Open Elections/Open Government Act

“This measure will allow all Arizonans, regardless of party affiliation, to vote in a single open primary for the candidates of their choice. The two candidates who receive the most votes in the primary will compete in the general election. There will be a level playing field for all voters and candidates, and the current system of taxpayer-funded partisan primaries will be abolished. This reform will promote open government and encourage the election of candidates who will work together for the good of the state.”

The Committee is listed as follows:

Open Government Committee
Paul Johnson, Applicant & Chairman
5125 North 16th Street, Suite B226
Phoenix, AZ 85016
(602) 684-3143

Arizona’s Citizens Clean Elections Commission is dirtying up politics. Afraid of a proposal on next year’s ballot that would end the commission’s funding, the commission is using taxpayer money to run ads against the ballot measure.

This ad campaign means that taxpayers who actually support ending funding for the commission could end up paying for the “no” ads – not exactly clean or fair politics.

But there’s more. The commission’s ads mislead by claiming the program uses no taxpayer money. Clean Elections receives revenue from a $5 voluntary check-off box on Arizona tax returns. But the check-off is not a typical tax credit that designates a portion of your taxes for the fund. Neither is it a donation. Instead, checking the box just reduces state revenues by increasing your refund or decreasing your tax liability by $5. It also triggers a $5 appropriation from the state’s general fund to the commission. The total cost to the state is $10 for every taxpayer who checks the box, and last year, the commission reaped $8 million in funding from check-offs.

Talk about muddying the waters. The Citizens Clean Elections Commission should live up to its name and stop using public money to sway elections.

Carrie Ann Sitren is an attorney with the Goldwater Institute’s Scharf-Norton Center for Constitutional Litigation.

Learn More:

Goldwater Institute: Supreme Court Declares Arizona’s Matching Funds System Unconstitutional

Arizona Legislature: S.C.R. 1025 (No Taxpayer Subsidies for Political Campaigns Act)

Arizona Legislature: Fact Sheet for S.C.R. 1025

Sometimes politicians don’t recognize a tsunami even when it hits them.
 
Voters in four states—Arizona, Utah, South Dakota, and South Carolina—voted in the last election to amend their constitutions to protect the right to secret ballots in union organizing elections. The results were resounding, with approval rates ranging from 60 to 86 percent.
 
The measures were designed to forestall “card-check”—union-backed federal legislation that would eliminate the secret ballot in favor of a system under which unions could be formed merely by a majority of workers signing cards. Card-check would invite coercion in forming unions and reverse the decades-long trend against private-sector unionization.
 
The ballot measures upped the political ante for card-check legislation, and the Empire is striking back with a vengeance.
 
National Labor Relations Board General Counsel Eric G. Moskowitz wrote the attorneys general in all four states demanding that they decline to enforce the secret ballot protections, or NLRB will sue them. So far the attorneys general are united in their response: bring it on.
 
This litigation will mark a battle royale over federalism. NLRB will argue that federal law preempts the state measures. States will respond that they have the power to protect rights recognized under both the federal and state constitutions. The outcome, sure to be decided in the U.S. Supreme Court, will say much about the extent of federal power.
 
The Goldwater Institute drafted Save Our Secret Ballot and will help defend the measures at every turn. In the meantime, the Obama Administration has revealed for all to see where it comes down on a key issue of basic fairness: on the side of its union allies against the rights of American workers.

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

Learn More:

Goldwater Institute: Voters in Five States Approve Ballot Measures to Protect Fundamental Freedoms

SOSBallot.org: Save Our Secret Ballot

Associated Press: Feds threaten to sue states over union laws

YOU ARE INVITED

Health Care Town Hall

Featuring

Dr. Eric Novack, Founder Arizonans for Health Care Freedom

Congressional Candidate David Schweikert

Chaparral Suites Scottsdale
5001 North Scottsdale Road
Scottsdale, Arizona

Saturday, October 23
Doors open at 9:00 am
Town Hall Begins at 10:00 am

Please come, listen, ask questions, and learn how Prop 106 will help protect your health care decisions against ObamaCare.

Please RSVP to carmella@yes106.com.

Congressman Mitchell has been invited and declined to participate in CD 5′s Townhall to discuss Prop 106, Arizonans for Health Care Freedom.

There’s a joke that says to understand a politician, just listen to whatever he says, and assume the opposite. That’s not really accurate about most politicians, but lately I’ve been listening to people from the Marijuana Policy Project, the group behind the so-called medical marijuana referendum, Proposition 203. And that’s one group for whom the old joke seems to hold true. Here’s what I mean:

The first thing they say at every speech is that Prop 203 is only about people with serious illnesses like cancer and multiple sclerosis. However, Montana’s law is similar to Prop 203, and in Montana only 3 percent of the medical marijuana patients have serious illness. In California, it’s only 2 percent. The other 97-98 percent have minimal problems or none at all. The most common diagnosis is pain, and that pain can be from a hackey-sack injury or occasional headaches. One woman got marijuana because her high heels hurt. In San Diego, 75 percent of the marijuana patients are under age 40, and 12 percent are teenagers. In Boulder, Colorado, the marijuana dispensaries are all on college campuses. In other words, the one thing we can say for certain is that it’s definitely not about people with serious illness. It’s for pot-smokers with no medical problems at all.

They keep saying marijuana will only be prescribed by licensed physicians. Technically true, but it conjures up the image of doctors sitting down with their long-term patients and discussing marijuana. In reality, almost all the marijuana is prescribed by pot doctors who often advertise that they see patients one time only, for as little as 5 minutes, and hand out marijuana cards to nearly everyone. It’s not medical care and there’s no doctor-patient relationship. If these doctors did this with any other drug, they’d lose their licenses. So, yes, they’re licensed physicians, but they only stay licensed because medical marijuana laws shield them from the law.

They often say Arizona’s Prop 203 has been improved to make all the regulations much tighter. Arizona’s law is different, but instead of regulating marijuana users, the changes actually protect marijuana users from regulation. Unlike laws in other states, Prop 203 has clauses that will make it nearly impossible to prosecute marijuana users for DUI, and make it nearly impossible for employers to fire or discipline a marijuana user who comes to work high. Prop 203 will undermine CPS by allowing parents to smoke marijuana even if ordered into drug treatment, and it could undermine the criminal justice system by allowing criminals to use marijuana even if they’re on probation, parole or in drug court. Landlords can’t refuse to rent to a marijuana cardholder, even if the cardholder smokes or grows marijuana in the rented house.

Someone from the Marijuana Policy Project recently said that medical marijuana could provide tax dollars to make up the state’s shortfall. However, the 9,528-word law includes language that specifically makes marijuana dispensaries tax exempt and, unlike other states, Arizona’s law has no provisions for charging fees for marijuana cards. In other words, it won’t provide one penny in tax dollars. Colorado has already had to budget several million dollars to administer their medical marijuana law, and Prop 203 will likewise drain our state coffers.

But the most outrageous deception is the name of their political campaign, “Stop Arresting Patients.” This conjures up pictures of grandmothers with cancer languishing in Florence, doing their knitting surrounded by smack-shooting streetwalkers and tattooed gang-bangers. In response to this charge, the Justice Department published a booklet called, “Who’s really in prison for marijuana?” In turns out almost everyone in jail or prison for marijuana either pleaded down from a more serious charge, had prior offenses, was violating probation, or was caught in possession with very large amounts they intended to sell. The median amount was 115 pounds, and their other charges were often violent. These are not small-time users. Patients are not getting arrested. This should be obvious. Can you imagine a jury sending that grandmother to prison? And, don’t you think that the Marijuana Policy Project would have one of those “patients” as their poster child?

Of course, there’s a reason the Marijuana Policy Project is so dishonest. They’re trying to fool the whole State into legalizing an addictive drug, giving drug abusers special protections that no one else gets, and paying for the whole thing out of our pocket.  They know the people of Arizona wouldn’t fall for it if they told the truth.

Last week in the Arizona Republic, I urged Mesa to provide details of its plan to pay for a new spring training stadium for the Chicago Cubs. A day later, the city released a page and a half of bullet points outlining those “details.” Unfortunately, that list raises even more red flags.

The city has signed a non-binding agreement to build a new $84 million stadium for the Chicago baseball team. In Mesa, voter approval is needed before the city can spend more than $1.5 million, so Proposition 420, which would authorize this spending, is on the Nov. 2 election ballot. But neither Prop. 420, nor the city’s agreement, spell out what a new stadium will actually cost Mesa residents, or what Mesa taxpayers will get from the Cubs in exchange.

The bullet points issued last week outline Mesa’s costs at around $100 million. The list confirms expected construction costs for the stadium and training fields at $84 million, and estimates another $15 million will be needed for parking and other infrastructure. On top of that, the city will help to pay for future, unnamed improvements to the training complex. In exchange, the Cubs would provide “benefits to be determined” and pay rent in some unknown amount.

Mesa residents should demand to know more, including a firm limit to all of the costs and specific commitments from the team that will directly benefit the public. The New York Times reported on Sept. 7, 2010, “With more than four decades of evidence to back them up, economists almost uniformly agree that publicly financed stadiums rarely pay for themselves.” Arizona cities are no strangers to the prospect of money-losing sports stadiums. Glendale officials still haven’t figured out what to do with the $180 million taxpayer-funded arena built for the Phoenix Coyotes hockey team which, like the Cubs, has threatened to move out of state.

Mesa voters are in control of the game with Proposition 420 for Cubs baseball. They should refuse to play blindfolded.

Carrie Ann Sitren is an attorney with the Goldwater Institute Scharf-Norton Center for Constitutional Litigation.

Learn More:

Goldwater Institute: Proposals to fund new Cubs stadium risk constitutional violations

Arizona Republic: Cubs plan needs more specifics before voters say yes

City of Mesa: Prop. 420

Distributed by C O M M O N  S E N S E , in Arizona

A picture is worth a thousand words.   McCain would like you to think he cares about the danged fence now, by spending millions of dollars on TV ads saying so, but in 2004, he stood with Janet Napolitano opposing Prop. 200. Prop. 200, Protect Arizona Now, passed with 56% of the vote in Arizona and requires individuals to show proof of citizenship before registering to vote or applying for public benefits. The truth is that McCain is more aligned with Democrats than a majority of Arizonans. (photo from http://www.azcentral.com/photo/News/Projects/8877#phototop)

These new estimates highlight the fact that Prop. 100 fails to address the state’s long-term structural deficit brought on by too much spending. Past spending and new programs were not adequately funded when they were signed into law. But the damage this caused to the state’s financial stability wasn’t clear for a few years because tax revenues spiked during the real estate bubble. JLBC’s deficit projections assume the state maintains current eligibility requirements for taxpayer-funded health care, which is likely given the new mandates passed under the federal health care bill.

Prop. 100 is, at best, a partial, short-term fix to a long-term problem. Projected deficits in 2014 markedly worsen with the proposition’s passage for one simple reason: The tax increase is supposed to be temporary. This will allow the government to keep spending more than it would otherwise bring in through regular tax collections. In contrast, if Prop.100 is rejected, the state will have to adjust its spending priorities and get spending back in line with the normal tax revenues coming in the door.

Increasing taxes “temporarily” now just assures that we will have this debate again in three years. The only way to permanently solve an over-spending problem is to stop over-spending. That means we must take on the challenge of weeding out ineffective programs and waste and stop asking families to sacrifice so the government doesn’t have to.

Dr. Byron Schlomach is an economist and the director of the Center for Economic Prosperity at the Goldwater Institute.

Tax Day is here, and even after everyone has finished paying Uncle Sam, the people of Arizona will be asked to pay even more.

Early voting starts in one week for the proposed 18 percent increase in the state sales tax. Champions of this tax hike claim the state budget has been cut to the bone. But did policymakers really get rid of all of the fat before asking for another $400 per family each year?

The Goldwater Institute has been explaining since January 2009 that the state of Arizona should fix its spending priorities first, instead of demanding that taxpayers sacrifice even more. This video illustrates how the state budget still has plenty of places to cut:

Click here to watch video

Le Templar is Communications Director for the Goldwater Institute

At the January, 2009 Arizona Republican Party state convention, the party expressed its will and resolved to oppose photo radar.  This is the body that sets policy for the state Republican party.  State Committeemen from all over the state convened to conduct its business.  Among other things, it unanimously passed the resolution you see at the bottom of this post.

In defiance of the will of the body of Republican State Committeemen comes Republican Senator Linda Gray from legislative district 10.  Linda Gray is the sponsor of SB1443 and SCR1059.  These two bills are the same bills.  They ostensibly are being run to “correct” technical problems and “improve” the state’s photo radar program. 

SCR1059 is a referendum version to put on the ballot to confuse voters, presumably if Camerafraud.com‘s efforts are successful and they get their citizens’ initiative on the ballot to end photo radar.  SB1443 is merely the floor version of the bill.  Catcalls also go out to self-proclaimed pro-liberty Republican Frank Antenori from LD-30 for sponsoring these bills in the house.

In fact, these bills are being run at the behest of Redflex‘s lobbyists. 

If you don’t already know (thanks to Camerafraud.com for the info!), the “cameras” are not photo cameras, but they stream surveillance video 24x7x365 to computer servers belonging to a foreign corporation.  Redflex has the ability to identify the license plate that passes each camera (anywhere in the world they operate!)  The “corrections” these bills will implement are:

• automatically ticket you for failing to register your vehicle
• automatically ticket you for failing to renew your insurance on time
• automatically ticket you for texting on your cell or talking on the phone (like California, that ban is in the works already)
• automatically ticket you for failing to buckle your seatbelt

The bottom line is that a foreign corporation is spying on Arizonans’ movements 24x7x365.  Not even 20 years ago, any elected official even suggesting such a thing would have been labelled a communist and driven out of office.

Today, disgracefully, Republicans (or those who like to call themselves that) kowtow to lobbyists of foreign corporations to help them pass laws to spy on Americans, in this case Arizonans.

On February 10th, Linda Gray along with recently appointed (and self-proclaimed) “conservative”  Republican David Braswell from LD-6 voted with Democrats to pass SB1443 and SCR1059 out of committee. 

Please do not hesitate to contact your state legislators in the House and in the Senate to voice your strong opposition to these bills SB1443 and SCR1059.

As far as Republicans Linda Gray, David Braswell and Frank Antenori go, why do we even have a Republican party, if these Republican state senators and representatives push their own personal agendas and those of the lobbyists of foreign corporations against the will of the Arizona Republican Party and against the interests of Arizonans?

It’s time to hold our elected Republicans accountable.  Just calling yourself “conservative” or “pro-liberty” doesn’t cut it anymore.  We want to see CONSISTENT ACTION, no more chin music.  

Teaparty, anyone?

(Ironically, David Braswell was the state GOP Resolutions Committee chairman at the time this resolution passed out of the party committee before it went to the whole of the state committee.)

The hiring mandates tied to the city charter amendment would be imposed on city taxpayers regardless of economic circumstances, and they won’t be cheap. Independent audits estimate Prop. 200 would cost $150 million over the next five years.

Perhaps this major new expense could be justified if Prop. 200 included a strong mechanism for ensuring it would actually result in improved public safety. But there is no consequence if the funding does not, in fact, result in better service.

There is a better way.

The recent Goldwater Institute report, “A New Charter for American Cities,” recommends that funding for public-safety services be tied to performance goals. Police and fire departments that fail to meet their goals should see their operations competitively outsourced to the county, nearby municipalities or even the private sector.

If all else fails, residents and businesses should be given property tax credits for hiring private security or fire-protection firms to furnish public safety services.

By contrast, Proposition 200 would mandate hiring scores of new government employees without requiring spending be reduced elsewhere or imposing any incentive for good performance or consequence for bad performance.

This won’t put public safety first; it will just bloat city government.
 
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.

The 2008 ballot proposition was plain vanilla. It would simply have prohibited laws that restrict a person’s choice of private health providers or the right to pay for medical services. The opposition, well-funded by insurance plans and business groups, argued simultaneously that it would do nothing and that it would limit future legislative options. Whipping out the fear-of-the-unknown card, they claimed, falsely, that Medicare and Medicaid patients could lose coverage. It was all typical technique for a “no” campaign, but in the end they confused enough voters to eke out the victory.

Today, Americans are much more focused on health care policy and they have more reason than ever to build firewalls for themselves against an over-reaching federal government. The powers in Washington keep marching forward, determined to eventually bring our health care options under their control.

The history of past federal programs also suggests a strong need for caution. Courts and bureaucrats have a habit of morphing federal programs into forms vastly more comprehensive than originally intended. Social Security was created as a modest supplement for poverty-ridden seniors. Today’s retirees receive a fraction of the income they could have received if they could have saved and invested their own payroll contribution dollars. Yet Social Security owes to future beneficiaries trillions of dollars that we don’t have, casting a pall over the economic future of the country.

So Arizonans are only being practical to seek protection at the state level from relentless federal intrusions. Yet, even if the Freedom of Choice in Health Care Act passes on the state level, it will be challenged on the grounds that federal legislation pre-empts state law.

The complicated legal arguments about pre-emption will have to be duked out in court. But the threat to freedom-loving people today is the centralization of power in a federal government that ceaselessly expands and intrudes. Surely, our system of federalism doesn’t permit the feds to extend more control over the decisions of our daily lives while the states helplessly look on. Let’s hope the Freedom of Choice in Health Care Act will be the driver for fundamental change.
 
Tom Patterson is chairman of the Goldwater Institute and a former state senator. A longer version of this article first appeared in the East Valley Tribune.

So while it is understandable why other conservative legislators have finally caved, it is still much more impressive as a principled conservative legislator to hold out against the tax referral. The Goldwater Institute still has not come out and said it’s ok to vote for the tax increase referral. Their last article on the proposed budget deal and tax referral was highly critical of the referral. I doubt legislators who vote for the tax increase referral will be getting as high of scores in the Goldwater Institute’s next legislative rankings compared to the legislators who held out against voting for it.  Americans for Prosperity and Americans for Tax Reform finally agreed that the tax increase referral could be neutral, ONLY if every tax cut that has been added to sweeten the deal actually gets added. (see article here and AFP chart here)

Although conservatives are optimistic that a tax referral will be voted down at the ballot, they underestimate the power of special interests. Prop. 400, the Phoenix blight rail initiative, passed easily at the ballot in 2004 because it was masqueraded as a transportation initiative that would improve our roads. Chuck Coughlin’s High Ground is the primary entity pushing Brewer’s tax increase referral, hoping to benefit his construction and infrastructure clients like the Associated General Contractors. The tax referral will be masked as “Vote Yes to Improve Arizona’s Roads” or something similar.  Proponents will probably even find some crazy way to claim it won’t actually raise taxes, by claiming whatever infrastructure projects they fund will generate their own revenues or some other hare-brained scheme.  With the millions Coughlin’s wealthy clients can throw in to fund glossy flyers touting the initiative, it won’t be too hard to fool the voters. Furthermore, if the tax increase is bundled in an initiative with the tax cuts, there is no way to enact the tax cuts without voting for the tax increase!

While it is understandable why some conservative legislators have caved in on the tax increase referral in hopes that the tax reduction package will be included and the voters will vote against the tax increase (and no doubt due to tremendous pressure by leadership, Brewer, and Coughlin who is reportedly at the Capitol constantly harassing them) ultimately the most principled stance would be to hold out against the tax increase referral.

SCR 1031 will amend the state constitution to prohibit affirmative action programs that grant preference based on race or gender in public contracting, public employment or public education.

In Arizona, if the House and Senate vote in favor of such a concurrent resolution, they can refer the Civil Rights Initiative to the general election ballot for November 2010.

The House Government Committee passed the House version of the bill last Wednesday 6 to 3. The Republicans on the committee voted unanimously to pass the bill. Republican members, Antenori, Crump, Driggs, Gowan, Montenegro and Nichols deserve praise for their support to end race preferences in public contracting, public employment and public education.

We need to show the legislature that there is strong support for ending affirmative action programs that grant preferential treatment in our state. If you or friends and family can attend all you have to do is sign in and specify “in favor of,” you will not need to prepare any comments or speak on behalf of the bill.

The ACLU, NAACP and other members of the left will stop and nothing to preserve their radical agenda. They will be at the committee hearing in full force misrepresenting the initiative. Now is the chance to fight back.

Contact your state Senator and tell them to support SCR 1031, click on this link for a member roster.

When: Tuesday, June 16th at 2:00pm
Where: Senate Building (next to the capitol)
1700 West Washington Street
Phoenix, AZ 85007

For additional information email info@arizonacri.org

Come and show your support – Together we can end affirmative action programs that grant preferential treatment based on race or sex in Arizona.

Transportation & Infrastructure Moving

David Martin, was co-chairman of the TIME Initiative Campaign (Prop 203).   Then Gov. Janet Napolitano supported the tax increase, while then Secretary of State Jan Brewer said Proposition 203

failed to gather the required number of petition signatures to qualify for the ballot.   There was even a statewide poll among small business owners showing a mixed reaction to the new tax.

Now I recall, someone defending the current *temporary* tax increase suggested it was to be used for education.   Oddly enough, it also seems that there will be over $800,000,000.00 of federal stimulus monies coming into Arizona to address education issues.

Now, David Martin is President of the AZ Associated General Contractors, and according to the Clients page of Chuck Coughlin’s HighGround (http://www.azhighground.com/clients/index.php), Mr. Martin’s trade group is a client.

Maybe its just me, or could this *temporary* tax increase be simply a trip down memory lane for Jan, Chuck and Dave?

Here’s some links to the past.  Consider who the Governor’s chief adviser is.  Consider someone is pushing pretty hard for a $500,000,000.00 tax increase that they promise is *temporary*.  Psst… look for the crossed fingers.

http://triangle.bizjournals.com/triangle/othercities/phoenix/stories/2008/07/21/daily5.html

http://ballotpedia.org/wiki/index.php/Arizona_Proposition_203_(2008)

http://phoenix.bizjournals.com/phoenix/stories/2008/08/11/daily32.html?surround=lfn

btw… nothing here is personal, just very curious.