Apparently in LD-7, David Burnell Smith is running again for the legislature.
If you don't remember, Burnell Smith was the guy who knowingly violated Arizona's clean election law in 2004 just so he could take it to court. Eventually the courts backed the clean elections board and he was removed from office.
Besides making it clear just what he thinks about following a law he might not agree with (awwww....) Burnell Smith was part of the legislature when the seeds of the present fiscal mess were being sown, and as a member of the majority party (Republicans have been the majority party in the Arizona legislature since 1964) he bears part of the responsibility for the fact that our taxes are so low that even with some of the lowest per-capita state spending in the country we still don't have enough money to fund state government.
Hopefully the voters in district 7 will realize that voting a guy who was part of creating the problem back into office isn't the way to fix the problem.
Honestly, I have mixed feelings about the Arizona clean elections law.
ReplyDeleteIn theory, it's great in that it allows people with limited resources to compete on an even field.
In reality, it's helped 'ordinary folks' people like Ron Gould and Pam Gorman get elected to the legislature which is one reason your state is in so much trouble.
It's kind of ironic that I had to leave Arizona and move to California for a job. And even California (the nationally reported mess) is better off than Arizona.