The most important lessons for the Republican party aren’t coming from any of the retired politicians doing their speaking tours right now. They come from two sitting governors, Governor Christie of New Jersey and Governor Brewer of Arizona. And what they’re doing is very simple. They’re confronting the problem.
When Christie won an election, like so many other state governors he was thrust into the middle of an impossible budget nightmare, which was full of impossible problems. State budgets had been bulked up by entitlements and their attached public sector unions. Cutting them meant a battle with the unions. But not cutting them meant serious tax hikes. Most governors chose to walk some kind of middle path, negotiating with the unions with the least political fallout, and raising taxes, to create a compromise that everyone hated.
But Christie made the rational calculation that he had nothing to lose by taking on the unions, because they would reliably come out against him during reelection anyway. And if he didn’t take them on, he would have to shoulder the blame for a budget crisis that he had nothing to do with. So while neighboring New York’s state government was trying to tiptoe around a complete shutdown over budget talks, New Jersey’s new governor took the initiative and picked a fight with the unions, turning them into the villains in the budget crisis.
Unlike Schwarzenegger who had tried the same thing in California a few years too early before buckling under the response in response to his failed referendums, Christie benefited from better timing and from voters being able to directly connect the teacher’s union to property tax hikes over school budgets. It was a scenario that gave people who were already cutting back a chance to directly stand up to tax hikes in local elections. And while teacher’s unions are almost as good at wrapping themselves in a self-righteous cloak, as the California nurses union was, their own stunts ended up backfiring on them.
The Goldwater Institute Watchdog Report is a periodic publication intended to identify government corruption and waste and to hold politicians and public agencies accountable to taxpayers.
As the matching funds portion of Arizona’s Clean Elections law dangles by a legal thread, the state agency that hands taxpayer funds to political candidates is preparing to spend more than $2 million to convince voters and legislators it is doing a good job.
The Citizens Clean Elections Commission recently approved a budget that allocates $2 million for public relations and advertising, and another $78,000 for an outside lobbyist. That is in addition to the $2.9 million the agency will spend to print and distribute voter education pamphlets and to host candidate debates.
Spending so much money on a public relations campaign to tout the state agency is a waste, said Lori Daniels, the lone member of the five-person commission to vote against the spending plan. Daniels said the expenditure is particularly excessive as the state struggles to close a shortfall of around $1.5 billion in the current fiscal year.
“I think we should have a bare-bones budget this year because that’s exactly what the state is doing,” said Daniels. Commissioners “are spending more on the PR and advertising than is required by law. Right now, I feel like the state is in such a crunch that we just need to tighten our belts as much as we possibly can. And they feel like they’ve already done that.”
Think Government Is Corrupt? You May Face 10 Years In Jail
Terrorists who want to overthrow the United States government must now register with South Carolina’s Secretary of State and declare their intentions — or face a $25,000 fine and up to 10 years in prison.
The state’s “Subversive Activities Registration Act,” passed last year and now officially on the books, states that “every member of a subversive organization, or an organization subject to foreign control, every foreign agent and every person who advocates, teaches, advises or practices the duty, necessity or propriety of controlling, conducting, seizing or overthrowing the government of the United States … shall register with the Secretary of State.”
There’s even a $5 filing fee.
By “subversive organization,” the law means “every corporation, society, association, camp, group, bund, political party, assembly, body or organization, composed of two or more persons, which directly or indirectly advocates, advises, teaches or practices the duty, necessity or propriety of controlling, conducting, seizing or overthrowing the government of the United States [or] of this State.”
Maricopa County Board of Supervisors is inviting all citizens to participate in the process of updating the strategic plan for the County by providing input on the strategic directions and priorities of the County over the next five years. This is your community, and the Board of Supervisors is offering everyone an opportunity to help shape the future of County government. Click here for the survey.
PHOENIX (AP) — Retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor has for years tried to convince states to adopt Arizona’s system of selecting judges, which aims to remove politics from the judiciary.
But a state Senate committee on Monday will consider asking voters to ditch that system and require judges be confirmed by the Senate every four years, a move supporters say would prevent judicial activism but which O’Connor called “a great step backwards.”
“We have an excellent judiciary at present, and in my opinion it would be against the best interests of Arizona to increase the partisanship in the selection of its judges,” O’Connor wrote in a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee dated Feb. 4.
A former Arizona state senator, O’Connor in 1974 helped send to voters the referendum creating the existing judicial selection system, which supporters call “merit selection.” It applies to state appellate courts and trial courts in Maricopa and Pima counties, where the vast majority of Arizona’s judges work.
For each judicial vacancy, nonpartisan commissions review applications and send the three most qualified candidates to the governor, who selects one. Voters decide whether to retain judges or remove them from office.
Sen. Jack Harper, R-Surprise, proposes that judges instead be nominated by the governor and confirmed by the Senate, similar to the federal system. Judges would have to be reconfirmed by the Senate every four years.
The bill is SCR1002, judicial appointments; senate confirmation.
Another bill being herd by the RULES committee Monday is SB1102, concealed weapons; permit; justification.
Don’t forget that legislation that you are interested in can be followed on the ALIS system.
