Monthly Archives: October 2014

AZ Dems’ hill remains steep

GOP registration and turnout advantage is expanding or holding, not getting smaller.

AZ Dems make the case for cynicism about politics

Promoting ideas you abhor to siphon votes from an opponent is scraping the bottom.

Tobin misrepresented by both opponents and supporters

Outside groups are beating up Tobin’s opponent, Ann Kirkpatrick, over voting to increase the debt ceiling. But Tobin would likely be a business community Republican and share its view that defaulting on the national debt isn’t something to play around with.

How to fund Ducey’s K-12 waiting lists

The money already set aside for Brewer’s performance funding initiative should be diverted to clear waiting lists for successful charter and traditional K-12 programs.

DuVal doubles down on argument he’s already won

DuVal has won the education argument. To win the election, he probably needed to open up a second front against Ducey.

A weak argument for a legislative pay raise

I always support the legislative pay raise (Proposition 304). This year’s proposal would increase the salary from $24,000 to $35,000 a year.

The reason isn’t that I think it will make a bit of difference in who runs or how the state is governed. It’s just a matter of fairness. The job is fulltime for about five months, with significant time commitments the remainder of the year. That merits more than the current recompense.

(Published in the Arizona Republic, Oct. 26)

Prop. 303: Good idea, but why are we voting on it?

Prop. 303 is a legislative referral of a statute. The same number of votes required to refer it could have enacted it directly.

Prop. 122: Conservatives being silly

Amending the state constitution won’t provide increased authority over federal programs.

Playing Sisyphus to the economic Cassandras

Cowardly Supreme Court ducks gay marriage issue