Congratulations to Mark Genrich, who Governor Brewer has tapped for Deputy Director of Communications as a speechwriter. Genrich is an excellent writer known most recently for his pithy Plugged In quick hits in the Arizona Republic. Genrich spent more than 20 years as an editor, editorial writer and columnist with the former Phoenix Gazette and the Arizona Republic and has also worked for the Goldwater Institute. He is well-liked by those who know him. Brewer has made a good call with this pick.
What Makes A Judge A Good Judge?
June 19, 2009 By 23 Comments
by Judge Gerald A. Williams
North Valley Justice of the Peace
With daily debate surrounding the newest nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court, it is fair to ask, “What makes a judge a good judge?” Socrates once stated that a judge must listen courteously, answer wisely, consider soberly and decide impartially. Few would argue with those criteria, but what else is required?
Many would say that empathy is also a requirement for a judge. The problem is that judges are ethically prohibited from “ruling from the heart.” In my cases, it does not matter whether I like the tenant more than the landlord or a criminal defendant more than a particularly difficult victim. The law is the law and I do my best to apply it consistently.
On appellate courts, where more than one judge hears the same case, diversity is often cited as an objective. However, diversity is sometimes in the eye of the beholder. Most of the current U.S. Supreme Court is composed of individuals with degrees from either Harvard or Yale. (Ironically, our last four presidents also have a degree from one of those universities.). While those are obviously excellent schools, perhaps someone who went to law school in the southwest could also add “diversity.”
One thing that clearly should not be a factor is the color of the judge’s skin. Unfortunately, race is being discussed even today.
Judge Sonia Sotomayor gave a lecture at Berkeley that was later published in the Spring 2002 issue of Berkley’s La Raza Law Journal. In that speech, she acknowledged that the initial critical “decisions in race and sex discrimination cases have come from Supreme Courts composed exclusively of white males.” Even so, she went on to state, “I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.”
Her conclusion is, at best, problematic. It is certainly true that judges are not robots performing mathematical calculations. It is equally true that judges are human and are therefore affected by their background and by their life experiences. However, if a tenant fails to pay rent or if someone drives drunk, the result should be the same whether the judge is a conservative Republican or a liberal Democrat. While that may not always be the case, under no circumstances should the outcome of a case be dependent on the color of the judge’s skin.
Judge Williams is the presiding justice of the peace for the Northwest Regional Court Center. His column appears monthly in The Foothills Focus.
Mary Rose Wilcox May Be Under FBI Investigation
June 18, 2009 By 10 Comments
The key words here are “may be.” Here is the story on News 15 (ABC Affiliate)
How NOT to use your Facebook
June 18, 2009 By 9 Comments
When your own “wall” on Facebook isn’t filled with enough good stuff, you can wander over to your friends’ walls and see what is going on in their world. One of my friends is apparently good friends with a number of the Deakin family. Jim Deakin is running against John McCain for U.S. Senate, and Adonia Deakin is his wife. Well, it seems they have been traveling the state, probably to collect signatures and campaign in general, which led to this post from Adonia Deakin:
We Are Back!!! Wonderful sucessful trip to Navajo County. Wanna talk about some great vocal Americans. All the PC’S here in Maricopa should visit and see how to not be SHEEP!
Now I figure that with the bulk of the state’s population, Maricopa County also is likely to have the bulk of the Precinct Committeemen (PCs). All of a sudden, I think Deakin might win Navajo County, but he appears willing to trade Maricopa County for it. I’m guessing McCain would be alright with that.
Janet Contreras: The Letter
June 18, 2009 By 91 Comments
By now, many of you have heard about the letter that went viral that was written by fellow Arizonan, Janet Contreras. Yesterday, Glenn Beck read her letter on the air. The public response to her letter ultimately crashed the servers at Glenn’s site. In order to help Janet’s letter get national exposure we are posting it here. Incidentally, Janet was interviewed this afternoon by Glenn from the Phoenix Fox 10 studios.
An Open Letter to Our Nation’s Leadership
I am Janet Contreras, a concerned, home-grown American citizen. I am 53, and I have been a registered Democrat all of my adult life. Before the last Presidential election, I registered Republican because I no longer feel the Democratic Party represents my views or works to pursue issues important to me. I now no longer feel the Republican Party represents my views or works to pursue issues important to me. The fact is I no longer feel any political party or representative in Washington represents my views or works to pursue issues important to me.
There must be someone, please tell me who you are. Please stand up and tell me you are there and are willing to fight for our Constitution as it was written. Please do it now.
You might ask yourselves what my views and issues are that I would feel so horribly disenfranchised by both major political parties. What kind of nut job am I? Will you please tell me? These are briefly my views and issues for which I seek representation:
* Illegal Immigration-I want you to stop coddling illegal immigrants and secure our borders. Close the underground tunnels. Stop the violence and trafficking in drugs and people. No amnesty, not again. Been there, done that, no resolution. P.S. I am not a racist. This not to be confused with legal immigration.
* TARP Bill-I want it repealed and no further funding supplied to it. We told you “NO!” but you did it anyway. I want the remaining unfunded 95% repealed. Freeze! Repeal!
* Czars-I want the circumvention of our checks and balances stopped immediately. Fire the Czars. No more Czars. Government officials answer to the process not the President. Stop trampling on our Constitution and honor it.
* Cap & Trade-the debate on global warming is NOT over, there IS more to say.
* Universal Health Care-I will not be rushed into another expensive decision. Don’t you dare pass this in the middle of the night and then go on break. Slow down!
* Growing Government Control-I want states rights and sovereignty fully restored. I want less government in my life, not more. Shrink it down. Please mind your own business; you have enough to do with your REAL obligations. Let’s start there.
* ACORN-I do not want ACORN or its affiliates in charge of our 2010 census. I want them investigated. I also do not want mandatory escrow fees contributed to them on every real estate deal that closes. Stop all funding to ACORN and its affiliates pending impartial audit and investigation. I do not trust them with the taking of the census or with taxpayer money. Face up to the allegations against them and get it resolved before the taxpayers get any further involved with them. It walks like a duck and talks like a duck-hello… stop protecting political buddies. You work for the people. Investigate.
* Redistribution of Wealth-No. If I work for it, it is mine. I have always worked for people with more money than I have because they gave me jobs. That is the only redistribution of wealth I support. I never got a job from a poor person. Why do want me to hate my employers? What do your have against shareholders making a profit?
* Charitable Contributions-although I never got a job from a poor person, I have helped many in need. Charity belongs in our local communities where we know our needs best and can use local talent and resources. Butt out, please. We want to do this ourselves.
* Corporate Bail Outs-knock it off! Sink or swim like the rest of us. If there are hard times ahead, we will be better off just getting to it and letting the strong survive. Quick and painful, like ripping off a band aid. We will pull together. Great things happen in America under great hardship. Give us a chance to innovate. We cannot disappoint you more than you have disappointed us.
* Transparency and Accountability-how about it? No really, let’s have it. Let’s say we give the “buzz” words a rest and have some straight, honest talk. Please stop trying to manipulate and appease me with cleaver wording. I am not the idiot you obviously take me for. Stop sneaking around meeting in back rooms making deals with your friends. It will only be a prelude to your criminal investigation. Stop hiding things from me.
* Unprecedented Quick Spending-stop it, now. Take a breath. Listen to “The People.”
Let’s just slow down and get some more input from some “non-politicians” on the subject. Stop making everything an emergency. Stop speed reading our bills into law.
I am not an activist. I am not a community organizer. Nor am I a terrorist, a militant nor a violent person. I am a mother and grandmother. I am a working woman. I am busy, busy, busy and tired, tired, tired. I thought we elected competent people to take care of the business of government so that we could work, raise our families, pay our bills, have a little recreation, complain about taxes, endure our hardships, pursue our personal goals, cut our lawns and wash our cars on weekends, and be responsible, contributing members of society and teach our children to be the same, all the while living in the home of the free and land of the brave.
I entrusted you with upholding our Constitution and believed in the checks and balances to keep you from getting too far off course. What happened? You are very far off course. Do you really think that I find humor in hiring a speed reader to unintelligibly ramble through a bill you signed into law without knowing what it contained? I do not! It is a mockery of the responsibility I have entrusted to you. It is a slap in the face! I am not laughing-the arrogance!
Why is it that I feel as if you would not trust me to make a single decision about my own life and how I would live it, but you expect that I should trust you with the debt that you have laid on all of us and our children? We did not want that TARP bill. We said “NO!” We would repeal it if we could. I am not sure that we still cannot. There is such urgency and recklessness in all the recent spending. From my perspective, it seems that you have all gone insane.
I also know that I am far from alone in these feelings. Do you honestly feel that your current pursuits have merit to patriotic Americans? We want it to stop. We want to put the brakes on everything that is being rushed by us and forced upon us. We want our voice back!
You have forced us to put our lives on hold to straighten out the mess you are making. We will have to give up our vacations, our time spent with our children, any relaxation time we may have had and money we cannot afford to spend on you to bring our concerns to Washington.
- Janet Contreras
June 17, 2009
Arizona – AFP Holds Taxpayer Advocate Press Conference
June 18, 2009 By 8 Comments
In case you missed the press conference at the State Capitol yesterday, here is one clip featuring State Director, Tom Jenney, leading the charge alongside other taxpayer advocacy groups and state legislators. Unfortunately, you won’t see this on any of the local television newscasts but KFYI-550 covered the event. Veteran capitol beat reporter, Howie Fischer, (fraternal “twin” of our own conservative writer, “Chewie Shofir”) showed up to shoot a few photos but didn’t stick around to cover the event. You may also view more coverage of the press conference at our YouTube webpage.
Stop the Special District Shell Game
June 18, 2009 By 2 Comments
by Nick Dranias
Goldwater Institute
In 2005, Maricopa County spun-off its hospital system to a newly-created special health care district. With the stroke of an accountant’s pen, the county shifted what was then $400 million in annual spending off its books and onto those of the new special district. Maricopa County quickly took advantage of that new-found money with hundreds of millions in fresh spending. Meanwhile, the County’s newborn special district toddled along, levying more than $40 million in new property taxes and spending more than $400 million in its first fiscal year.
Since then, Maricopa County and this district have saddled county taxpayers with more than $150 million in new spending and taxes that would have otherwise been blocked by the state constitution’s spending and property tax caps. It is doubtful that voters had any idea this would result when they approved the creation of the “Maricopa County Special Health Care District”.
Special districts are the municipal equivalent of Enron partnerships. They have benign sounding names like “health care district,” “water district,” and “stadium district,” all of which disarm voters when they appear on the ballot. But once formed, numerous special districts can overlap, making them exceedingly difficult for ordinary citizens to track, much less to hold politically accountable. Special districts operate below the political radar, while wielding broad taxing and spending authority.
It is no accident that the number of special districts in Arizona has tripled from around 100 in 1980 to more than 300 today. When tax and spending caps were imposed in the early 1980s, those caps excluded most special districts. As a result, cities and counties remained free to avoid hard budgetary choices by spinning-off expensive programs into special districts.
Fiscal responsibility will return to local government only when this shell game is stopped. The best solution is to eliminate the incentive to indulge unsustainable spending through the device of special districts. This requires closing the special district loophole in the state constitution’s spending and taxing caps.
Nick Dranias holds the Goldwater Institute Clarence J. and Katherine P. Duncan chair for constitutional government and is the director of the Institute’s Dorothy D. and Joseph A. Moller Center for Constitutional Government.
Gascón & Berman Departing Shots
June 17, 2009 By Leave a Comment
Having grown up and educated on the cinema of Clint Eastwood aka, Harry Callahan, aka, “Dirty Harry” of San Francisco fame, I can properly say to outgoing Mesa Chief of Police, George Gascón, “I knew Dirty Harry. Chief Gascón, you’re no Dirty Harry.” Maybe now, the chief can pack up his things including his slick glamour shots taken by local photographer, Jamie Peachey, and head to the City by the Bay to impress the liberal establishment there – A perfect match. (Photo of Gascon credited and hyperlinked to the Phoenix New Times in this post.)
Just south of Mesa, the Town of Gilbert swore in a new mayor and council last
night. During part of the “inauguration ceremony” outgoing Mayor Steve Berman decided to present a slide show of his fond memories of service on the council. When it came time to talk about Council woman Linda Abbott, Berman showed a slide of a woman with a gun to her head. He claimed it was symbolic of the pressure Abbott would get for supporting a tax increase. However, given the audible gasp that arose from some in the audience, many probably took it to mean something else. For those of you who may have forgotten, among the many things Berman was accused of doing by his then wife during their acrimonious marriage was plotting to kill Abbott. (Link to the Town of Gilbert meeting online about 42 minutes into the video.)
Effective budgeting starts with honest bookkeeping
June 17, 2009 By 4 Comments
By Byron Schlomach, Ph.D.
Goldwater Institute
The high-stakes game of chicken the Arizona Legislature and Governor are playing over the $3 billion or $4 billion 2010 budget shortfall (depending on who’s counting) is certainly bad, but you may not know the half of it.
An organization made up of accountants and other financial experts called the Institute for Truth in Accounting (ITA) has exhaustively studied every state’s comprehensive annual financial report (CAFR). In its study, the ITA concluded that many states fail to honestly account for both revenues and spending.
States use cash-basis accounting while the private sector uses accrual accounting. Cash accounting only looks at current inflows and outflows. It fails to account for accrued obligations, such as retirement benefits. States ignore “accounts payable” in their accounting systems, including contract payment obligations. Consequently, state balance sheets grossly understate liabilities.
After studying Arizona, the ITA concludes that while the state claimed $11.2 billion in net assets in 2007, it was actually carrying $16.6 billion in net liabilities. That’s an accounting error of $27.8 billion. The discrepancy can largely be attributed to ignoring Arizona’s long-term health and pension liabilities.
Now to be fair, the state is doing nothing illegal. But elected officials benefit from efforts to hide the true state of government finances because it allows them to engage in continued, unsustainable spending and avoid tough decisions. At minimum, even if Arizona keeps using cash accounting, the state should be required to keep a second, honest set of books.
Byron Schlomach, Ph.D, is director of economic policy at the Goldwater Institute.
Will our Congressional delegation rubberstamp Burke’s appointment?
June 17, 2009 By 3 Comments
The Republic ran an article yesterday noting our prior objections to Dennis Burke for U.S. Attorney. As you will recall, the Obama administration is going to remove current U.S. Attorney Diane Humetawa, the first Native American woman U.S. Attorney, and replace her with Burke, a political hack for Napolitano whose claim to fame is milking the taxpayers for TV ads featuring himself in order to raise his visibility when he was exploring an AG run. As a result, there is currently a bill in the legislature that would ban all state officials from using their faces in advertising.
We wonder how the Arizona delegation will vote on his confirmation. We hope Judiciary Committee member Jon Kyl will fully explore what role gun-grabber Burke had in, as the Republic article notes, pushing anti-gun legislation while he worked for DeConcini.
We hope that Kyl will fully explore how Burke and his band of Ninth Floor pirates looted the place on their way out by cashing in obscene amounts of vacation time, in violation of state rules and in the midst of a severe financial crisis.
Also, what’s wrong with this picture? A white male who is a member of an elitist country club that discriminates against woman is tapped to replace a Native American woman in a high profile position and, we get nothing from the media? Of course, the nominee is a Democrat!
Money Well Spent
June 16, 2009 By 15 Comments
Living up to their reputation of spending money in all the wrong places here is the latest banner ad running on the AZCentral.com. I’m sure all the teachers out there appreciate their hard earned dues going toward failing newspapers to advocate for more of your tax dollars to increase the amount of money the state spends on students.
Currently, Arizona spends approximately $9,700 per student. But for the sake of argument, let’s drop that amount to $8,000/student (I like to be conservative). If teachers deserve a nice healthy salary of say $64,000/year, then it would take 8 students to pay that teacher’s salary. However we know that there are roughly 25-30 students in a class. So the $136,000 question is (17 x $8,000), “Where’s the rest of the money going?”
Perhaps even the bigger question is, “When all the money is gone, what is the AEA going to do then?”
A House Divided
June 16, 2009 By 13 Comments
I posted on this earlier this month but it’s worth watching one more time. In this speech, Jan Brewer spoke out against “Big Government Gospel.” It drew quite an applause.
Today, Governor Brewer filed a special action lawsuit against the GOP leadership in the legislature in order to force them to send her the budget so she could veto it and ultimately force a government shutdown.
So much for being “in one accord.”
Needless to say, it’s getting pretty ugly. Democrats are having a field day watching the bickering take place and I’m sure the hit pieces and sound clips are being generated for whoever runs in the next election cycle. Even the comments here on earlier posts are “interesting” to read.
Hopefully, this stalemate or “game of chicken” will be over shortly and the taxpayers will win out by not having a budget that remains bloated and fingerprinted with Napolitano’s leftover pork programs. But I have my doubts that the most important bridges have been burned and once again leadership in the GOP will have wandered away from what made our party great – lower taxes and fiscal responsibility.
My advice to the Governor as a consultant - and this comes free of charge (which is a lot less expensive than what she’s paying the consultants) – sign the budget when it gets to you, reject the tax hike and most important, get back on principles. People are losing faith in your ability to lead.
PR: Taxpayer Champion Commends Republican Legislative Leadership
June 16, 2009 By 16 Comments
For Immediate Release: Tuesday, June 16th 2009
Senator Ron Gould commends Republican leadership
(STATE CAPITOL, PHOENIX) – Sen. Ron Gould, R- Lake Havasu City, issued the following statement about legislative leadership.
“I want to commend Senate President Bob Burns and House Speaker Kirk Adams for their resolve in dealing with the perplexing decisions by Gov. Brewer in her continuing effort to push for a tax increase on Arizonans.
Like many legislators, I continue to be mystified by the governor’s unwillingness to stand up for Arizona taxpayers and join the Republican majority in protecting them from higher taxes.
Gov. Brewer’s decision to file a lawsuit today is nothing more than a media stunt and a complete waste of time. It’s sad that she is so dug in on the idea of higher taxes that she feels the need to bring the judiciary into this battle and in doing so fall back on the tried and true tactics of our liberal friends on the left.
Her lawsuit comes on the heels of her speculation that there may be a government shutdown, which, like the lawsuit, is nothing more than a transparent attempt to generate attention and try to intimidate the Legislature into acquiescing to her wishes.
It’s time for Gov. Brewer to stop playing political gamesmanship and put the interests of Arizona taxpayers first. She knows there is a budget on the table that does not include tax increases, I would encourage her to drop her support for higher taxes and commit to signing that budget into law.”
How to Win Friends & Influence People…
June 16, 2009 By 36 Comments
Yes, I know, we’re ones to follow this prescription. But then again, we’re not the Governor and have an $11 BILLION budget to deal with.
This is sure to invite Republican challengers as the issue becomes “The Governor is willing to shut down the State in order to get her tax increase.”
Here is the link to the video clip.
State should spend less, hold line on taxes
June 16, 2009 By 2 Comments
By Tom Patterson
Goldwater Institute
Fiscal conservatives in Arizona are in shock. After six years of watching Gov. Janet Napolitano’s fiscal mismanagement drive our state to the brink of disaster, there was hope for relief earlier this year.
Our new governor, the conservative Jan Brewer, would have the courage and good sense to set us back on course to recovery.
It hasn’t worked out that way. Right out of the box, she opined that she might possibly consider a tax increase to balance the budget if all other options had been exhausted. When politicians talk like that, it usually means hold on to your wallet, and this time was no exception.
Soon after, she included a non-specified $1 billion tax hike in her budget reform proposal. “Maturing” rapidly, in the eyes of the mainstream local press, she then threatened a veto for any budget that didn’t include new taxes. Now her supporters, with her approval, have threatened a $225,000 media campaign against fellow Republicans who refuse to inflict more taxes on Arizonans during a recession.
Arizona lost 170,000 jobs from February 2008 to February 2009, the second-highest job loss in the nation. During that same time period, government added 4,500 net jobs. With families and businesses across the state cutting back and coping the best they can, sending more of our resources to the growing government sector is just nuts.
Admittedly, Brewer is in a tough spot trying to remediate the consequences of Napolitano’s reckless spending. But her budget proposal doesn’t do anything to solve our predicament. Under her plan, state revenues, currently in free-fall, would have to grow 40 percent in two years to have a balanced budget, after the temporary tax and stimulus funds were depleted. That’s not going to happen.
The only solution to a spending problem is to spend less. That’s not pleasant, but the alternative is worse. Principled, responsible leadership is more than kicking the can down the road. Just ask California.
Tom Patterson is chairman of the Goldwater Institute and a former state senator.
Napolitano acting as Homeland Security for MEXICO, not U.S.
June 16, 2009 By 6 Comments
This one’s going to develop into a scandal. The Republic reported today that Janet Napolitano is “redeploying” 360 U.S. border agents from their jobs protecting American interests so that they can now devote their time inspecting vehicles travelling into Mexico.
Readers no doubt remember that Napolitano earned a reputation while Governor of Arizona for her “can-do nothing” attitude on border security, vetoing numerous bills. But now we find out that she really does care about border security, only it’s Mexico’s border security.
You may wonder why it is the U.S. government’s responsibility to protect Mexico from border traffic, especially since the Mexican government does nothing to deter the influx of illegal alien traffic from Mexico. Actually, to the extent it does anything, Mexico ENCOURAGES illegal aliens to come here! If American border security is America’s problem, as Mexico has long contended, why is Mexican border security now America’s problem too?
According to Napolitano, “there is shared responsibility (on border security) going both ways.” Is she crazy? What, if anything, has Mexico done to share this responsibility?
You also might wonder what important jobs these U.S. agents have been diverted from? Tracking terrorists? Hunting down illegal aliens who also commit violent crime in the U.S.? Enforcement of rules prohibiting illegal aliens from working in the U.S., thereby protecting jobs for citizens and legal residents?