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Dean Martin to File for Governor

May 25, 2010 By 13 Comments

For Immediate Release: May 25, 2010

Phoenix, AZ – Tomorrow, Dean Martin will make it official and file his nominating petitions for Governor.

WHO: Treasurer Dean Martin

WHAT: Filing Petitions to Qualify for Ballot

WHERE: Secretary of State’s Office, 7th Floor, Executive Tower, State Capitol

WHEN: Wednesday, May 26, 10:00am

Dean Martin is the State Treasurer for Arizona, a statewide elective office, where he oversees $9.3 billion in investments from State and Local governments. Martin is a former state legislator who has a long record of providing real solutions for tax relief and border security for Arizona families.

Filed Under: Campaigns & Elections, Press Release

Thomas Will Defend AZ School Choice Issue Now Before U.S. Supreme Court Horne Opposed

May 25, 2010 By 6 Comments

U.S. Supreme Court Decides To Hear AZ School Choice Program Tom Horne Opposed In Legislature

Key Issue In Attorney General GOP Primary

PHOENIX, AZ. MAY 24, 2010. The U.S. Supreme Court has decided to hear arguments over Arizona’s landmark school choice legislation known as tuition tax credits. That legislation has allowed thousands of Arizona students to enjoy better educations than they otherwise would have enjoyed.

But State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne opposed the school choice measure while serving in the legislature (April 3, 1997. HB 2074, Chapter 48, ’97 regular session).

“On so many issues Tom Horne has proven himself to be a liberal, not a conservative. And school choice is key among them. The four Democrats running for office, and quite candidly that includes Horne, cannot be counted on to vigorously defend this law as Attorney General as must be done,” former Maricopa County Attorney and GOP Attorney General candidate Andrew Thomas said.
Thomas said he will as vigorously defend this law as aggressively as he has crackdowns on illegal immigrations supported by the legislature and voters.
Thomas has been endorsed by notable Arizona law enforcement leaders including Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, Yavapai County Sheriff Steve Waugh, Mohave County Attorney Matthew Smith, Mohave County Sheriff Tom Sheahan, Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu,Cochise County Sheriff Larry Dever and the Phoenix Law Enforcement Association (PLEA). Arizona Right to Life has endorsed Thomas as well.
During Thomas’ time in office, crime rates plummeted. The 19 percent drop is more than twice the national rate of decline, in despite of an 11 percent increase in the county’s population during that time. The illegal immigrant population has dropped by anywhere from 18 percent (Dept. of Homeland Security estimate) to 30 percent (Center for Immigration Studies estimate). Like the fall in crime rates, this dramatic decline in illegal immigration is far greater than the average in the rest of the nation.
Thomas has a track record of successfully defending illegal immigration crackdowns in our courts, including his successful efforts to prosecute illegal immigrants for conspiring to violate the state’s human-smuggling law and to defend Prop 200′s voter ID requirements and the employer-sanctions law, which he defended along with the Attorney General’s Office.
If elected Attorney General Thomas has pledged to expand that office’s prosecutions of illegal immigrants under the state’s human smuggling laws. The office is not currently pursuing such prosecutions.
Thomas is married with four children. He is a graduate of Harvard Law School. Prior to serving as Maricopa County Attorney, Thomas served as an assistant attorney general for Arizona, deputy counsel and criminal justice policy advisor to the Governor, special assistant to the Director of the Arizona Department of Corrections, and a deputy county attorney.
To schedule an interview please contact Jason Rose. For more information about Andrew Thomas, please go towww.ThomasforArizona.com.

Filed Under: Campaigns & Elections, Education

Federalism doesn’t include blocking open trade among states

May 25, 2010 By 7 Comments

by Clint Bolick
Goldwater Institute
 
As our nation’s capital continues to expand its power at an alarming rate, many conservatives (including me) are seeking shelter in the power of the states to protect the liberty of their citizens, on issues ranging from health insurance to the right of a secret ballot in deciding whether to form unions.

The nationwide call for state autonomy has grown so passionate that some are attempting to hijack it for wicked purposes.

H.R. 5034, sponsored by Representative Bill Delahunt of Massachusetts, invokes the language of states’ rights to advance one of the few powers clearly denied the states in the original Constitution: economic protectionism. This bill would give states the power to regulate interstate alcohol shipments, even in a discriminatory manner if there is a “justification” for doing so.

The law essentially would overturn Grandholm v. Heald, a 2005 U.S. Supreme Court case that I argued, in which the Court struck down discriminatory barriers that blocked wine shipments to consumers across state lines. The regulations benefited liquor wholesalers, who want to control every drop of alcohol and charge hefty middleman fees, while hurting wine consumers who want to buy directly from a vineyard in another state. With the advent of the Internet, this battle plays out every day over products ranging from cars to contact lenses, as middlemen seek to protect their delivery monopolies.

The Commerce Clause was intended to end protectionist trade barriers by the states. Over time, Congress has abused its power under the Commerce Clause to regulate activities that have little or nothing to do with interstate commerce. We must curb the abuses without destroying the critical purpose of the Commerce Clause: to ensure an open national market.

True federalism gives states the power to expand liberty, not to diminish it. Regulation of interstate commerce is a power our Constitution’s framers thought the states could not be trusted to exercise fairly – and they were right.

Clint Bolick is director of the Goldwater Institute Scharf-Norton Center for Constitutional Litigation.

Filed Under: Constitutional Law, Government, Legislation, Regulations, States Rights