1. Komen/Planned Parenthood smackdown. Supporters of comprehensive (and that includes reproductive) women’s health care pushed back hard on the Komen Foundation’s ideologically driven decision to pull breast cancer screening grants to low income women from Planned Parenthood and came out the winners. For some good national-level analysis on it, check out the excellent work Amanda Marcotte and Lauren Kelley have done. If you still doubt the extent of the victory, look no further than Arizona’s own Cathi Herrod of the socially conservative Center for Arizona Policy, who is very miffed about what she sees as Komen’s “waffling” and the pro-choice movement’s refusal to back down on women’s health.

Planned Parenthood has activated their base and is in full attack mode. We need to send a positive message to the Komen Foundation and pray they have courage and boldness during this time.

In that same blog post Herrod grouses about the Obama administration standing strong against the attempts of theocratic reactionaries to deny women contraception in private health plans. The moral of the story is that when we fight back, we win. And it hacks off Cathi Herrod, which is always a worthy endeavor.

2. Goldwater Institute exposed. The AZ legislature dropped a spate of bills designed to break public sector unions and cut the pay of teachers and first responders. It’s been described as “Wisconsin on steroids” and already the response is rivaling what happened in Wisconsin with educators, public safety workers, and advocates for working families amassing protests and press events to fight back. The Goldwater Institute was instrumental in drafting the anti-worker legislation, having feted WI Governor Scott Walker back in November at a fundraiser. GI is getting national exposure for this and much of it is not flattering. EJ Montini of the Arizona Republic called foul on both the Legislature and the (unelected) Goldwater Institute, whom he describes as “waging war on children, on sick people, on poor people, on teachers and on unions.” Kudos for the Mother Jones reference, EJ.

The moral of the story here is that the Goldwater Institute, which has presented itself for years as an objective academic organization serving lofty libertarian principles, is being exposed for what it really is – a big business lobbying group pushing ALEC legislation. Like the radical “pro-life” zealots who have finally gone too far by going after breast cancer screenings and birth control, GI has gone too far with this attack on highly regarded public servants.

Arizona progressives, let’s have a toast with the beverage of our choice over the nice victories of the past week and brace ourselves for next week.

Okay, people, did I not tell you the other day that being vigilant about reproductive justice is important? Personhood has reared its head in Arizona.

2010 was the year Arizona voters lost their damn minds and sent a bunch of reactionary whackaloons to the Arizona Legislature, essentially to show that Kenyan Usurper in the White House what was what. So we lost people like Rebecca Rios, a veteran Dem legislator and a strong advocate for children and the working poor, who had served her constituents and the state well. Pinal County voters sent Senator Rios packing and replaced her with Steve Smith, a businessman and Teabagger neophyte from the city of Maricopa.

It turns out that Senator Smith, in addition to being a simple-minded reactionary who marches in lockstep with Russell Pearce, is a dudebro with a massive preoccupation with what ladies are doing with their ladybusiness. I know. Shocking.

I really have to commend reporter Howie Fischer for asking Smith direct questions and making him go on record about his intentions with this “personhood” bill rather than let him blather about “the sanctity of life” and how much he cares about us delicate, fragile little ladies. Smith certainly tried to pull that paternalistic horsepuckey but couldn’t avoid making it crystal clear what a nasty piece of misogynist work he truly is.

But Smith said he sees a benefit in the legislation regardless of whether it ultimately leads to abortions once again being illegal in Arizona. He said the current informed consent requirements go only so far.

“But when they see what you’re killing is a human being in front of them, I think that’s hopefully just one more stopgate in their mental processing to say, ‘Oh, it’s not just an amalgamation of cells and globs of this and plasma this and blood this,’” he said.

“Mental processing”? WTF? It’s so unbelievably insulting. And creepy.

Smith’s legislation would apply in both cases of surgical and medical abortions, the latter involving the use of RU-486 which induces a woman to miscarry.

Less clear is how a law defining life as beginning at conception might affect the legal use of the “morning-after pill.”

One theory is that the pill, essentially a large dose of hormones, prevents a woman from ovulating. Smith said he subscribes to an alternate theory that the hormones prevent a fertilized egg from implanting in the uterus

I never cease to be amazed by how indiscriminately anti-choicers spew out uninformed medical opinions. It’s like they think that a lifelong burning obsession with what ladies are doing with their ladybits somehow bestows a license to practice medicine upon them. And the overwhelming consensus of medical science is that emergency contraception works by suppressing ovulation. You can “subscribe to an alternate theory” that it kills tiny little fertilized egg people all you want to but the doctors and scientists are still right and you are still wrong.

The first-term lawmaker said if it were up to him, all abortions would be illegal. That separates him from several “pro-life” politicians, including Gov. Jan Brewer who said she would allow exceptions, including in cases of rape or incest.

“I guess I’m a purist,” he said. “It’s easy for me as a man to say that because I’ll never be in that situation.”

Yeah, I guess.

Smith said his reasons go back more to his religious beliefs.

“God doesn’t make mistakes,” he said. “I believe that God is still on the throne and that’s happening for a reason, whether we get it or not.”

Just so we’re clear: The theology that guides Smith’s public policy views is that of a God who sits on a throne inflicting rape and incest upon his subjects for reasons known only to Him.

SB 1494 would require a specific mention of depression and related psychological distress as well as the risk of infection, hemorrhage, danger to subsequent pregnancies and infertility.

Smith acknowledged nothing in the law requires a woman to be told about the impacts of carrying a child to term, including how that will affect her life or finances. He said that is justified.

“They’re not going to a childbirth clinic, they’re going to an abortion clinic,” he said. “At an abortion clinic, they should be told the risks of having an abortion, not having the risk of having a child.”

He said any woman interested in the latter information should see a family doctor.

An OB GYN would be the best person to talk to about that. Some of them do abortions too, which would probably blow Steve Smith’s mind if he were aware of that.

The bill does require women to be informed of the “medical risks associated with carrying the child to term compared to undergoing an induced abortion” but that is the extent of the language dealing with that. It doesn’t state what risks of childbirth are to be discussed. The provisions dealing with risks of abortion are more specifically delineated.

(i) DEPRESSION AND RELATED PSYCHOLOGICAL DISTRESS.
(ii) THE RISK OF INFECTION, HEMORRHAGE, DANGER TO SUBSEQUENT PREGNANCIES AND INFERTILITY.
(g) A STATEMENT SETTING FORTH AN ACCURATE RATE OF DEATHS IN WHICH THE ABORTION PROCEDURE WAS A SUBSTANTIAL CONTRIBUTING FACTOR.

A comprehensive study published in the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology determined that childbirth poses a risk of death to the woman 14 times higher than abortion. Postpartum depression is a very real and debilitating condition that affects a not insignificant percentage of new mothers. There are undoubtedly women in Arizona who don’t have good access to information about abortion, childbirth, or medical procedures in general. so a law intended to inform them should cover all the risks to the extent possible, not just those cherry-picked and distorted by anti-choicers in the hopes of steering women toward certain decisions. Of course, anti-choicers tend to drop their feigned concern for women’s health the second they are confronted with the fact that abortion is safer than childbirth. “Abortion is safer than childbirth? For whom?”, asked the very first comment to the Reuters article I linked. When their b.s. about harmful effects to women is debunked they shift seamlessly back to the fetus, as if that had been what the discussion was about all along. You are never going to get a straight answer out of a rabid anti-choicer because that would require them to admit their movement is based on misogyny and not a concern for “life”.

The aspect of the bill that’s going to get the most attention is the “personhood at conception” part but the rest of it is pretty damned offensive too and I appreciate that Howie Fischer covered it in his report. As far as the personhood thing goes, Smith told Fischer he wants this bill to be the test case for Roe v Wade. We’ll see how far that goes. So far no other legislators have co-sponsored it. Though it’s not a ballot referendum as has been tried (very unsuccessfully) in other states, a “personhood” bill is a risky move in an election year nonetheless. Smith was careful not to target birth control in the language of the bill but it’s bleedingly obvious from his statements that he’s set his sights on that too. If other legislators join him the Democratic campaign ads will write themselves. And it was Smith who introduced last year’s spate of anti-immigrant bills that didn’t end up passing because the “business community” stopped pretending to be neutral and helpless and intervened to stop them. So it’s hard to tell at this point where this thing is going to go. But this is certainly no time to be complacent

“He didn’t feel that I had treated him cordially” in the book, Brewer explained to reporters Wednesday. “I said to him that I have all the respect in the world for the office of the president. The book is what the book is. I asked him if he read the book. He said he read the excerpt.”

A White House official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a private conversation, said that Obama told Brewer he would be happy to meet with her after receiving her invitation. However, the official added, Obama “did note that after their last meeting, a cordial discussion in the Oval Office, the governor inaccurately described the meeting in her book.”

The book is what the book is. The meeting is what the meeting was. The two don’t seem to agree.

Accounts of the June 2010 meeting on immigration between President Obama and Governor Brewer right after it happened are in accord with the White House official’s description. Here’s Tucson Sentinel reporter Dylan Smith’s report from June 3, 2010:

The media lead-up to Thursday’s meeting between Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer and President Obama would have you believe that some sort of ultimate showdown was about to occur.

The Washington Post said that the pair “brace for a tense meeting.”

ABC called it a “face off.”

Over at Fox, it was a “showdown.”

“A very cordial discussion,” was how Brewer described the meeting afterward.

So much for a Frankie Goes to Hollywood “Two Tribes”-style throwdown over illegal immigration, then.

“We agreed to try to work together in order to find some solution” to border security issues, the Arizona governor said after the meeting.

But that doesn’t make for good hagiography slingin’, does it? That meeting was turned into a showdown in Scorpions for Breakfast and Jan Brewer was transformed into a cross between Gary Cooper and Penelope Pitstop.

“We sat down and started with some chitchat,” she writes. “But after a few minutes, the president’s tone got serious – and condescending.”

Brewer’s magnum opus was ghostwritten by Jessica Gavora, wingnut welfare recipient, who had distinguished herself prior to Scorpions by contributing a wingnutty essay about the horror of unmarried women to a collection of wingnut welfaristarian diatribes about threats to freedom.

Obviously Gavora, a writer with so prodigious a talent for right wing spin, wasn’t going to let a meeting between President Obama and Governor Brewer taking place at the height of the SB1070 hubbub escape with a mere “cordial” description. Oh no. It had to be so much more epic than that. It looks like Governor Brewer wasn’t prepared for the possibility of President Obama being briefed on Gavora’s embellished account of their meeting in 2010. Not that it will matter to her fans but it should matter to people who report on political matters here.

I had been swapping newspaper stories with Olivia Ward of the Toronto Star on one of the saloon’s overstuffed leather couches as the bar filled with attendees of the American Legislative Exchange Council’s (ALEC) 2011 States and Nation Policy Summit (SNPS).

ALEC had repeatedly refused to grant me media credentials. Nevertheless, I was a paying guest at the resort and thought I’d catch some liquor-loose-lipped lawmakers and lobbyists at the bar.

I was about to turn in for the night when I saw Phil Black, director of Kierland’s security team, talking with a group of Phoenix police officers outside the entrance to the bar. The cops–moonlighting (in uniform) for ALEC–had arrived close to an hour prior, glanced in at Ward and me, and stationed themselves just to the side of the door.

Black entered the bar and came up to me. “Would you mind coming with me, sir?”

Doesn’t every great story of freedom and democracy start with that request? That quote is from a Jan. 11 In These Times article, in which reporter Beau Hodai describes being treated roughly by ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council) security guards and the management of the Westin Kierland Resort and Spa in Scottsdale, where ALEC held its annual conference. Bodai goes on to describe what went on in the conference:

Inside, Arizona House Majority Whip and ALEC State Chair Rep. Debbie Lesko kicked off her remarks on the Novartis stage with open mockery of ALEC’s critics. As she spoke several protesters were being processed for detention at Maricopa County jail.

“We have some critics–we saw a few of them outside–because a group recently wrote a large report criticizing ALEC,” said Lesko, referencing a report (“ALEC in Arizona: The Voice of Corporate Special Interests in the Halls of Arizona’s Legislature”) released two days earlier by People for the American Way Foundation and Common Cause. “And so, what better way is there to explain Arizona’s involvement in ALEC than by reading right from that very report? So, here we go:

” ‘Arizona has one of the highest concentrations of ALEC legislators of any state in the United States,’ ” Lesko began.

Uproarious applause.

” ‘At least 50 of the 90 legislators now serving in the legislature are ALEC members…’ “

Uproarious applause, with some shouts of woo! thrown in.

“Yay Arizona!” said Lesko. ” ‘Two-thirds of the Republican leadership in the Arizona House and Senate are ALEC members and the last three Arizona Senate presidents–including the current one–all served in ALEC roles.’ “

“Way to go Arizona!” shouted Lesko.

Uproarious applause.

Way to go Arizona! Olivia Ward, the reporter from the Toronto Star asked Scottsdale Westin manager Bruce Lange what was up with all the roughing up and ejecting of paid guests and he told her that Hodai was “persona non grata” according to ALEC because of his “history”. Of criticizing ALEC, obviously. Read the whole thing, including the extended version.

All of this brings to mind Arizona’s own Goldwater Institute (GI). GI wields a lot of influence in the news media and the in Legislature, and claims to stand for transparency. You would think GI would be all up in arms against the existence of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), where corporate lobbyists and state legislators meet in secret to collaborate on proposed legislation, which generally involves allocation of revenues. But no, they appear to be pretty much okay with secret meetings and security cops roughing up reporters. After all, they’re a board level member of ALEC.

O’Keefe’s video shows individuals in polling stations throughout New Hampshire attempting to vote using the name of recently deceased persons in this week’s primary election. While his video shows smooth-sailing for every attempt, the reality is that the actions were so suspicious, they prompted a voting supervisor to call the police. Before O’Keefe released his edited version of the attempts, news outlets were already printing reports on this suspicious behavior.

As a result, O’Keefe has demonstrated that attempting to systematically rig an election via voter impersonation fraud is not feasible at the scale necessary without being caught. Instead, proposed Voter ID laws would only make it harder for legitimate citizens to be able to vote. One election law expert told TPM that O’Keefe’s next video should “show how easy it is to rob a bank with a plastic gun.” While such a move could be done a few times, there are already laws against it—just like laws against voter impersonation—and such a person would get caught pretty quickly.

Of course, someone attempting to rob a bank with a plastic gun to prove what they perceive as a legal weakness would likely run afoul of the law—and it looks like O’Keefe’s attempts at voter fraud are no different.

But none of that is going to deter our GOP state legislators from attempting to erect yet more barriers to voting based on apocryphal tales of hordes of undocumented Mexicans casting votes. Back in December State Senator and crazy person Sylvia Allen made the claim to a Tea Party gathering in Payson. And she had proof, y’all. Eyewitness accounts of those people flagrantly registering to vote! In front of Hispanic markets and everything!

Sen. Allen also decried various efforts to increase voter turnouts, with things like mail-in ballots and online voter registration. Allen said efforts to make it easier to register and vote could make it much easier for illegal immigrants to sway elections. “There are people voting who should not vote and there are lots of them. It’s bad enough that they’re here without permission.”

She cited as an example the successful effort to recall Senate President Russell Pearce who gained national attention for pushing strong state measures to curb illegal immigration. She said people in front of markets in Hispanic communities in Pearce’s district registered people to vote.

“There were people at those markets who hated Russell Pearce. They were registering people for a month, but no one checked that. One reason they want open borders is they want to merge us with Mexico.

“They’re being lied to and told they can vote. We need to work on this. What are we going to do if people can’t see it’s you voting (with an online ballot or mail-in ballot). We need to see what we can do to protect our vote.”

Ironic how it was not too long ago mail-in ballots and online registration heavily favored the “right” kind of voters but now they have to go because the “wrong” kind of voters have more access to computers.

At this month’s Arizona Republican Party mandatory meeting, state committeemen will have the chance to return Pearce to an elected post. The former senator is one of two people running for first vice chair of the party, along with Diane Ortiz-Parsons, a veteran party activist from LD20. Pearce couldn’t be reached for comment, but it appears he is running as part of the “party platform slate” for executive officer positions that will be elected at the party’s Jan. 28 mandatory meeting. One GOP activist who has long been a supporter of Pearce’s criticized the former senator’s decision to seek a party leadership post: “This seems like a huge step down for Russell. It’s not a good political move, and it doesn’t make any sense to me.”

Yeah, really. The only reason I can think of is he’s angling for state chair. There may be other motivations but I’m not really interested enough to pursue them. What I do want to direct y’all’s attention to is the actual Arizona Republican Platform, which is the titular holy writ of this insurgent state party officer slate.

Quoth Section 3 (Government Reform) Item 29, page 4 of 7 of the Sacred Text:

We strongly support transparency in government regarding how taxpayer money is spent and with regard to actual and potential conflicts of interest on the part of government officials – elected and appointed – who are making decisions regarding government spending or government policy. This information should be provided to the public in a convenient, accessible, inexpensive format such as on a web site.

Well alrighty then! I guess we can expect Mr. Pearce and his platoon of party platform adherents to get right on demanding that every ALEC member Republican AZ legislator relinquish his or her membership posthaste!

So the Arizona redistricting maps are (tentatively) approved and Politico picked up the story:

Colleen Mathis finally got her revenge.

Two months ago, Arizona Republicans – led by Gov. Jan Brewer – impeached Mathis in protest of a Democratic-friendly remap the independent redistricting commission she presides over proposed.

On Tuesday evening, after the Arizona Supreme Court reinstated Mathis to the commission, the independent panel turned around and approved a similar map that puts Republicans in a bind.

A couple of my Dem friends, understandably, didn’t care for the spin of the piece. My dear friend and Tempe activist extraordinaire Lauren Kuby made this astute observation in the comments section:

Your article is biased. The approved plan also positions the Republicans “to compete for a majority of the state’s nine CDs.” Because they have 4 safe seats, they are more likely to make it to 5 seats, having to win only 1 of the 3 competitive districts.

This prompted the esteemed Dr. Byron Schlomach of the *cough* nonpartisan Goldwater Institute (motto: We Regurgitate Several Craptacular “Studies” Per Year About How Awesome Tax Cuts Are Which Pays Our Bloated Salaries While We Spend The Rest Of The Time Surfing The Web) to respond to Lauren with this breathtakingly risible statement:

What???? Okay, I realize that human language is a highly iterative medium and words do take on different meanings over time. But there are some words that have such specific definitions and such historical significance that you don’t get to go changing them willy-nilly because you want to use them to describe things that mean the exact opposite thing.

Gerrymander: Verb: Manipulate the boundaries of (an electoral constituency) so as to favor one party or class.

You can have gerrymandered districts OR you can have competitive districts. You cannot have both. It is so internally inconsistent to say that competitive districts are gerrymandered districts that Texas A&M should demand his undergrad degree back. And a Congressional map with 4 safe Republican districts and 2 safe Democratic districts, gerrymandered or not, favors Republicans not Democrats.

Sheesh.

After questioning the attorney general and listening to his responses during the December 8 Judiciary Hearing, I became increasingly frustrated by his refusal to answer straightforward questions or hold individuals within the Justice Department accountable for the Fast and Furious debacle.

Fast and Furious was a deeply flawed program. Since its implementation, U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry and numerous Mexican citizens have been killed by criminals using weapons obtained through the program. These facts alone signify a lack of leadership and control within the Justice Department that warrant the removal of certain individuals who authorized and failed to supervise the damaging operation.

Republicans here are leaning hard on this Fast and Furious talking point since the Justice Department released its report describing how Joe Arpaio and the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office engage in racial profiling and brutality toward inmates, especially Latino ones. This came on the heels of the revelation that MCSO botched hundreds of child sex abuse cases. The usual Republican M.O. is distraction and projection and this is what’s going on here: Point the finger at Holder, Obama, and Fast and Furious (distraction) while claiming the Justice Department are the ones distracting with the MCSO report (projection). Repeat ad nauseum.

Let’s be clear, Operation Fast and Furious appears to be a poorly conceived, poorly executed strategy that resulted in multiple tragedies. I can’t think of anything more harebrained and ill-advised than “let’s demonstrate the poor results of no controls on a dangerous activity with a ‘controlled’ experiment where we remove all the controls!” You can’t even call it ironic when things go, um, awry. It’s like unleashing a known invasive species into a known vulnerable habitat and being shocked when it devours everything in sight. So it looks very bad and deserves a thorough investigation. Heads should roll up to and including the highest level of the DOJ, if necessary.

Same goes for MCSO. It’s disgusting and immoral to foster an institutional climate of bigotry and persecution as a law enforcement agency. It’s unconscionable to fail to pursue justice in crimes against children. And while I’m not the slightest bit inclined to help Republicans score political points or win elections, I am a citizen so I’m not going to give a Democratic-led agency a free pass if they’ve screwed up. I want the Maricopa Sheriff AND the ATF to be held accountable for any misdeeds either may have committed. When Republicans use Fast and Furious as a red herring to diminish or supplant the MCSO scandal we all lose.

Brewer’s statement said she believed the investigation was a politically motivated attack on her family. She said she believes it began with an anonymous complaint to Social Security before last year’s election.

Cry me a river, will ya? Had Jan Brewer not lucked into a successful political career by spouting simplistic social conservative platitudes and were simply Jan Brewer, x-ray tech of Glendale, whatever public assistance she and her family were getting (including everything going to her institutionalized son) would be characterized as “welfare”. She’d be exactly the kind of person whom Republican politicians call a “loser” and whom they derisively suggest should turn to churches and private charity. Because, you know, $619 a day for a state facility and $450 a month or so for disability is forcibly redistributing wealth from hardworking achieving Job Creators^TM, isn’t it? And maybe she should be drug tested, like conservative lawmakers want other recipients of government aid to be.

My Google Alert for Center for Arizona Policy popped up last night and it was Cathi Herrod’s weekly “5 Minutes for Families”. The latest installment is about the importance of stalwartness in protecting traditional marriage from the liberal gay plague: Never Let Our Guard Down.

While the marriage amendment victory was a critical step to protecting marriage in Arizona, we would be foolish to think our work is done to ensure marriage is never redefined. A recent poll from the liberal Public Policy Polling group claims a smaller margin of Arizona voters now support traditional marriage – 45% say same-sex “marriage” should be illegal, and 44% say it should be legal. Their poll also says that a majority of voters think that Arizona should establish marriage counterfeits like domestic partnerships.

Of course, the poll did not ask whether marriage should be defined as only the union of one man and one woman. The questions were not exactly neutral, and the polling company typically works for those who want to redefine marriage. The obvious intent is to begin laying a foundation to ask Arizona voters to redefine marriage in the next ten years or so.

The poll shows the “never give up” commitment of marriage opponents to eventually win on the marriage issue. These organizations are well funded and are well organized. Marriage opponents will be out registering voters and working hard to influence the 2012 elections. At CAP, our team will never let our guard down in our stand to see marriage stay the union of one man and one woman.

They certainly won’t. And their dedication to the pursuit of micromanaging your personal life for the Lord does not preclude dishonest Earthly means to attain Heavenly theocratic ends. Note Herrod’s mention of “marriage counterfeits like domestic partnerships”. Now, this is interesting because Prop 102 in 2008 was the “Marriage Protection Act”. It was sold to voters as a state constitutional amendment that would simply define marriage as a union between one man and one woman. The proponents of the measure made a big deal of emphasizing that the state of marriage, and only marriage, was under consideration.

This was because in 2006 Arizona voters had narrowly defeated a proposed amendment with broader language that included denying legal rights to all unmarried couples.

To preserve and protect marriage in this state, only a union between one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage by this state or its political subdivisions and no legal status for unmarried persons shall be created or recognized by this state or its political subdivisions that is similar to that of marriage.

So they came back two years later.

Didn’t we already vote on this?

Nope. In 2006, the voters focused on a different issue—benefits for unmarried couples. Prop 102 is a different amendment with different language. Prop 102 is 20 simple and clear words that define marriage as only the union of one man and one woman. That’s all.

But, I believe everyone is entitled to the same rights. Doesn’t Prop 102 take rights away from some people?

No. Prop 102 does not take rights away from anyone. Prop 102 simply defines marriage as the union of one man and one woman. Everyone has the right to live as they choose, but no one has the right to redefine marriage for all of society. Voting “yes” on Prop 102 secures the definition of marriage for future generations.

See? You were being silly and overwrought if you thought Prop 102 was an effort to invalidate unmarried relationships! It was all about marriage. Marriage, marriage, marriage. Oh wait.

Their poll also says that a majority of voters think that Arizona should establish marriage counterfeits like domestic partnerships.

Geez, why would Cathi care about people in alternative arrangements now that the precious holy institution of hetero marriage is secure?

After Prop. 107 went down to defeat by a vote of 48-52 percent, supporters of same-sex marriage adopted a clear strategy: They would back new partnership benefits, then frame the public debate around protecting those benefits, all the while paving the way for same-sex marriage. But opponents of gay marriage also learned from their loss. They decided to push for a simple, straightforward amendment that would enshrine the traditional definition of marriage without touching the domestic partnership issues raised in 2006, thus making it difficult for the opposition to obscure the central issue. “Just the simple definition of marriage was what we wanted to do,” said Herrod. “Other issues related to that would be addressed at a different time.”

Cathi and her crew got right on “other issues related to that” once Jan Brewer became Governor, didn’t they?