Interim agendas can be obtained via the Internet at http://www.azleg.state.az.us/InterimCommittees.asp

ARIZONA STATE LEGISLATURE

INTERIM MEETING NOTICE

OPEN TO THE PUBLIC

JOINT BORDER SECURITY ADVISORY COMMITTEE 2011

Date: Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Arizona Freedom Alliance

Its surprising how much you can accomplish if you don’t care who gets the credit

A message to all members of Arizona Freedom Alliance

I know this is long but PLEASE read (print and take with you to the meeting):

Redistricting Commission tomorrow by 9am (PLEASE ATTEND IF YOU CAN!)

Az Independent Redistricting Commission (arrive early with yellow tea party badge or “Don’t tread on me” little flag/badge-something you can hide but identify yourself to the Commissioners)(or make a yellow badge)

          Friday, July 8, 2011 at 9:30am  (arrive 9am or earlier for seat?)

          Executive Tower

          Pharmacy Board Meeting room 312

          1700 W. Washington

          Phoenix, Az 85007

          www.AZRedistricting.org

Talking Points from Others (Thank You):

Gov. Jan Brewer has called the Legislature into a special session Friday to extend unemployment benefits for nearly 15,000 Arizonans.

It is an eleventh-hour bid to keep checks flowing for people who are scheduled to exhaust their unemployment payments after Friday. To help win votes from some reluctant lawmakers, Brewer late Wednesday included a provision in her proposal that would hold Arizona businesses harmless from an expected increase in job-related taxes.

The session could be a lifeline for 14,697 workers who have been on unemployment for at least 79 weeks. By making a change to state law, Arizona would qualify for federal dollars to extend those benefits to a maximum 99 weeks.

Lawmakers would need to make a change to allow the state to calculate its unemployment numbers over a three-year period instead of two years.

The unemployment benefit is $212 a week, before taxes. Arizona’s unemployment rate is 9.3 percent.

The call for a session, to begin at 10 a.m. Friday, caps several weeks of arm twisting and negotiations between the governor and reluctant Republican lawmakers.

Many lawmakers have been philosophically opposed to the idea of people receiving 99 weeks of unemployment checks, believing it’s a disincentive to seeking a job. But Brewer, who said she shares the same disbelief that people could spend nearly two years on the unemployment rolls, said the recession had forced record unemployment.

read the rest.

New feature to be added soon: Governor’s scorecard

This latest update reflects legislative actions as of 4/20/2011. It was last updated 5/3/2011.

Howard Levine’s narrative:

We have done a final review of the bills. Some bills were added to the evaluation. Since the votes had already been cast, we gave (+1) or (-1) weights to them since the legislators had not been apprised of our position; they would have gotten weighted more heavily if we had added them before they were voted on. The sponsor weights were given greater weight to give proper credit to the bill sponsors. We try to weight the bills as early as possible in the session, but sometimes we miss a few bills. We tracked over 300 bills this session. Next year, we will give the bills we catch after they are voted on greater weight if we think that the Reagan Republican position on which was to vote should be obvious.

Read the rest.

$$ SHAMELESS PLUG – CONTRIBUTE TO THE AZ GOP $$

$$ GO TO http://www.donateazgop.com/ $$

Problem: The Phoenix City Council is seriously considering appointing a union guy to the vacant Dist. 2 seat, so that he can run as an incumbent in the August 30 Council election. After several setbacks, the labor unions are trying to assert themselves and this election promises to be a major battleground.

Our Response: We want our guy, Jim Waring, appointed to that seat so that he can run as an incumbent and have a better chance of being elected. Sal and Bill need another conservative in the city council.

Distribution: This message concerns the Phoenix Council election, but is going to all, even those who do not reside in Phoenix because:

A little end-of-season levity

Please forward this message to all like minded people in your contact list.

Is every one up for a little mischief? I hope so. In the last two weeks we learned two lessons from our beloved governor. 1) She is not listening to us. 2) Next year, we can not think of her as being on our side, and must start thinking in terms of veto override.

Since she is not listening, I thought we might have a little fun with bill HB2484, that would have given elected Precinct Committeemen sole power to elect legislative vacancies, removing the board of supervisors from the process. Unfortunately, she vetoed this bill along with many other worthy bills.

CAUTION: The AZLEG site has not been posting results for the last six days, so the information herein was gathered from newspaper accounts and may be far from complete or accurate.

Today the governor acted on eight bills on our watch list.

She vetoed four       She signed four

HB2484                   HB2644

HB2502                   SB1226

SB1201                   SB1402

SB1329                   SB1609

Bill descriptions on chart below.

In case you want to contact the governor to thank her or to express an opinion on a pending bill, here is her contact information:

(DON’T BOTHER, SHE IS NOT LISTENING TO US)

When the average cost for more than 15,000 city employees is $100,000 and a beginning clerk gets 40 1/2  days off the first year, there is a fundamental problem that must be fixed.

The bill would have injected private sector business practices into city government, improved efficiency, provided relief for taxpayers and created thousands of new jobs. We’ve already begun planning for a similar bill for next year.

CONTACT:

Sal DiCiccio
City of Phoenix
Councilman, District 6
602-262-7491
council.district.6@phoenix.gov

Today the governor acted on six bills on our watch list.

She vetoed two        She signed four

HB2707                   HB2006

SB1322                   HB2424

SB1406

SB1495

Bill descriptions on chart below.