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RECALL 2011: Basic Arithmetic Multiplied by the Ghost of Ephialtes

December 21, 2011 By

When RECALL apologists’ pie charts begin to resemble mille feuille pastry,  requiring Sherlock Holmes to link them through unrelated numbers in tables that actually don’t easily correspond to each other, it’s time to check the original ingredients used for the recipes, in this case: The raw numbers of the 2010 GENERAL ELECTION as compared to the 2011 RECALL.

2011 November RECALL                                  2010 November GENERAL ELECTION

Lewis:            10,816 = 53.4%                              Democrat            10,663 = 34%
Pearce:            9,188 = 45.4 %                             Pearce:                 17,552 = 57%
Cortez:                252 =    1.2%                              L:                          2,808 =    9%
TOTAL:         20,256 votes cast                           TOTAL:               31,023 votes cast

Difference between 2010 and 2011:
Total RECALL votes cast show an overall decline in voter participation of 10,767, which took more than a 1/3 chunk out of the general election turnout numbers of 2010. That’s a 35% no-show out of the same total voters in that district. Thus, the 2011 RECALL had only 65% of the 2010 general election voter participation.

Of that, 77.7% of that 35% decrease in total votes was suffered by Pearce; he received 17,552 votes in 2010 and only 9,188 in 2011, which is an 8,364 vote difference. (8,364 of 10,767 is 77.68%)

Pearce’s voters didn’t show up a second time: 17,552 – 9,188 = 8,364 who didn’t  come back to vote again,  which is a 48% loss of pro-Pearce voting, which critically impacted Pearce. Pearce’s 2010 general election base turnout was essentially cut in half in the RECALL. They didn’t shift their votes to Lewis, they just didn’t show up.

Interestingly, the total votes cast for the 2010 Democrat who opposed Pearce, is nearly the same as total votes cast for 2011 Lewis that is:  10,816 vs. 10,663, only a net positive 153 votes increase. It is essentially the same number, with only a miniscule positive difference; almost as if there was a neat 100% shift in votes opposing Pearce which moved from the 2010 Democrat to Lewis.

Referring back to the official tallies in the table above, only in 2010 did (L) differentiate: 2,808 votes for a third candidate. In 2011, those numbers did not translate to increasing the Pearce column, or anything significant above what the Democrat got in 2010. So, the (L)s stayed home and those who did vote were consistent in only their opposition to Pearce, they threw their votes to Lewis make up for any missing Democrats, not to Pearce.

Polling charts provided by recall supporters indicate that a number of those (L) voters who voted against Pearce in 2010 came back and voted against Pearce by voting for Lewis, yet the combined Democrat and (L) votes of the 2011 RECALL as votes opposing Pearce were still less than the Democrat votes alone in 2010 opposing Pearce.  In the RECALL, Democrat plus (L) turnout combined opposing Pearce were thousands of  votes less than  in 2010, but not as devastatingly poor for the RECALLers as the no-shows on Pearce’s side in 2011.

So, looking back at the charts above, the combined opposition against Pearce in November 2011 was 10,663 (D) + 2,808 (L) = 13,471 to Pearce’s 17,552.

In the RECALL 2011, the total opposition votes of three groups united against Pearce was less than the numbers of two opposition groups in the 2010 results. The recall supporters are claiming a wide surge of voter discontent with Pearce, but the raw numbers don’t support that claim.  The RECALL absolutely required a composite of fewer votes from three separate political groups to cobble together that number of 10,816, essentially the same as the 100% Democrat vote against Pearce in 2011.

So in the 2011 RECALL,  an even smaller number of district voters who opposed Pearce in 2010, three minorities of the minority vote, took away the results from a resounding majority vote in the general election.  The minority upset the majority not because the majority was out-numbered in any measure, but complacent.   The RECALL absolutely could not afford a third party candidate,  they needed as many of those  (L) votes which had been cast against Pearce in 2010  to contribute to the aggregate total against Pearce in 2011.

It seems that the  Pearce defeat was a result of a typical recall dynamic: voter no-show depressing overall turnout, combined with a shift in the opposition Democrat and (L) votes to Lewis  in order to oppose Pearce in the absence of a Democrat or (L) on the ballot. The RECALL was not a primary of any sort, so Democrats and Independents were free to vote for either candidate.

The votes do not support any contention that there was widespread Republican disenchantment with Pearce, but the RECALLers with great glee highlight the existence of a small minority of self-identified disgruntled Republicans, perhaps henceforth, the Ephialtes contingent from Mesa, who were willing to act on allying with two other politically hostile minorities,  to deliver defeat at the great expense and detriment of the large Republican majority in that particular district.   So, it wasn’t mille feuille, but old baclava on a new plate being served up.

The voters who showed up for RECALL voted as they had  voted in 2010: those who opposed Pearce in 2010, opposed him in 2011, those who voted for Pearce in 2010, voted for him again in 2011.

The Democrat vote against Pearce in 2010 represented 34% of the total turnout, but that same total number of votes in an aggregate against Pearce in 2011 had a far greater effect, resulting in 53.4% of the total turnout votes, even though that new aggregate had far fewer Democrat voters in it than who also supported the Democrat candidate in 2010.  It was part of a proportional increase in opposition to Pearce, not an actual increase, in fact with the lower turnout in every voter category,  actual decreases were across the board.

The RECALL task was to convert an extreme losing position into a winning position.  If the voters couldn’t be changed, then the playing field needed adjustment, and two shallow bench teams had to be re-combined against one deep bench team, which needed to be cut down to a more defeatable size, through massive attrition and some key defections.

If one expects the same essential political base at work, it is not unusual that the opposing votes in a recall just after a general election should be very similar as in the general election and yet that same number in 2010 making 34% suddenly reaches 53%, proportionally in 2011, due entirely to lower total voter participation.

How effective?  The Recall Organizers inserted Jerry Lewis (RM: Recall Man), a complete political neophyte, who without even breaking a sweat, showed up half way through the recall petition drive, and won with just over half of less than two-thirds of the turnout Russell Pearce faced for re-election in 2010. Lewis’s short campaign was arguably a much easier task as compared to Pearce’s go at it. What took Pearce long over a year to accomplish, at great time and effort and expense, Lewis, a political unknown, accomplished practically overnight.

Pearce had to slog through both the primary and the general election campaigns to win in 2010. What sort of charismatic political magic does newbie Lewis possess and how come it wasn’t evident before, because he should bottle it and sell it and make a bundle.

Lewis won RECALL with the same vote total as the losing Democrat only a few months before, in 2010.  If Lewis had won those identical numbers in 2010 against Pearce, had Lewis actually showed up as an actual candidate  in the general election, with those numbers, he would have lost, resoundingly.

Depending on a coalition of a minority of Democrats, a minority of (L) and a minority of Republicans as his voter base, Lewis would not have prevailed in any actual primary against Pearce, who represented a much larger and politically uniform block of voters.  The only way this small disparate coalition  could work was through a RECALL -  employed in this case as not a relief from tyranny or criminality, but as a basic end-run around the usual rules, usual dynamics and sifting of primaries and general elections, and critically, the higher turnout  …  something sobering to remember as the Liberal Left promotes their self-interested campaign for open primaries.

So, what to make of this?  Peeling away the cover of layers of pie charts, the RECALL re-organized the ground for unknown Lewis, while fully one half of Pearce voters naively assumed that the general election meant something and that their job was done until next general election.  The RECALL didn’t bring in anything new, its tactic just reshuffled fewer chairs on the same deck, for the first class passengers, while the majority of the passengers sat below decks, not included.

The votes don’t support any broad mandate of “anger” against Pearce, as claimed.  The RECALL numbers actually reconfirm the results of the 2010 general election, but the tactic of recall removed the usual rules and election schedule to fully exploit the off-cycle dynamics.  The 2010 general election was a more fair result of the consensus of a majority of voters in that district with much wider participation,  while the 2011 RECALL was representative of a minority of three minorities, a fundamentally unrepresentative election.  The voters of that district are now represented by someone the overwhelming majority didn’t vote for, and twice, at that.  The disenfranchisement of the majority of the 2010 general election voters has been accomplished, in twelve months flat.

Pearce didn’t get the message to his base that they absolutely needed to hustle themselves back to the polls or Lewis would have been trounced.

The mathematics of a political coup.

Governor Brewer’s very comfortable margin over her Democrat opponent in November 2010 is of the same magnitude as the very comfortable margin Pearce celebrated in November 2010. It’s only twelve months later and Pearce isn’t celebrating any more. The Recall organizers, giddily huddled around the microphones have already declared the next heads they think should roll: Governor Jan Brewer and Sheriff Arpaio. The Democrats seem to have calculated another way to win at the ballot box. It’s not a good bet that they will give it up. It’s too easy and much cheaper than those pesky primaries and general elections.

The Republican Party needs to be pro-active, forward-thinking and innovative to address this new political battle tactic – plugging leaking holes is not the solution to the problem of a ship under a broadside attack.

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2011 November recall: http://www.azcentral.com/elections/index.php?pgDate=20111108

2010 November RECALL : http://www.azcentral.com/elections/index.php

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Filed Under: Arizona Politics, Campaigns & Elections, Guest Opinion, Political Parties

Wil Cardon: Obama Administration Wrong for Reducing Troops on Border

December 20, 2011 By 10 Comments

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: December 20, 2011
CONTACT: Katie Martin

Phoenix, Arizona – Wil Cardon, candidate for U.S. Senate, issued the following statement after the Obama Administration announced they will reduce the number of National Guard Troops on the border from 1200 to 300 this coming January:

“The decision to reduce troops on our border by the Obama Administration is unconscionable. The federal government’s abandonment of its responsibility to secure the border is alarming and frustrating. This new announcement shows how out of touch with reality the Obama Administration truly is. Our communities cannot afford less support from the federal government to protect our border. A porous border threatens our safety, curtails our quality of life, and diminishes the economic opportunity of hardworking Americans. I am running for the U.S. Senate because we need a leader in Washington who has the wisdom and the courage to act decisively and secure our borders once and for all.” 

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Filed Under: Arizona Politics, Border, Campaigns & Elections, Illegal Aliens, Illegal Immigration, Press Release Tagged With: , ,

Ally Miller: Pima County Board of Supervisors Anti-Business Decisions Continue

December 19, 2011 By 2 Comments

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: December 17, 2011
CONTACT: Dean Miller

On Dec. 13, 2011, Pima County Board of Supervisors handed down a decision to appeal Raytheon property tax valuation as determined by the AZ State Board of Equalization. “This is yet another example of the short sighted and irresponsible behavior by the members of this board” stated Ally Miller, a candidate for District 1 Board of Supervisors in attendance at the meeting.

Pima County Board of Supervisors voted 4-0 to appeal the decision approved by the AZ State board of equalization to lower the assessed value of properties owned by Raytheon Missile Systems in Tucson. Supervisor Richard Elias was absent.

The appeal submitted by Raytheon, based on the valuation of similar properties was approved by the State board of equalization and resulted in valuations lowered from approximately $46.4 mil to $25.6 Mil for 2011 on 19 parcels identified on the board agenda. The 2011 change in valuation would result in a loss of approximately $571 thousand in tax revenue.

Raytheon reportedly pays $130 million in state and local taxes annually.

“Workers in this community are desperate for jobs yet the Board of Supervisors continues with their anti-business practices spending taxpayer money on litigation which could potentially alienate the largest private employer in our community.” Miller added.

“Did the members of the Pima County Board of Supervisors forget about the recent move by Raytheon to build a facility and locate approximately 300 high paying jobs to Huntsville, Alabama?” asked Miller.

After a trip to Huntsville earlier this year it was reported Supervisor Bronson determined tax incentives and fast tracking the development process were among the reasons Raytheon decided to build this facility in Huntsville versus Tucson.

For more information, contact Ally Miller campaign office or visit the campaign website at www.allyforsupervisor.com

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Filed Under: Campaigns & Elections, County Government, Press Release, Taxation Tagged With: ,

Jeff Flake: Payroll-tax gimmicks hinder serious reform

December 19, 2011 By 3 Comments

By Jeff Flake (reposted from The Arizona Republic)

House Republicans have worked hard this year to prove to Americans that we recognize the extent of our fiscal crisis. With tremendous political risk, Republicans passed a budget crafted by Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan that made tough, but necessary, decisions to corral out-of-control federal spending and bring about much-needed reforms to entitlement programs.

So after leading by example by embracing the Ryan budget, why are Republicans ending this year’s congressional session by passing another “now-you-see-it, now-you-don’t” temporary payroll-tax holiday? Because politics is dictating policy.

A year ago, Americans were told that a temporary reduction in payroll taxes would jump-start economic growth, improve the economy and put people back to work. This was misguided from the beginning. To begin with, temporary tax reductions don’t improve economic conditions. And make no mistake, this temporary reduction was always sold as a 12-month tax holiday. When short-term tax cuts expire, taxes go back up and the net result is effectively a non-stimulus. Don’t just take my word for it. Economic growth has been hovering between an anemic 1 and 2 percent.

How the payroll-tax holiday is “paid for” is another example in the art of congressional budgeting. Senate Democrats favored raising taxes on high-income earners as a spending offset. But they couldn’t get 60 votes in the Senate to pass it (thank goodness). House Republicans, on the other hand, opted for subterfuge, telling Americans that budget cuts will pay for a new payroll-tax holiday. Non-binding budget cuts that is, spread out over 10 years. That’s right, Congress is proposing to pay for one year’s worth of non-stimulative tax cuts with 10 years’ worth of budget cuts. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for budget cuts. But budget cuts that kick in years from now aren’t really budget cuts. We’ve been down that road before.

Because payroll taxes fund the Social Security Trust Fund, another short-term tax holiday exacerbates the insolvency of the fund. It is pretty remarkable to see Democrats, self-proclaimed protectors of Social Security, so forcefully embrace blowing a huge hole in the Trust Fund, and Republicans, fierce critics of deficit spending (at least rhetorically), so willing to resort to gimmicks to mask larger deficits.

More than anything, the economy needs serious tax and regulatory reform, reform that would result in a permanent reduction in marginal rates for all income earners brought about by removing credits, deductions, loopholes and tax expenditures (like that envisioned by the Simpson-Bowles Commission). Ideally, capital-gains taxes would be eliminated for everyone, but at a minimum, the tax rates cannot increase.

America’s corporate-tax rate, currently the second-highest in the world, should immediately be reduced to 25 percent. Permanent reforms like these would unleash a torrent of economic activity and move the economy and unemployment rate in positive directions. Another round of a nickel-and-dime “now-you-see-it, now-you-don’t” tax holiday is misguided.

Jeff Flake is the U.S. representative for Congressional District 6, which includes parts of Mesa and Chandler and all of Gilbert, Queen Creek and Apache Junction.

Filed Under: Elected Officials, Federal Budget, Federal Government, Legislation, Press Release, Spending, Taxation Tagged With: ,

Jerry Lewis Won a Republican Primary

December 19, 2011 By 180 Comments

By Tyler Montague

A Response to Senator Steve Smith

In his comments about recall elections the other day, Senator Steve Smith said, “We just witnessed how the radical left has used the recall system to defeat an opponent they could not and would not have been able to defeat in a standard election.”

The publicly-funded, freshman Senator from Pinal County may have some useful ideas for reforming the recall process.  (I feel we should get rid of paid petition circulators for recall elections!)  But Smith’s reference to the Pearce/Lewis election demonstrates a lack of understanding of what happened on the ground in Mesa.  More harmful to Republicans is that perpetuation of the “leftist takeover” narrative by Smith and others prevents some of the analysis and valuable learning that should be happening as a result of Lewis’ victory. Neither a “flawed recall process” nor “the radical left” caused Senator Pearce’s defeat.

Lewis won by a 12-point margin.  The financials, the polls, and the final vote tallies stubbornly support the case that Lewis would have won if this election had been a Republican primary.

The numbers
Registered Democrats comprise only 26% of LD18; which means they can’t impose their will on anyone.  They accounted for 28% of the vote total in the recall election, and of those, it is estimated that 36% of Democrats voted for Russell Pearce.  Republicans have many more LD18 voters, who further amplify their influence with a tendency to vote at a much greater rate.    Republicans formed 49% of the vote.  Republicans and Independents did the heavy lifting to get to the 55%-43% final margin of victory.

The Arizona Capitol Times conducted a poll the week before the election and found that 36.4% of Democrats were planning to vote for Russell Pearce.  If you start with that assumption, then assume Independents voted roughly in proportion to the final totals, Republicans ended up voting 51%-49% in favor of Lewis.  The actual votes by party are not published, so we must use polling.  The 36% Democratic vote for Pearce, and the slight Republican advantage for Lewis are both consistent with the Capitol Times poll and internal polling conducted by the Lewis campaign.  It is possible that Lewis performed better than the polls said among Democrats or Independents, which would lower his percentage among Republicans.  But one has to remember that Independents are allowed to vote in a primary of their choice, so Lewis would still win in a hypothetical “primary” vote created by removing all Democratic votes from the total.

Poll-based assumptions, fitted to the official vote tally

Party

Pearce

Lewis

Cortes

  

Total

Pearce

Lewis

Cortes

DEM

36%

61%

2.42%

  

6472

2356

3959

157

GRN

10%

90%

    

36

4

32

0

LBT

50%

50%

    

147

73

73

0

OTH

41%

56%

2.36%

  

5097

2107

2870

120

REP

49%

51%

    

11459

5582

5878

0
                 

23210

10121

12812

277

Total

23210

10121

12812

277

It is impossible to know for certain how Lewis would have fared in a regular primary without the media attention, efforts by independent groups on either side, and without some of the trickery that ultimately backfired on Pearce.  The recall scenario didn’t break all in Lewis’ favor.  We know the special circumstances of the recall may have persuaded large numbers of Republicans to vote for Pearce, when they might have chosen another candidate in a normal primary.  They bought into the Pearce Campaign’s relentless arguments that the recall was a left-wing attack against the Republican Party, and that it was time for people to choose teams rather than evaluate candidates on merit.  It was a tactical error of the Lewis team to not counter by pointing out that Pearce himself had supported a recall effort against Sheriff Dupnik earlier in 2011 and said that the threshold for recalls was appropriately high.  We also could have reminded people that Pearce ally, EV Tea Party Chairman Greg Western, initiated a recall against fellow Republican Rich Crandall the year before.  Pearce’s hypocrisy, along with information like the ruling by the Arizona Supreme Court, which reaffirmed Constitutional language stating that recall elections do not require allegations of wrongdoing by elected officials, may have swayed some of those Republicans to drop their anti-recall-based support of Pearce. 

So what does it mean?
Many lessons of this election are portable.  The first point:  Pay attention to your constituents.  Pearce’s statewide and national list of endorsements was impressive, but Lewis lined up the majority of the leaders in Mesa, and voters trusted the people they know personally.  If donations were an indication of support, Lewis did a good job getting people in his district to invest in his campaign, and a review of Lewis’s donor list, debunks the “outside leftist radicals” story very nicely.  Lewis got 67% of his money from Mesa, 43% came from LD18, and only 2% from outside the state.  Even though he massively outspent Lewis, Pearce only got 4% of his money from LD18.  It doesn’t matter as much how popular you are beyond your constituency—they can’t vote for you.

The second point:  Priorities.  Voters felt that more attention needed to go to the economy and jobs and education.  Over and over again in meetings with small groups, voters said they felt like their priorities were taking a backseat to ideological hobbies.

A third point:  Voters said yet again in this election that they do not like dirty campaigning or angry politics.  The candidates at the top of the campaign can do a lot to set the tone, and can control their followers to a large degree.  The well-documented language and tactics used in this election may have made the final difference in the outcome.  You cannot take someone like Jerry Lewis, a highly respected, longstanding moral leader in the community, who as a seminary teacher had taught hundreds of students from hundreds of families throughout the district, and make scurrilous claims that “he steals from homeless children,” without being punished by voters for such offensive, unfounded, and overreaching slander.  Future candidates for office should look closely at this election and think long and hard about hiring consultants who promote such tactics.

Finally, any election involving Russell Pearce is also an election about immigration, and there are several things to learn here.  First is that people who oppose illegal immigration and support SB1070 and other tough laws, are not a mutually exclusive group separate from those who want solutions that would keep families together and let people rectify themselves with the law without necessarily deporting them.  There is significant overlap.  Dr. Bruce Merrill and the Morrison Institute for Public Policy released a survey last month of Arizonans that indicated 78% of heads of households favored, “…legislation that would allow these people to be put on a path to becoming American citizens if they have no criminal record either where they came from or here in Arizona if they pay a fine for coming into the country illegally, get a taxpayer I.D. number and demonstrate they can speak English.”  Republicans favored such measures by 69%.  Pearce and allies tout 70% support for SB1070, but then make the mistake of deriding those who oppose mass roundups or the equivalent of starve-outs as “open-border anarchists opposed to the rule of law.”  This alienates people, particularly those in the religious and business communities who feel we could tackle immigration problems in a way that solves the problem, helps the economy, and honors our Judeo-Christian values, without necessarily handing citizenship to millions who didn’t come here the right way.

Pearce’s tone on immigration alienates Hispanics.  Latinos favored Lewis by more than 3:1 according to polls.  That number alone should spark discussion about the way the Republican Party approaches the immigration issue.  Anyone looking at projected growth rates from the U.S. Census will see Hispanics’ rapidly growing role in American politics.  Many Hispanics are social conservatives with a tradition of working hard and wanting to keep the fruits of their labor—in other words, many Latinos should resonate to core messages of the Republican Party.  Yet they are put off by the angry rhetoric surrounding the immigration debate.  Arguments to secure the border and to deport felons or freeloaders make sense to most of us; but leaders who point to criminals as justification to round up farm workers and dishwashers present a non-sequitur that makes more sense to Hispanics when explained by xenophobia or racism.  While some Latinos support the approach championed by Pearce, one out of four Hispanic votes will not win the elections of the future for the Republican Party.  The approach championed by Pearce is politically short-sighted.  The Republican Party needs better leadership on the issue of immigration.

Spending too much time fretting over the recall provision in the Arizona Constitution will prevent conservatives from making the adjustments the Pearce recall should catalyze.

Tyler Montague is a lifelong Mesa resident who helped recruit and campaign for Jerry Lewis.  He currently serves as a vice-chair of the LD18 Republicans.

Filed Under: Campaigns & Elections, Guest Opinion, Polls Tagged With: , , , ,

Senator Steve Smith on Future Recall Elections

December 19, 2011 By 23 Comments

By Senator Steve Smith

The following opinion piece appeared in the Arizona Republic on December 19th:

The Republican state senator talks about his plan to make it tougher to recall Arizona legislators.

Why do you want to make it more difficult to recall a state lawmaker? 

We just witnessed how the radical left has used the recall system to defeat an opponent they could not and would not have been able to defeat in a standard election. I believe this is a gross misuse of our recall system. I believe one should be recalled because of an egregious act committed or a proven inability to be effective in one’s job.

Do you expect the successful Pearce recall to open the floodgates of more recalls? 

Based on what has been said recently, this is clearly what the radical left wing is trying to do. They went after Russell Pearce and now they stated they are going after Governor Brewer, Sheriff Arpaio, and have threatened to do the same to other Republicans.

Do you think state government was harmed by losing Russell Pearce from the Legislature? 

Absolutely. Russell Pearce is an honest and fair man, and quite frankly, one of the best legislators this state has ever had. Under his leadership last session alone, we now have a jobs bill that will put more Arizonans back to work, a legitimately balanced budget for the first time in years, pension reform and much more.

You want to require signatures from a majority of voters in the district before a recall can be triggered. Why this approach? 

I believe the majority of the people (50 percent plus 1) should decide if an elected official should be recalled or not. Currently, 25 percent of the electorate is needed to initiate a recall, which means typically any political demographic can initiate the recall. The recall process should be a nonpartisan movement in which the majority of the people unify in response to an egregious act by the elected official.

Democrat attorney Paul Eckstein says lawmakers proposing this simply want to protect themselves from recall. Is this your motivation? 

I believe that if the right wing started using the recall system as the left wing has done and continues to do, Democrats like Paul Eckstein would soon agree with my position. Again, although a recall can be initiated for any reason, it should only be used when the majority of the people want it to occur.

Do you think the Pearce recall will soften the Legislature’s approach to immigration? 

No and nor should it. Remember, the people of Arizona have spoken time and again at the ballot box about this issue. Each time there has been a proposition relating to cracking down on illegal aliens, Arizonans by very wide margins (over 70 percent in most instances) have voted in favor of doing so.

Do you think your caucus will be able to work with recall winner Jerry Lewis? 

The Republican caucus is a strong and mighty force with many moral, constitutionally sound, and patriotic leaders. Although Russell Pearce will be greatly missed, I believe the Republican caucus will continue to effectively lead Arizona.

What do you think will be the important consequences of the Pearce recall? 

The biggest consequence of course is the loss of Russell Pearce for this upcoming session. Beyond that, other consequences would be that maybe others will decide to play dirty like the Democrats did and will initiate recalls.

Filed Under: Campaigns & Elections, Elected Officials, Guest Opinion, Legislation, State Government Tagged With: , , , , ,

Rep. Vic Williams on Cell Phone Usage While Driving

December 19, 2011 By 4 Comments

Arizona State Representative Vic Williams spoke with CBS 5 in response to the NTSB’s recommendation to ban all electronic devices while driving. Representative Williams serves as the Chairman of the House Transportation Committee.

YouTube Preview Image
Filed Under: Elected Officials, Legislation, Media, State Government, Transportation Tagged With: ,

GOP Iowa Voters Sending a Message Using Ron Paul?

December 19, 2011 By 12 Comments

I love posing these questions on Sonoran Alliance because some readers fail to process the point of the post and get themselves in a tizzy.

Here’s the question (and I know our Ron Paul readers are going to love this):

The latest poll out of Iowa shows Ron Paul now leading the pack 23% to Romney at 20% and Gingrich at 14% (link). Are the voters of Iowa trying to send a message to the other nominees? What is that message? And if the premise is true nationally, when will they pull back from this game of political chicken and give Mitt Romney the official nod?

Or, will all this lead to a brokered convention?

Finally, does anyone doubt that the official GOP ticket will be Romney/Rubio?

Filed Under: Campaigns & Elections, Polls, Predictions

A state with prosperity, lower taxes is possible

December 18, 2011 By 7 Comments

If we could start from scratch and redesign Arizona’s state-government programs in the interest of efficiency, effectiveness and fairness, they would look very different than they do now.

Ideally, state government would provide genuine public goods (in the strictest sense of the economic term “public good”) and provide a social safety net, with minimal harm to taxpayers and minimal drag on economic growth.

Government support for K-12 and college education (which now take up over half of the state budget) would be voucherized, with money going directly to families to empower them to shop among competing private and non-profit schools.

The vouchers would be means-tested so that low-income families received bigger vouchers, with a formula for extra subsidies for children diagnosed as having special needs.

If K-12 vouchers were deposited into tax-exempt education-savings accounts, families would have a strong incentive to bargain for lower tuition and to save and invest excess funds for future education, health and retirement purposes.

AHCCCS/Medicaid, which currently takes up a quarter of the state budget, needs radical reform. By correcting flaws in the federal tax code, we could encourage the vast majority of citizens to buy portable health-insurance coverage through tax-exempt health-savings accounts, with means-tested government support for the poor (including block-granted federal dollars).

For people who are too sick to be easily insurable in low-premium, high-deductible HSA plans, the government could maintain high-risk pools in coordination with private charities.

Along the same lines, unemployment insurance would be based on contributions to private, individual accounts so that individuals saved their own money when they were working and spent their own money when they lost their jobs, thus creating strong incentives to quickly find new jobs.

Many state highways and roads (which often involve public-good holdout problems) could be made self-funding through long-term private concessions to finance, build, maintain and operate new roads and new highway lane-mile capacity.

With the above reforms, Arizona’s general-fund budget would be $9 billion a year. Ideally, that would be funded with a broad-based retail sales-tax rate of less than 4 percent — no personal or corporate income taxes, and no local education property taxes (which currently take up at least half of people’s property-tax bills).

As long as we’re talking about the ideal world, let’s go further and assume that the federal government was limited to its proper functions under Article 1, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution.

With a federal government one-fifth of its current size and funded by a 5 percent national retail-sales tax (eliminating federal income, capital gains, dividend and death taxes), Arizona taxpayers could readily afford to replace and reform many of the federal entitlement programs.

By paying for those functions with an additional statewide sales tax of 5 percent, we could limit the total combined federal, state and local sales-tax rate to about 15 percent.

With a total tax burden about 15 percent of GDP, Arizonans would have the most efficient, most pro-growth tax system in the developed world, resulting in real annual per capita economic growth around 3 percent.

At that rate, Arizonans would double their real wealth every 25 years.

The tough question is not whether this would be good for Arizona.

The tough political question is how we get there from here.

Tom Jenney is Arizona director of Americans for Prosperity, which seeks to educate citizens about economic policy.

Filed Under: Spending, State Budget, State Economy, State Government, Taxation Tagged With:

Recall: Une Nouvelle Forme de COUP D’ETAT ou Bien un GOLPE de ESTADO?

December 18, 2011 By

From the French, coup, meaning a quick strike and état meaning state, and playing  on the similarity of  état and the word for head,  tête,  the concept describes a decapitating strike aimed at the top office-holders and leadership of a sitting government in order to quickly insert a rival power structure, a targeted blow at the head of state to enable a minority to upset the status quo maintained by the majority.

With the United States being a unity of fifty states, which under our Constitution function more like independent countries, with their own locally elected governments, a politically partisan recall orchestrated against the duly-elected governor, actively being organized in Arizona and Wisconsin, seems uncomfortably close to fulfilling every criteria of a coup d’état or as it is known in  Central America,  a golpe de estado.

No guns are required; this would be how lawyers and political organizers wage battle, bloodless and cold, not the heat of hand to hand combat on the front steps of the presidency and in the hallways of parliament, in these cases, in the lobbies of the Governor’s Offices and the State Legislatures. The weapon used would be a cynical application of legal processes meant to provide relief in a tyrannical or criminally abusive situation, but in 2011 seized by a disgruntled losing party of 2010 to effectively throw out the results of general elections, and by that, the votes of the majority of the people.

The open bragging during the press conference the day after the recall of Senator Pearce displayed what appeared to be grander objectives than previously argued by the recallers. The organizers and supporters had for months insisted it was a simple issue of Russell Pearce’s character alone, but literally within hours of his defeat, it was exposed that the recall vision went far beyond Russell. As articulated by the organizers of the recall, in their own words as public record, upon contemplation seems uncomfortably like a rather focused strike at the top office holders of the State of Arizona … or in international diplomatic parlance, something like a golpe de estado, to destroy the results of the November 2010 elections. The Recallers named names:

Senator Russell Pearce: President of the AZ Senate
Governor Jan Brewer
Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio

Hmm. The laundry list appearance of it brings to mind dynamics which are common elsewhere in power struggles. The first two represent the highest levels of Arizona government, the governor’s office and the top of the legislative branch. Though not a state-wide office holder, Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s closest parallel in an actual independent nation would be a somewhat impartial chief of police or perhaps gendarmerie, not open to being swayed and with some wider popular public support, so in a classic coup d’état someone like him in that sort of position would have been pre-judged by coup plotters as an impediment to making such a strike to stick, and thus marked for removal.

The parallels are disconcerting or should be, but how many Americans have ever seen such political dynamics and would think of them?  What would make any Third World citizen sit up with alarm, goes unnoticed in First World … but many of what are called “Third World” used to be well on their way to “First World” until that first coup d’état smashed the electoral process by which the shared consensus of the people is normally established as to who has lawful authority to govern. Politics no longer was about the will of the People, but about whoever had the brute force to grab and keep the top offices, throwing political calculations into chaos.

Who can make alliances, coalitions, and consensus if the officer holders can be here today, gone tomorrow, with no warning? Shocked political office-holders at all levels react to this arbitrary uncertainty with a siege mentality of self-preservation, not by representing the People, so the entire system is degraded and damaged, top to bottom.

A recall denies an elected official their majority, voter-bestowed, lawful mandate to govern. A politically-motivated recall is never satisfied, because more than one office-holder has to go, demanding voters return again and again to defend their choices, exhausting voters, a cynical abuse of voters’ rights, budgets and energy.

In Wisconsin, the majority of the voters acting on their desire for change from decades of Democrat Party-controlled stagnation decisively put Scott Walker into the governor’s office. Yet, not even twelve months into his term, infuriated Democrats have dumped a massive stack of signatures of petitioners for a recall of him, and are feverishly working on a system-clogging million signatures from people who seemingly absolutely positively cannot live another minute with Walker as governor, an expected over twice the number required for the recall trigger, an astounding figure give the population of the state, and completely counter-intuitive to the plain will of the majority only twelve months ago.

Arizonans, who pooh-pooh any real threat to popular Governor Jan Brewer, should take what’s happening right now in Wisconsin to heart, as an open call to begin collecting signatures against her was made by Recall organizers in their press conference after Pearce’s defeat. The Democrat Party recallers in Wisconsin seem to be using the same script as the recallers here used against Pearce in Arizona; that they do not have any challenger as yet to Scott Walker, but they expect someone will step forward … what, a million signatures and not a thought of who would be governor if the governor is ripped out?

Walker had to campaign to all the people of the state of Wisconsin, he had to convince them he would carry their will through the governor’s office and the majority liked what they heard from him and voted him in. The Democrats want to put in a nobody? Someone the voters don’t know, haven’t had a chance to vet, and who necessarily would be voted in by fewer than the majority which Scott Walker required to win in the general election? How about a political neophyte with no experience, no record to examine, perhaps? Someone who the voters would have no idea what he or she would do once in office? What nonsense! Who would go for that? Russell Pearce banked on that common sense and he’s abruptly out of a job.

One wonders where those million were just last November. The sheer magnitude and practical feasibility of collecting a million signatures in such little time alone should provoke questions. If there were truly that many motivated, disgruntled opposing voters, then Walker wouldn’t have been elected in the first place, but there they are … upstanding Wisconsin residents including Mickey Mouse and Adolph Hitler could be the means by which a duly elected governor of an American state be ripped from office.

The GAB Petition Review board in Wisconsin overseeing this have publically shrugged; they stated that Mickey Mouse and Adolph Hitler if signed on the petition will stay on the petition so long as they have a valid Wisconsin zip code, unless Governor Walker challenges them, one by one. With a projected over a million signatures and only so many days, the Democrats seem to be supremely confident it isn’t physically possible for Walker to verify the validity of the signatures to lodge a protest, and the checks and balances of a supposedly impartial petition review board are not in evidence, to the detriment of Governor Walker.

Governor Scott Walker should feel vindicated that his rabid political opponents include the likes of Adolph Hitler, proving once and for all that the socialist Hitler is not and has never been politically or ideologically affiliated with Republicans in any measure, but there is no time to laugh out loud and the threat to our Constitutionally-established system of elections is too grave.

If the Democrats succeed in their recall strike at Walker, to haul him out of office long before his mandated term ends, then the socialist Hitler will have done what no one else has achieved, overthrown the existing political system, risen to power TWICE by raw manipulation of the lawful systems, and from the dead, no less. In Wisconsin, Democrats have actually physically inserted Mickey Mouse into the metaphor for a complete, bad electoral joke.

Ominously for 2012, instead of focusing on the presidential election, every local state and national popularly-elected Republican official is at risk of being embroiled in a two-front political war, harassed from the rear and the front by the Democrats who are increasingly remote from and hostile to the will and spirit of the majority, and cannot provide a political vision and governing competency which attracts voters in normal elections.

Instead of taking a hard look at the validity of their premises and philosophies, Democrats seemed to have cast their lot to invest in recalls, a decidedly undemocratic and tyrannical solution to ballot-box failure, via an increasingly well-oiled and organized blitzkrieg designed to overwhelming and stripping out Republicans in state after state sitting governments, as easily as Hitler’s tanks once overran the horse soldiers of unprepared Poland, a nation whose main fault was that it was prepared for the previous, non-mechanized war, not the one that ground them under the tank treads.   Immigrants, legal and illegal have long viewed America as a haven from this sort of political disaster, how tragic that they are being asked to facilitate the introduction of the chaotic conditions they fled.

Mickey Mouse and Hitler in Wisconsin:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=tELtKMPKAq4

 

Filed Under: Arizona Politics, Ballot Measures, Campaigns & Elections, Elected Officials, Government, Guest Opinion, Petitions

Horizonte: Journalists’ Year in Review

December 16, 2011 By 3 Comments

Several local journalists appeared on Arizona’s PBS affiliate KAET on the show Horizonte to discuss 2011′s political happenings. Here is the video featuring Arizona Capitol Times’ Jim Small, KTAR’s Sandra Haros and Horizon’s Mike Sauceda.

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Watch for the predictions at the end.

Filed Under: Journalism, Media, Personalities Tagged With:

John McCain on CNN’s John King USA

December 16, 2011 By

Senator John McCain recently made an appearance on CNN’s John King USA. He discussed his recent Twitter diplomacy with Vladimir Putin, withdrawal of US troops from Iraq and the Republican Presidential candidates.

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Filed Under: Elected Officials, Media Tagged With: ,

Scottsdale Mayor Lane Endorses Steve Chucri for Supervisor

December 16, 2011 By

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: December 15th, 2011
Contact: Tyler Hudgins

Maricopa County – Scottsdale Mayor Jim Lane today endorsed Steve Chucri for County Board of Supervisors.

Mayor Lane, a conservative voice on the Scottsdale City council since 2004, took his leadership to the next level in 2008 when he successfully ran for mayor.

“Steve Chucri is the right choice to move Maricopa County forward with transparent, accountable, and conservative leadership. He will end the senseless bickering and lawsuits and instead re-focus the Board on creating a climate for winning new private sector jobs,” stated Mayor Lane.

Chucri thanked the Mayor for his support: “Mayor Lane works tirelessly for the people of Scottsdale, and his commitment to the community inspires me. I am so grateful to have his support as I campaign to bring accountability and integrity to county government.”

Chucri became President & CEO of the Arizona Restaurant Association (ARA) in 2002, and under his leadership and tireless work ethic, the ARA and restaurant industry in Arizona has enjoyed a substantial growth in sales in what will amount to a nine billion dollar industry in Arizona this year alone.

As President and CEO of the ARA, Chucri represents business owners and sees firsthand how the actions of local, state, and federal governments can positively or negatively impact restaurants and other small businesses in Arizona. Chucri’s experiences as a businessman, husband, and father have given him invaluable insight into the needs of his community and ensure that, as County Supervisor, he will always put people before politics.

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Filed Under: Campaigns & Elections, City Government, Elected Officials, Endorsements, Press Release Tagged With: , ,

7/10, 419, 101, 1500: 2011 by the Numbers

December 16, 2011 By

7/10, 419, 4, 101, 1,500 – The 2011 highlights for Arizona families can be painted by the numbers. Here are five victories I’m most grateful for:
1) 7 Out of 10
Yavapai County Planned Parenthood that no longer offers abortion
Following our victory in the State Court of Appeals upholding the Abortion Consent Act, Planned Parenthood announced they would end abortion services at 7 of their 10 Arizona locations. This led to our next unexpected success…

2) 419 Lives  

The combination of Planned Parenthood ending abortion services at 7 of their 10 clinics with the new informed consent provisions in the Abortion Consent Act led to 419 fewer abortions performed from August to October of 2011, compared to the same time in 2010. This work is saving lives!

3) Winning in Court – 4 MAJOR Cases  

Cathi Outside Court of Appeals after ACA
Me outside the State Court of Appeals following oral arguments in the
Abortion Consent Act

 

  • The Arizona Court of Appeals upheld the Abortion Consent Act. Now in Arizona, minors must have notarized parental consent before an abortion, women must have an in-person consultation with a doctor at least 24 hours before an abortion, health care workers are protected from being forced to participate in abortions against their religious beliefs, and non-doctors cannot perform surgical abortions.
  • The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the CAP-supported Scholarship Tax Credit Program which provides tens of thousands of scholarships every year to ensure children can attend the school of their parent’s choice.
  • In a CAP-defended case, the U.S. Court of Appeals in the Ninth Circuit ruled the City of Yuma violated the religious liberty rights of a church when the city forced the church out of their downtown location because Yuma felt the church “didn’t fit in” with what they wanted downtown.
  • A U.S. District Court dismissed a baseless lawsuit against Governor Jan Brewer filed by the “Freedom From Religion Foundation.” The Foundation filed the lawsuit against the governor for her proclamation of the Arizona Day of Prayer.

4) 101 Bills  

At our spring dinner, Gov. Brewer signs CAP-supported legislation ensuring that an ultrasound is performed before an abortion.
Sixteen CAP-supported bills were signed into law in 2011, bringing the total number of CAP-supported bills enacted into law to 101. Thirty-eight of these bills were signed into law in the last three years alone. In 2011, a CAP-supported resolution honoring pregnancy care centers and a CAP-supported judicial reform ballot measure also passed.

5) 1,500+ Come to Put Their Faith in Action

                      Dr. Del Tackett speaking at the Faith in Action Tour
More than 1,500 people attended our Faith in Action Tour at Bethany Bible Church to discover how to be a part of the movement to transform our state through service.


Meeting the Challenge 

These are just a few of the highlights of 2011 – I could go on and on about how God equipped our work this year, enabling us to meet many challenges and opportunities. But we still have one major challenge to overcome this year and we need your help.

With less than two weeks remaining in this year, we still have not met our 2011 budget needs. Our team has been meeting this week to prepare to take on the many challenges and opportunities that await us in 2012. To forge ahead in a strong position, it’s essential that we finish this year in a strong financial position.

CAP is entirely funded by generous families like yours that believe in our work and want to partner with us – we receive no government grants or funding. Would you help us meet this final challenge of 2011 by giving an online gift today? Any support you can provide would be sincerely appreciated.

Contribute

(Or you can send us a gift in the mail: PO Box 97250, Phoenix, AZ 85060)

We all know what’s on the line in 2012, especially with the upcoming election. At Center for Arizona Policy, we are prepared and more than willing and ready to accomplish so much more in the months and years to come. Thank you for your support! 

Filed Under: Education, Family, Religion, Sanctity of Life Tagged With: , , , , ,

Gosar Votes to Continue Cuts to Federal Spending

December 16, 2011 By

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: December 16, 2011
CONTACT: Apryl Marie Fogel

Calls Bill a “Crap Sandwich” 

WASHINGTON, DC –Today, Congressman Paul Gosar, DDS (AZ-01) voted to support the Fiscal Year 2012 Consolidated Appropriations Act (H.R. 2055). This bill averts a government shutdown while decreasing federal spending from over $6 billion from fiscal year 2011 funding. This legislation means the total annual discretionary funding for fiscal year 2012 is $95 billion less than last year’s budget – a victory for conservatives.

“I have consistently said throughout my time in Washington that the American people deserve more from their government. This bill is a crap sandwich! You definitely do not want to bite into it, you cannot stand the taste, but you know you have to eat it. I hoped that this bill would include far more cuts, greater reforms, and more regulatory relief. I’m disappointed that it does not! Let me be the first to admit, this legislation is far from perfect! It does however inch us forward towards our ultimate goal of restoring fiscal sanity. 

It is important to remember that conservatives control just one-half of one-third of the federal government. We are a vocal and influential minority. Tough decisions have to be made and included in this bill are key provisions to strengthen our national defense and border security. In addition, it defunds several portions of Obamacare and supports important forest health initiatives.” 

H.R. 2055 makes important cuts while ensuring our service members abroad and the brave national guard and border patrol here at home have the resources they need to protect our country. Additionally, it provides badly needed transparency and conditions on foreign aid, will provide the resources necessary for wildfire suppressions and prevention, and facilitates increased economic development on public lands, like grazing.

Congressman Paul A. Gosar, DDS hails from Flagstaff, Arizona and is serving his first term in Congress as the Representative from rural Arizona’s First Congressional District. As a health care provider and small business owner, Gosar is focused on bringing jobs back to the district, reforming health care, reining in government spending, and ensuring that the American people are involved in the solution making process.

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Filed Under: Elected Officials, Federal Budget, Federal Government, Legislation, Spending, Taxation Tagged With: ,

Congressman Flake Votes Against Omnibus Spending Bill

December 16, 2011 By

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: December 16, 2011
CONTACT: Genevieve Frye Rozansky

Spending Levels Simply Too High

Washington, D.C. – Republican Congressman Jeff Flake, a member of the House Appropriations Committee, today voted against H.R. 2055, the Conference Report for the Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2012.

“Aside from spending levels being simply too high, this is a 1,200-page bill that we’re voting on only a few hours after it was finalized. We’ll be discovering for months to come what’s actually in it,” said Flake. “This is unacceptable. We promised to do better.”

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Filed Under: Elected Officials, Federal Budget, Federal Government, Legislation, Press Release, Spending, Taxation Tagged With: ,

Is Democrat State Senator David Schapira Violating Federal Election Law?

December 15, 2011 By 27 Comments

He’s already made it official but you won’t see any official paperwork filed with the Federal Election Commission by Democrat State Senator David Schapira.

The current State Senator is exploring a bid for Congress in the Tempe area.

Schapira already has a website up and running with the appropriate FEC disclaimer, “Paid for by David Schapira Exploratory Committee,” but anyone searching the FEC website cannot find that his campaign has filed.

Now it might just be that David Schapira has not yet raised and exceeded the $5,000 threshold amount for candidates “testing the waters” that requires the campaign to file a Statement of Organization with the FEC.

That may speak volumes about the viability of Schapira’s interest in seeking office in the anticipated congressional district 9 where he resides.

Candidate Schapira announced the formation of his committee on Monday, November 21st which was over three weeks ago.

Given that it takes only two donors (usually a husband and wife) excited about a candidate’s prospects maxing out their donations at $5,000, perhaps Schapira has discovered that the waters he’s testing may be in the doldrums? Regardless, given that he has been raising money (according to his website) and spending money (for his website), he may be in violation of federal campaign law(s).

Filed Under: Campaigns & Elections, Federal Government Tagged With: ,
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