an auction if the item you bought turns out to be junk.

But they will try it anyway.

This is what Jan Brewer wrote on July 1. She was right then. Will she still stand by it?

It looks like the Arizona Senate passed (and the house will probably pass tomorrow) a budget similar to the one that Governor Brewer vetoed on July 1 (and just like on that occasion, they also won't refer her sales tax proposal to the ballot.) And just like on that occasion, it cuts even deeper to accomodate a repeal of the state property tax.

Here is what she wrote in explaining her decision to veto the budget on July 1:

"I am deeply disappointed to report to the people of Arizona that the Legislature has been unable to send me a responsible budget plan. While Senate President Bob Burns and House Speaker Kirk Adams have worked with tremendous effort and diligence to reach a reasonable compromise with my proposal, regrettably, those efforts have fallen short.

"As a result, I received early this morning a fatally flawed legislative budget. The legislative budget ignores my consistently expressed goals and instead incorporates devastating cuts to education, public safety, and our state's most vital health services for the frail. In particular this package of bills is shortsighted in that it sets up an enormous revenue shortfall that will severly harm our State's [sic] future.

"Therefore I have carefully and selectively chosen to line-item veto portions of the legislation which allows me to add back funds for vital services and public safety so those critical programs are unaffected. Additionally, due to my actions today, state government services will continue to function. Improvements in education funding, however, will require significantly more legislative work.

"As Governor, I intend to see this through until we have achieved together what I have long advocated -- a prudent budget that neither over-spends nor under-funds. To ensure that happens, I am calling a Special Session of the Legislature and I ask that legislators re-dedicate themselves in a bi-partisan fashion to crafting a budget that reflects favorably on the future of Arizona.

Had the legislature actually followed her advice and chosen to work in a bi-partisan fashion, we would probably have an acceptable budget by now. But their insistence on continuing down the road they were on, trying to create a Republican-only vote (and with the backdrop that a critical block of Republicans were having their votes dictated by Grover Norquist) led them right back down the same dead end.

Now we have to ask whether the Governor meant what she said, especially the last sentence on July 1. If she meant it then she has no choice, she must veto this budget too and demand that Democrats be included in the negotiations this time.

Price for Harper's vote: Fire people, especially in award-winning Auditor General's Office

The latest update from the lege is that Sen. Jack Harper (R-Surprise) has reached an agreement with the Governor to get his vote to refer a sales tax hike to the November ballot (the reason why this was already a bad deal before Harper became the critical vote is summarized nicely in Rep. Daniel Patterson (D-Tucson)'s post right here.

The catch is that Harper will only vote for the referral if all state agencies cut 5% of their staff. No, that's not a 5% across the board budget cut, it's a 5% across the board staff cut. Of course these are agencies that have already eliminated unnecessary positions and gone along with state hiring freezes (remember those were implemented during the past few bad budget years) so what he means is that in order to get his vote, he wants to see heads roll. He wants to watch them fire people-- and in every state agency, no matter how critical they are.

Only in the bizarre, twisted world of Arizona Republican politics would a demented creation like Harper be allowed to wield that kind of power.

But that's only the beginning of what he wants.

He also wants to screw over two of his GOP colleagues and kill a downtown redevelopment project in Tucson. The two Republican Senators from Tucson, Jonathan Paton and Al Melvin, are already on board the GOP budget. Some southern Arizona blogs are all over them about that now that Harper is pulling his stunt. But Paton and Melvin have apparently folded like a house of cards. All I can say to that is, join the club. My own Republican Senator, Sylvia "uranium mining can't be dangerous because the earth is 6000 years old" Allen, already voted for the June 4 budget (which is more or less being revived in this one) which will make devastating cuts to rural hospitals and likely force every single rural health clinic around here to close. Maybe Tom Chabin is right and the voters are getting what we deserve, but I don't think so. Republicans have been promising for years that they would cut taxes for the wealthy and cut budgets and shrink government, well guess what folks, it wasn't just rhetoric. I have confidence that the voters will fix this problem next year (but it will be rocky going until then.)

But the really ridiculous part of what Harper wants is a 50% cut to the Auditor General's Office. The Auditor General is a nonpartisan office which is tasked with making sure that all the funds (or what is left of them) that the state provides to local governments, school districts and other entities are accounted for and spent responsibly. So apparently Sen. Harper is OK with more waste, fraud, mismanagement and even embezzlement of public funds because these are the things that the office of the Auditor General is supposed to prevent and protect us taxpayers from.

I should also add that the Auditor General's office has consistently been recognized as one of the best run offices in the state (maybe there is something to be said for running a non-partisan office with professionals who stay focused on doing their job.) In fact, Bill Thomson, the Deputy Auditor General, was recently honored with the Administrator of the Year award, given by that well-known hotbed of radical ultra-liberalism, the BYU Marriott school of Business Management.

Which makes me wonder. Why would Senator Harper single out the Auditor General's office for a 50% cut? Is it because he wants there to be more waste and fraud in public funds so that someday in the future he can find an example and use it to advance his own sick agenda? Or is it perhaps something a bit closer to home-- he knows someone who is screwing the taxpayers personally by embezzling funds, and he wants to try and protect them from those nosy auditors?

The real crime is that the rest of the Republicans in the legislature will probably vote for this and the Governor will sign it.

UPDATE: This did NOT get voted on. Apparently other Republican legislators balked at the idea of blanket-firing thousands of state workers for no other reason than to get one vote in the state senate. A small victory for sanity.

Bills the lege wasted their time and your nickel on

Maybe the legislature didn't get a budget done that could pass muster, but it's nice to know that as the time crunch came, they were working hard on these kinds of bills:

Authorized seven new special license plates, including one for fans of the Arizona Cardinals (HB 2222; signed by Jan Brewer.)

Legalized sparklers and small fireworks in Arizona. There is a minimum age of sixteen to buy fireworks but no minimum age for their use, so I'm sure that people living in areas with a high fire risk will be thrilled to know that their neighbor's sixteen year old can now buy fireworks and give them to the five year olds to go keep themselves entertained (HB 2258.) AND, just to put the double whammy on this one they also passed SB 1421, which limits the amount by which local districts (including fire districts) can raise their levy to cover new expenses (oh, like let's see-- maybe the cost of putting out a bunch of new fire calls caused by children playing with fireworks.) The Governor has not yet signed or vetoed either HB 2258 or SB 1421 but what I hear is that she will probably sign them. I bet the few cents you might save on your fire district tax won't cover the amount your homeowners insurance will increase by.

Prevented cities, counties and other jurisdictions from removing political campaign signs along roads or otherwise in public right of ways (SB 1022 following a strike-all amendment.) Nice to know they're looking out for themselves. No word on whether the Governor will sign this one or not.

Religion in the schools. Allows students to use religion as a basis for their classwork, for example they can submit an essay saying that the earth is 6000 years old and receive full credit if they claim it is based on a religious viewpoint. Schools also can't ban students from wearing clothing with a religious symbol or message. (HB 2357; I'm taking bets on how long it takes before this backfires on conservatives and they get irrational when female Islamic students actually take advantage of this bill and start wearing a head scarf or a burqa to school.)

Recognizing July 25 as the national day of the cowboy (SR 1003).

Well, you can always cry in your beer. They did double the production limit for microbreweries (HB 2301; signed by jan..... brewer.)

For Governor Brewer to have any credibility at all, she has to veto this budget

The Republican legislature has apparently passed a budget package that is little changed from the package they passed on June 4 (and held all month) and that Governor Brewer even went to court to force them to send her so she could go ahead with a promised veto.

Since this budget is the same in all its major components to that budget and they didn't give her any of what she asked for in her five point plan (most notably a vote on a sales tax) I believe that she essentially has two choices.

She can sign the bill, and make it plain to everyone that she is a weak Governor who has been rolled by the hoods who run the legislature.

Or she can veto the bill, make it clear that she meant what she said last month, and then sit down with a clean table and negotiate with both Republicans and Democrats who are more interested in getting a budget that recognizes the hard economic realities of this year but won't devastate state schools, universities and services either this year or going forward into the future.

We will know probably within hours what she's really made of.

UPDATE:

She DID veto almost all of it! She signed essentially the minimum amount of the budget that she needed to in order to keep the government running.

Not that I completely trust Jan Brewer (who is still, at the end of the day, a conservative Republican) to always do the best job for the state, and she certainly deserves criticism for not showing more leadership in the months leading up to this debacle, but she deserves credit where credit is due and today she stepped up and did what had to be done.


OBSERVATION: The legislative leadership couldn't keep their members in line to put together the deal with the Governor that she wanted. So it is unlikely she will get anywhere just re-negotiating with them, instead she may have more success if she sits down with Democrats and moderate Republicans and tries to put together a majority that way.

Republican demolition derby

You'd think that with one-party rule in the legislature and the Governor's office, Arizona Republicans wouldn't have any trouble getting a budget together. After all, the legislature was continually at loggerheads with former Governor Napolitano, a Democrat, and you'd think they'd welcome an opportunity to make their case to voters that they can get things done without having to inconveniently involve Democrats.

Well, that's half right. They have in fact shut Democrats out of the process, but it seems like this Republican leadership is truly disfunction on display.

After having to go to a three A.M. vote in the Senate just to force together an atrocious budget bill that they could send to the Governor (and in the process, there were several Republicans who crossed party lines in the house to vote against it,) the GOP leadership haven't sent the budget bills to her yet because she said she will veto it. So they are holding it back, presumably so if she vetoes it then there won't be another bill ready by June 30 (certainly not one she will sign) and she will have to shut down state government.

With negotiations at an impasse, the Governor is now going to court to try and force the legislative leadership to send her the bill now, so she can veto it.

Keep in mind too that the legislature has been in session since January and they spent five full months doing practically nothing, so they could force everything through this month-- so if there is a time crunch then perhaps it means that we should reduce the legislative calendar to just a month, with perhaps one more month for committee hearings. After all, if they are going to sit on their hands anyway for five months just to bring time into play, they could do that just as easily in February as they could in June.

It's hard to know where this is going, this battle between a bunch of ideologically driven loony tunes who run the legislature and a weak, unelected Governor, but one thing is for sure:

The favorite refrain of Republicans when they don't get the job done of 'blame the Democrats' won't work this time, with Republicans fighting it out with other Republicans.

As viscious as it's getting, I wonder if Michael Vick's next project will be to collect a stable full of Arizona Republicans to go at each other and fight it out to the end.

Education video right on the mark

Ted Prezelski at Rum, Romanism and Rebellion has posted a great new ad from the Arizona Economic Council about the cuts that Governor Brewer and the legislative Republicans are making in education:

In over her head

Jan Brewer, you may recall, arranged for a lavish ceremony to celebrate when she became Governor following the departure of Janet Napolitano.

Shortly thereafter the budget, of a state that has starved itself of tax revenues by implementing years of massive and poorly thought out tax cuts, hit her squarely in the face.

So she put out a 'five point plan' to deal with the budget. It was short of specifics but broadly outlined her budgetary priorities.

Since then she has assumed the approximate shape of an armadillo hoping not to get run over by an SUV, saying nothing and doing less about the budget.

It is pretty clear by now that far from exhibiting leadership, this is a politician who got where she did by throwing bricks at others' ideas, but now that she has the trowel and the mortar in her hand, she knows not how to build the house herself.

It's time to clearly and unequivocably say about Governor Brewer: NOT. UP. TO. THE. JOB.

Skeptical about the Governor's tax plan

It appears that Governor Jan Brewer, realizing the deep, deep hole that we've gotten into here in Arizona is asking for a special election to hike taxes.

Ignoring that the problem is as bad as it is largely because of many years of consecutive tax cuts (which she voted for, as a member of the legislature in the 1990s) and the effective disabling of the control mechanism for raising them in an emergency by the passage of the 'supermajority bill' for tax hikes (mostly by people who have since been term-limited out and now don't have to deal with the consequences of their foolishness,) there are a number of problems with her current proposal.

Obviously with a three billion dollar hole in the budget blasted by a combination of the present severe national recession and Arizona's overdependence on the sales tax which has dropped precipitously in the recession, something major needs to be done. If it isn't we are likely to see more teacher layoffs and larger class sizes, closures or restrictions on state services and universities closing campuses (which ironically will probably fit their decreased enrollment as a result of the doubling or near doubling of tuition within a few years.)

Brewer's proposal would do two things. The first would be a temporary sales tax hike. In other words, the most regressive type of tax in order to fix the budget hole. Even more ironically, they are still talking about a permanent repeal of the statewide business property tax. This tax has funded education for years but in 2006, when the economy was only at the point of developing a mild sniffle, the legislature and the then-Governor agreed to give the businesses a three year tax holiday. It is due to end this year. But the claim that the business owners are making that its return would be a tax increase is absurd. If they put an item on sale for two weeks and then two weeks later after the sale ends and the price returns to what it was before the sale they would laugh in the face of anyone who came in and accused them of raising their prices. But that is precisely what they are claiming about the fact that the tax cut they got is due to end on schedule. But it is downright insulting for them to push for this tax cut when we the consumers are being asked to raise our own taxes because the state doesn't have any money.

The second thing that Governor's proposal would do would be to allow the legislature to get their hands on dedicated taxes. Those are taxes which have been allocated by voter initiatives.

It is the second of those which disturbs me the most. As a voter I voted to tax myself to fund children's healthcare precisely because I didn't expect this legislature to fund it adequately themselves. I don't want them to take the money I chose to contribute to this and other dedicated taxes and use it to plug holes in the state budget so they can simultaneously give their friends another tax cut.

I'm willing to wait and see exactly what this proposal says but I'm certainly not ready to endorse this as a means to fix the state budget. Whether I do back it eventually or not will largely depend on what they do with the statewide property tax. If they make the tax cut for businesses permament, then it will probably be too much for me to swallow when they turn around and tell me they need to raid children's health care to pay for education.