Duck, Dodge and Weave

I’ve been following the recent controversy over Cliven Bundy, and there is one politician in particular who has completely unimpressed me, and it’s hardly the first time:  Arizona House Speaker Andy Tobin.


Speaker Tobin just two weeks ago issued a strong statement of support for Bundy, a deadbeat rancher who has not paid grazing fees for twenty years, in his standoff with the BLM.   He left no doubt that he supported Bundy,  in the process working hard to appeal to the militia extremists who advocate armed resistance to the federal government.

But the past two days, Bundy’s racist comments have drawn a lot of criticism, and across the political spectrum.  As has been widely reported, Bundy, who apparently has been enjoying his fifteen minutes of fame so much that he’s attempted to drag it out with daily news conferences since the standoff ended, finally revealed himself during one of them when he said that blacks (who he referred to by the obsolete and offensive name, ‘negroes’) should be ‘picking cotton’ and were better off as slaves because then they had a ‘family life’  (well if you consider being selectively bred with whoever the slaveowner decided, or having yourself or members of your family sold out from under you ‘family life,’ I guess. ) And Bundy, when asked to clarify his remarks, instead doubled down on them, when he repeated essentially the same quotes  as what he thinks about when he drives by houses with open doors in Las Vegas.  Since he said the same thing twice, it is clearly no minor slip of the tongue, but rather it is who he is.


So what did Speaker Tobin do? Did he condemn Bundy’s remarks or try to distance himself from them?


No, he did not.   In fact, he has said nothing. CONSIDER, that even right wing flamethrowers Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity condemned Bundy’s remarks over the past couple of days on their shows!  It speaks volumes about Tobin’s lack of either judgment or decency when he has to be schooled by Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity about why what Bundy said is offensive and wrong!


So is this the only time Tobin has exhibited poor judgement and then instead of condemning what ought to be condemned, just clammed up and tried to fade into the background (despite being one of the most powerful politicians in the state) and hope nobody will notice his silence?


Sadly, no.  Recently Andy Tobin brought SB 1062 to the floor of the House for a vote, and  supported it.  SB 1062 you may recall, was the divisive bill that would have allowed businesses to discriminate against anyone they saw fit to discriminate against by claiming a ‘religious exemption’ to both state and federal anti-discrimination laws. In practice, this law would have allowed businesses to discriminate in particular against gay couples.   Again, Andy Tobin didn’t see why this was a bad thing. First, he brought it to the floor of the house.   Then he voted for the bill.


Of course SB 1062 immediately engendered a torrent of criticism, not only from those targeted by the bill, but by many others and in particular the business community.   Businesses in Arizona remembered very well the damage to the economy and reputation of the state from SB 1070 several years ago and did not want a repeat (especially with the obvious economic target and a threat by the NFL to move the Super Bowl next year out of Arizona.) Three members of the legislature admitted that they had made a mistake in supporting the bill and urged Governor Brewer to veto it, which she did.


Andy Tobin, however? Nowhere to be found. He said nothing about SB 1062 when it became controversial, either supporting his own vote, or joining the members who said their votes had been a mistake.  He was quiet as a mouse.


This willingness to take the most extreme positions and then say nothing when others who have taken them get into trouble would be bad enough in a Speaker (a position that exerts leadership.)   But now Tobin wants to go to Washington.  No, he is not running for Congress in his district. Tobin is a resident of CD-4, but he has decided to run in a district he does not live in, CD-1.  Of course carpetbagging is nothing new to Republicans in the district; For years rural Arizona was represented by Rick Renzi, a Virginia resident who bought (but  only stayed in during infrequent campaign trips) a home in Flagstaff. Renzi was later convicted of a number of felonies and sentenced to three years in prison, but it hasn’t stopped the GOP from nominating Phoenix resident who owned land in Munds Park Sydney Hay and Tucson resident who moved to Marana Jonathan Paton in previous years. I guess they think to represent rural northeastern Arizona you don’t  actually have to live in rural northeastern Arizona.


This relates to the Bundy situation as well, I might add. I know a number of cattle ranchers. They certainly do have their issues at times with the federal  government, but all of them pay the grazing fee. Mr. Bundy is nothing but a deadbeat who does not pay his taxes, and most ranchers do appreciate that. But apparently living in the more urban enclave of Prescott, Tobin doesn’t realize this. He might if he lived in the real CD-1.


It gets worse though.  As a candidate for Congress, Tobin was asked about the Paul Ryan budget that a lot of Republicans in Congress are on record as supporting.  The budget makes big changes and ultimately big cuts in Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security,  trying in particular to replace Medicare with a privatized system of partially subsidized health care, where the government would help seniors pay part of the cost of private insurance from an exchange. 


Yeah, I know.  If you follow GOP Congressional logic, private exchanges with partial government subsidies are better  than Medicare.  But, private exchanges with partial government subsidies (the heart of the Affordable Care Act) are worse than having no insurance.  So put those together and you have to wonder how long it will be before they just say that having no insurance is better than Medicare.


So as a potential member of Congress, Tobin was asked about the Ryan budget.  You can listen to his response here:  Andy Tobin not answering the question. 


I suppose you might argue that he’s a politician and politicians are always cagey.  But that is not so. Ann Kirkpatrick, the congresswoman Tobin seeks to replace, has been quite clear that she opposes the Ryan budget. Further, she also took on a President of her own party when she said she would oppose any cuts to the Medicare Advantage program,  which helps seniors who need or want it to purchase higher quality medical insurance than just what they would get directly from Medicare.   Based on his failures so far to take a position when things get tough, are you optimistic that Andy Tobin would have the backbone to confront his own President or house leadership if his own President or house leadership was wrong?   That’s why we need Ann back—she’s not afraid to make the tough call and reach across the aisle sometimes if she sees it’s in the best interest of CD-1.


Maybe the most telling example of why Andy Tobin is unfit to lead the district is found in  the budget he helped negotiate .  It does two things that harm rural counties a lot. The first is to include a tax cut that takes money away from counties.  We know that counties are already understaffed.  As I alluded to in my blog post about serving on a Grand Jury,  some of the court cases we got were years old. Hard to see how laying off more people will make that kind of backlog anything besides worse.   The second is to CUT funds from rural highways and divert them to urban districts.   So much for somebody who seeks to represent you. He apparently doesn’t know how bad some of the highways here can get, or doesn’t care. Do you really want a CONGRESSMAN who shows a similar disregard for the needs of a district he doesn’t live in? 

The Road to Ruin is Paton with intentions (not all of them good.)

About a week ago I attended a Republican debate in Springerville. I have blogged about the Congressional District One race before, but I decided I would go see for myself what the GOP is sending us for candidates this year.

All four of the GOP candidates for the office were present, Patrick Gatti, Gaither Martin, Jonathan Paton and Doug Wade. The GOP establishment has annointed Paton, and given their track record in choosing candidates whether local Republicans want them or not (think Rick Renzi, who jumped into the district from outside and spent big outside money to defeat Louis Tenney in a primary in 2002, or Paul Gosar, who did live in the district but who also got a lot of outside money to beat several other candidates two years ago before abandoning the district this year) I suspect Paton will be their nominee. Like Renzi, he jumped into the district just to run; also like Renzi, he is bringing a lot of outside money into the district; and also like Renzi he is ethically challenged (as I discussed in this post about a month ago.)

So what kind of a GOP nominee is he? Well, he sounded very much like a career politician (a good reason for that, because he is a career politician) in most of his answers, consistently ducking and weaving while avoiding providing a lot of direct answers unless the question was a softball (i.e. "did you vote in the last election?") However, he had a couple of answers I would like to talk about right now.

I had one chance to ask a question, so I decided to ask it about the Paul Ryan budget, which Paton is on record (both in 2010 and 2012 as supporting.) The Ryan budget proposes phasing out Medicare for workers below 55 and replacing it with a series of exchanges where seniors could purchase subsidized private insurance. Of course this is exactly what is at the heart of Obamacare, but according to Republican logic, Obamacare is better than Medicare for seniors, but nothing at all would be better for the rest of us than Obamacare. So, I mentioned my age (presently 49) and the fact that I have paid Medicare taxes since I had my first job at the age of sixteen (a third of a century ago) and asked about how he felt about the Ryan budget's plan to privatize Medicare. He of course hemmed and hawed a great deal, going back and forth and finally saying it would be 'wrong' to "deny coverage to people that have been paying their entire lifetime into anything." Which was a classic dodge-- the Ryan plan does not seek to deny coverage, it seeks to change it to a privatized system. He then went on to discuss Social Security (which I had not even mentioned in my original question) and said, "I don’t believe I’m ever gonna see a dime of the money that I’ve put into Social Security, and I think most young people believe that today. We should be able to do with our own money what we want to. And I think that’s the right way to go." In other words, keep your money and invest it yourself. Which is to say, no Social Security. Exactly the same thing the Bush people were saying when they tried to privatize Social Security in 2005. Their arguments may be evolving, but make no mistake about it, the plans set forward by the Cato Institute to privatize Social Security are still intact, and Jonathan Paton's comment makes it clear that he will be on board the next time they try to privatize Social Security.

The only other thing I'd like to remind people of concerning the Ryan budget is that as bad as their plans are for Medicare and Social Security, Paton and other Republicans who have signed onto it are also supporting deep cuts in a wide range of programs that benefit virtually everyone, in order NOT to cut the deficit (as they have tried to say to sell it) but to finance deep tax cuts for billionaires. The tired old logic that low taxes on so-called 'job creators' will boost the economy should have pretty much been disproven by now, as taxes are already at historically low levels so if they really helped the economy we'd be seeing it boom right now. Instead, tax cuts only reduce tax revenue, which in turn creates deficits. Using deficits as an excuse to cut spending on programs, while at the same time pushing tax cuts for billionaires that will add back onto the deficit is pretty brazen, though I do have to admire their messaging people for convincing people not to think about the math (maybe there really IS another reason for all those cuts we've seen the GOP push in education the past few years.) But make no mistake about it. Paton is fully on board with the entire Ryan budget, including the 'cut spending to reduce the deficit and then cut taxes to blow the deficit up again' math.

There was one other answer I would like to dicuss that came from Mr. Paton, and one which left me cold. Someone asked him a question about treaties that we have entered into with other nations as well as the United Nations, and also about the second amendment. Paton first said that we should not observe 'any federal law that's unconstitutional.' Huh? I thought that it was up to the courts to decide whether a law is unconstitutional. And if they do make that determination, then the law is no longer in force. So what exactly does he mean by that? How will he determine which laws to obey and not to obey as 'unconstitutional,' since we already obey only laws which the courts have upheld or which have not been challenged. But it was the rest of his answer which really bothers me. He talked about people (presumably members of Senate, since the Senate ratifies treaties) who vote for treaties made with the U.N. and said, "we should not vote for it, and if you do vote for it, I think you’re a traitor, you’re a traitor to this country.”

Excuse me? If you vote for a law that he believes is unconstitutional, then you're a traitor? It's one thing to disagree with a law or what it says. It's quite another to accuse people who exercise their Constitutional duty to vote on whether to ratify a treaty, "traitors" if they do not vote the way he believes they should. Yeah, I know. Just what we need to fit in with the image of Arizona. Another member of Congress who goes to Washington and calls people who disagree with him, "traitors."

After going to the debate, I can only say that it is of critical importance that we NOT send Jonathan Paton to Congress!