But Cheuvront, who said he made it known months ago he would run again for the Senate, throws a monkey wrench into those plans.

“I said if you’re going to run as a team, I’m going to run with my mom,” Cheuvront said.

I thought there was nothing I hated more than Democratic primaries (with good reason), but now I can amend that to say there’s nothing I hate more than vindictive Democrats who force a primary because someone didn’t play nice.*

I guess Cheuv thinks we’re in high school.

Memories of high school bullies aside, I can’t help but wonder where Cheuvront’s heart is. If you remember your local history, you’ll remember that Cheuvront ran for Justice of the Peace in 2010 when he got termed out of the Senate, but he got kicked off the ballot for using the wrong petitions to collect signatures. Not that this matters significantly, except it indicates a fickle, nonchalant, and arrogant attitude – either he was planning on dropping JP mid-term to run for the Senate seat again or he’s punishing other Dems for his petition mistake and doesn’t care what seat he runs for.

Regardless of Cheuvront’s reasons for running, he didn’t need to be vindictive about it. It’s a shame he’s forcing a primary in the House by dragging his mom into the race. Having said that, I’ll be open-minded and listen to all the House candidates. A part of me can’t help but consider the irony of Cheuvront losing the Senate primary but his mom, Jean McDermott, winning a House primary. I just think it’s kind of a cool thing for McDermott to have done.

As for the Senate, Cheuvront hasn’t endeared himself to me with his retaliatory and immature comments, but I can’t imagine a scenario where I’d vote for him over Rep. Hobbs anyway.

Welcome to the 2012 Legislative Races!

*This isn’t quite true. There are a lot of things I hate more than Democratic primaries, like green peas, comic sans, and people who think ‘irregardless’ is a word.

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.

We’ve been moving all weekend so I didn’t have a chance to post and I’m exhausted from it all so I don’t have the energy to opine about everything (and it’s quite a lot) going on in AZ. But allow me to take this moment to express hope and confidence that the following will happen tomorrow:

Greg Stanton gets elected Mayor of Phoenix – A boon for the fifth largest city in the U.S. and, at risk of sounding Maricopa County-centric here, a badly needed shot in the arm for Arizona Democrats.

Senate President Russell Pearce recalled and replaced by Jerry Lewis – Lewis is a conservative Republican who agrees with Pearce on most issues so it won’t change the makeup of the Legislature. But Pearce is a neo-Nazi sympathizing wife beater in addition to that so good riddance. And well done to all the people involved with the recall, who believed in the cause from the very beginning, despite the naysayers.

Jonathan Rothschild elected Mayor of Tucson – A good man with a good plan.

Elsewhere in the nation:

Ohio Issue 2 repeals SB5 with a majority “no” vote – Ohio Senate Bill 5 (2011) “will impact the state’s 400,000 public workers, restricting their ability to strike and collectively bargain. As it stands, the bill would only permit public employees to collectively bargain for wages, preventing them from collectively bargaining for health insurance and pensions. It would also prohibit all public employees from striking and could increase employee contributions for pensions and healthcare.”

Mississippi Measure 26 defeated – Would bestow legal personhood upon fertilized eggs. Stupidosity extraordinaire and could pose horrifying consequences to women if enacted.

There are many, many other races in Arizona and elsewhere I didn’t mention that are very important too. I hope they all go the right way. Tomorrow is a big day.

Also, CAP sent questionnaires to Russell Pearce and Jerry Lewis (LDS members both, BTW) for the recall election. Most of the questions were standard fare (abortion, gays, gambling, regulating strip clubs) and Pearce and Lewis answered almost identically, favoring the conservative position. (What, you really thought Jerry Lewis was a left wing plant?)

But two questions struck me as incongruous with CAP’s churchy “family values” mission.

Question 10 – Requiring employers to recognize a union without a secret ballot election by their employees (called “card check”).

Uh, are they doing pagan rituals at the union meetings these days?

Question 14 – Passing state laws that authorize law enforcement officials to enforce federal immigration laws.

Okay, when has CAP ever been concerned about the plight of immigrant families, ever? They never say boo when families are ripped apart by raids They took no position on SB1070 in 2010.

“It’s just a matter of resources,” said Aaron Baer, communications director for the Center for Arizona Policy. “We’re a relatively small operation and there are only so many issues we can work on. And because of that, immigration is just not something that we feel called to.”

Right, resources. Hey, I guess it doesn’t take much to include a question on their recall election questionnaire about immigration. I don’t suppose they were hoping that one of the candidates would answer the “wrong” way, do you?

Partisan candidates seeking the nominations of their party often simply address the issues of a narrow group of voters who vote in a Primary Election. Under Open Government, all candidates, regardless of their political party, will compete against each other in the August General Election. That includes all candidates for local, state, and Federal office – except for President and Vice President. As a result, candidates will be forced to address issues of importance to ALL of us – Independents, Democrats, AND Republicans alike. The Results

EVERY voter will be permitted to vote in EVERY election.

Voters will have real choices, with candidates who better represent all the people of Arizona rather than just the political parties, extreme views of narrow interests, and the lobbyists.

More open-minded candidates guided by common sense, instead of extreme ideology from either side of the political spectrum, to run for office.

More Independent-minded candidates accountable to the voters, and not the political bosses.

Okay, people in Arizona who say things like “extreme ideology from either side the political spectrum” in earnest fall into two basic categories: 1. clueless 2. lying. And I have very little patience for them, especially when they hold a position in the community in which they ought to know good and damn well where the problem lies. But I digress. For all its pleasing buzzwords (open! free! choice! independent!) this top two primary proposal lacks something crucial: evidence. Former Phoenix Mayor Paul Johnson (Dem turned independent) actually offers his own anecdotal decades-old experience as a candidate as proof that his initiative will work:

Johnson said there’s a marked difference between how a candidate runs in a nonpartisan primary and how he or she runs in a party primary. He should know: He has run in both, first as a candidate for Phoenix mayor and later through two Democratic primaries for governor.

There’s a marked difference because city races are about trash collection and traffic lights whereas legislative and executive office races are more likely to be fought over social issues like abortion and gay marriage. That’s not going to change because they’re all on the same ballot. Nor will it necessarily increase turnout. Independent Arizona voters can already vote in either primary and the ability to do so has not caused them to participate in primaries in significant numbers. Nonpartisan city elections are typically low turnout affairs as well. The backers of this top two primary initiative are making grand promises based on platitudes and fairy dust. How exactly will it diminish lobbyist influence, for example?

The sucky thing is that this useless (and possibly counterproductive) measure will probably make it to the ballot and be voted in as it was in California last year. Washington adopted it a few years ago and Louisiana has had a top two primary system since 1975. How has that worked to make Louisiana a more moderate state? Let’s see, in the 1991 gubernatorial primary the top two candidates were the Democratic Lieutenant Governor Edwin Edwards and Republican David Duke. Yes, that David Duke. The Grand Dragon KKK David Duke. Look, if David freaking Duke can get through your supposedly moderating primary system under any circumstances, you ain’t got much of a moderating primary system there, sport.

And how am I getting “real choices” in the general election if the top two in the primary happened to be, oh say, JD Hayworth and Jeff Flake? Something tells me Mayor Johnson would greet that as a most welcome result. Jeff Flake is the moderate one! This gets me back to the Amiable Wingnut problem and how nice behavior masks rabid ideology to the extent that Flake is viewed as moderate by many people (including Dems) even though he votes in lockstep with Michele Bachmann*. Furthermore, non-major party candidates and voters would be effectively disenfranchised. How about write-in votes? Will they not count too? Think that’s unimportant? Ask Senator Murkowski of Alaska about that. Yeah, the more I think about this top two primary system the less “choice” and “freedom” I’m seeing.

*Unfortunately this doesn’t work both ways. Elected Democrats in Arizona don’t get moderate cred for civilized behavior, which is odd since most elected Dems here are civilized and moderate. If there really were a Democratic equivalent to the John Bircher whackaloon mob on the GOP side in our state, they’d be socialists or communists. But our Dems are not even close to that.

King posted a memo from Maricopa County GOP Chair Rob Haney:

Dear EGC members,

Because of the air conditioning problem at the State HQ, our EGC meeting on May 5th will be held at the Goldwater Institute at 500 East Coronado Rd.

Representatives from the Maricopa County Elections Department will give a presentation on redistricting and their plan on saving the county large sums of money in future elections. This plan will include eliminating 300 to 400 precincts by combining adjoining precincts. They would like your thoughts on the plan since the plan will naturally involve reducing the PC quota by one for each precinct that is eliminated..

Since the topic is of great significance, I plan to devote the entire time to their presentation, your questions and your input about the plan.

Rob

Ah yes. Good old “nonpartisan educational organization” Goldwater.

Here’s a fun musical tribute to our embattled GOP state chair:

Greg Stanton is another candidate who risks being underestimated. Too polished. Too smooth. Too Mister Perfect looks. More than a touch of ambition. Very unlike Mayor Phil Gordon but still another lawyer. But beneath this and the councilman-like talk about “neighborhoods” and “safety,” Stanton has an incisive intellect and a sharp understanding that, as he puts it, Phoenix is “a city at a crossroads.” More than his rivals, he understands the need to make the transition into quality growth and sustainability. After representing the mostly Republican district (he’s a Democrat) that includes Ahwatukee, North Central, Arcadia and Biltmore for nine years on City Council, he went to work as a deputy attorney general for Terry Goddard. Stanton was on the right side in voting against zoning east Camelback for more skyscrapers and in opposing the disastrous sprawl monster, CityNorth. Stanton would be the best choice.

Talton is known for being crotchety and obstreperous but his credentials are solid. He’s an economist who had a column for the Republic for several years in addition to writing the critically acclaimed David Mapstone mystery series, set in Phoenix. No one can touch him as a scholar of Phoenix. And the love and care he has for his birthplace are evident in his writings on the city. So what I’m saying is that this endorsement is a big deal.

Talton ends his piece with a point that bears consideration:

This would have been the time to put a referendum before the voters for a strong mayor form of government, as well as expanding the Council with at-large members and somehow addressing the problem that the city’s heart is represented by a couple of councilmen, instead of the Council as a whole. That could have been Gordon’s legacy. A strong mayor system is not a cure-all. But Phoenix is the largest city in the nation with a council-manager form of government. It doesn’t work for a city so large and so at risk.

One of those bills would allow out-of-state insurers to sell policies in Arizona that don’t have to comply with state coverage mandates. But just to make it so Arizona insurers won’t be deprived of being able to collect premiums without delivering actual health care, they also want to waive the requirement that Arizona insurance companies cover a wide range of treatments.

Guess who is a prime sponsor of this? None other than Arizona’s Mostest Pro Lifest Legislator, Nancy Barto. She who called a 2009 anti-abortion measure “the ultimate health care bill for children”. Postpartum, those children better hope that the insurance policy their parents chose is with a company that chooses to cover things like diabetes or cancer should they be diagnosed with them. Because Nancy’s really pro-choice when it comes to what health insurance companies ought to be compelled to do to save the lives of babies she wants women to be forced to have. “I think the market will handle that,” she said Wednesday.

In a massive show of force on Monday, the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office executed a search warrant and arrested the homeowner, Jesus Llovera, on charges of suspected cockfighting.

Llovera was alone in the house at the time of the arrest, and he was unarmed.

“I think taxpayers should be shocked,” said Robert Campus, Llovera’s attorney. Campus said he believes the operation costs tens of thousands of dollars.

Deputies had no probable cause to believe Llovera was armed or dangerous, according to Campus.

Campus said he believes the entire scene was basically a stage, to help actor Steven Seagal’s TV show, “Lawman.”

Seagal was riding in the tank.

The Sheriff’s Department has entered into a contract with Seagal and part of that contract gives Seagal carte blanche to go along with the sheriff as he arrests people.

Your Maricopa County taxpayer dollars at work: Helping a pathetic aging has-been celebrity feel relevant. Steven Seagal too.

Dupnik took up his cause again on Monday. And, in response, we have to say at last . . . enough. Enough attacks, sheriff. Enough vitriol. It is well past time for the sheriff of Pima County to get a grip on his emotions and remember his duty.

It is well past time!

Let me get this straight: The Republic gave Joe Arpaio a pass for years until the Maricopa County Sheriff’s behavior got so megalomanical and vindictive that even they couldn’t indulge him any longer but now they are quick to condemn Pima Sheriff Clarence Dupnik for being indecorous enough to call attention to uncomfortable truths about the political climate in Arizona.

Really?

Sheriff Dupnik is four years younger than Sheriff Arpaio and has about as long a career in law enforcement. Dupnik has served the people of Pima County since 1980. Twelve years longer than Arpaio has been Maricopa County’s Sheriff. Somehow, Dupnik managed to do his job for over three decades in relative obscurity. In that time he hasn’t become the grotesque caricature of narcissism that Arpaio has. Looks like Clarence Dupnik already had a grip on his emotions. There’s a difference between becoming famous for something you said (Dupnik) and desperately seeking fame at all times (Arpaio). Wish the Republic would learn the difference.