This past Monday the AZ Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on SB1474, the “guns on campus” bill, which would allow concealed weapons to be carried on Arizona college campuses. My dear friend Jennifer Longdon testified against it. She had expected to get 5 minutes to speak but it was shortened to 3 minutes due to the time constraints of so many people showing up to speak on it (mostly against). I watched her abbreviated testimony online and she did great. But she wanted people to know all of what she wanted to say so she posted her complete prepared remarks on her blog. Jen draws upon her considerable personal experience to refute the arguments put forth by the gun lobby and, well, you just have to read it for yourself.

Lots of people did show up to oppose the bill. Jen told me that about 70 people, including law enforcement officers and university and student representatives, signed up in opposition to the bill and 12 in support. I asked her if any business groups or Chambers of Commerce spoke for or against the bill. She said the only input from business was from Raytheon, which asked for a carve-out.

In contrast, business group reps showed up in full force at a Senate Economic Development and Jobs Creation Committee on Wednesday in support of SB1336, a “tort reform” measure that would limit product liability damages. On one level I can understand it: corporate lobbyists have priorities. But on another level I have to ask, once again, why we’re supposed to trust the wise, pragmatic counsel of business leaders to shape policy and select suitable candidates for elective office when said leaders can’t even be bothered to put up the slightest opposition to scary and stupid legislation like allowing guns on college campuses.

It’s ridiculous, but this article in the LA Times about the Supreme Count decision on Clean Elections last summer captures the essence bf the false premises and dishonest motives behind the drive to repeal the program:

Conservative political neophytes like Smith have steadily taken over Arizona politics since voters passed the Clean Elections Act in 1998, a demonstration that the real-world effects of policy can defy partisan stereotypes. Now conservatives are scrambling to come up with new ways to finance challengers to the more centrist Republicans who once dominated state politics.

“That’s something that’s being lost in the reaction to this Supreme Court decision,” said Rudy Espino, a political scientist at Arizona State University. “This decision could actually help Democrats in the next election.”

Espino noted that conservatives — frequently those who favor a tough stance against illegal immigration — have steadily ousted incumbent Republicans in primaries over the years, which are dominated by party activists. Especially in legislative races, the winner of the GOP primary usually wins the election. That’s shifted Arizona’s politics strongly to the right.

“Clean Elections was one of those decisions that is an example of unintended consequences,” Espino said.

That narrative of Clean Elections pushing Arizona Republicans to the right is plausible, to the extent that it requires one to ignore the rest of the country completely. Arizona is one of very few states in the country that has any type of public campaign finances but we’re far from the only state plagued by wild-eyed right wing zealot lawmakers acting weird and introducing harmful bills. I like to use the example of Michele Bachmann, who got all the way from school board to the Minnesota state assembly to Congress to (briefly) being considered as serious Presidential candidate. Bachmann, who is clearly off her rocker, never received a dime of public campaign finance. Senator Steve Smith, referenced in the article, was elected in 2010 when the Tea Party wave swept rabid conservative neophytes in to state legislatures and Congressional seats across the nation. He credits Clean Elections for his victory, which is a true statement, in a sense, since that’s where he got his campaign funding. But you can’t blame Clean Elections for the wingnuttiness of Arizona legislators Frank Antenori, Scott Bundgaard, Lori Klein, Al Melvin, Terri Proud, Amanda Reeve, or Ted Vogt, to name a few, since none of them ran Clean.

Put the blame where it lies: On conservative think tanks, evangelical religious movements, and talk radio and Fox News propagandists. Also on all the self-serving Republican lobbyists and consultants in Arizona who were only too eager to push wedge issues election after election to get the flock to the polls so their big clients could get their tax cuts and deregulation. Pointing the finger and crying “Clean Elections done it!” absolves them of their past responsibility and allows them to pretend they can’t help having to donate to Senator Lori Klein, gun brandishin’ Tea Partier and GOP fundraiser “extraordinaire” now. They’ll wring their hands over the occasional embarrassment of a Birther bill but overall they’ve gotten most of what they want out of the Republican-controlled legislature.

Which is why the argument that getting rid of Clean Elections will help Democrats is simply ludicrous. With the exception of the few districts in which Dem voters are a majority, Democratic candidates in Arizona are usually at a substantial disadvantage against Republicans in traditional fundraising. Make no mistake, that is why business interests are so keen on killing public campaign financing.

“If the whole system went away, both Democrats and Republicans would have to reach out to a broader spectrum of people,” said Glenn Hamer, president of the Arizona Chamber of Commerce. “We would view that as a positive.”

Oh please. Hamer is disingenuously playing the “both sides are equally bad” false equivalence card here. The whackadoodles are on the Republican side and he knows it. He played a part in getting them there since he’s a former executive director of the AZ GOP. And he’s trying to pretend that the elitism at the heart of opposition to Clean Elections is truly populist. Nice try, Chamber of Commerce dude. The argument against Clean Elections is rooted in elitism. The narrative is that political extremism emanates from the working classes, and if you let the riffraff have a crack at elected office everything goes to hell. So it’s best to keep elected offices in the hands of the consultants, lobbyists, and business leaders who are the proper stewards of democracy. For some reason there are journalists, Democratic leaders, and even university professors who buy it.

2. Define “medical emergency” to encompass “significant health risks,” namely only those circumstances in which a pregnant woman’s life or a major, physical bodily function is threatened.

Nebraska passed a similar law last year and this New York Times piece described that ghastly consequences to one Nebraska woman as a result of their 20 week abortion ban:

They permit abortions after 20 weeks only to avert the death or “serious physical impairment of a major bodily function” of the mother. There are no exceptions for rape or incest, none for less dire medical threats or mental health.

Nor, under the laws, is an abortion allowed after 20 weeks when a fetus is discovered to be catastrophically impaired but still living, as is sometimes discovered by routine ultrasounds in midpregnancy.

Last fall, Danielle and Robb Deaver of Grand Island, Neb., found that their state’s new law intruded in a wrenching personal decision. Ms. Deaver, 35, a registered nurse, was pregnant with a daughter in a wanted pregnancy, she said. She and her husband were devastated when her water broke at 22 weeks and her amniotic fluid did not rebuild.

Her doctors said that the lung and limb development of the fetus had stopped, that it had a remote chance of being born alive or able to breathe, and that she faced a chance of serious infection.

In what might have been a routine if painful choice in the past, Ms. Deaver and her husband decided to seek induced labor rather than wait for the fetus to die or emerge. But inducing labor, if it is not to save the life of the fetus, is legally defined as abortion, and doctors and hospital lawyers concluded that the procedure would be illegal under Nebraska’s new law.

After 10 days of frustration and anguish, Ms. Deaver went into labor naturally; the baby died within 15 minutes and Ms. Deaver had to be treated with intravenous antibiotics for an infection that developed.

Ms. Deaver said she got angry only after the grief had settled. “This should have been a private decision, made between me, my husband and my doctor,” she said in a telephone interview.

These arbitrary abortion restrictions spring from the fervid imaginations of social conservatives who believe that women routinely abort late term, viable pregnancies on a whim. SB2838 is riddled with language that patronizes women and treats us like mentally and morally deficient children. In the fantasy world Kimberly Yee inhabits, there are practically never valid health reasons to terminate a pregnancy and she, despite her complete lack of medical credentials, is qualified to substitute her judgment for that of trained health care providers on the medical necessity of the procedure. And such a necessity is practically nonexistent, as far as she’s concerned. A severe fetal deformity is no reason to abort until the woman has gone into a life threatening infection.

Mind you, this will probably be held out as the “moderate” alternative to Sen. Smith’s personhood bill.

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.

Last week, someone prefaced a comment to me thusly. I’ve heard variants of that line for years, mostly from fellow liberals and centrists who think some of us ladies spend too much time dwelling on reproductive justice when there are so many more Important Things^TM we ought to be caring about. Such as the economy. Or the Fiesta Bowl scandal.

I care about reproductive justice for women, a lot. So much so that I devote a lot of time to researching and blogging about it. And it’s about far more than safe, legal abortion, thank you very much. It’s about access to contraception to prevent unplanned pregnancy and also about STD screenings to detect conditions that could lead to infertility or deadly cancers. So I consider it a worthwhile use of my time and energy, thank you very much. I honestly wish I didn’t have to devote any time to this. I wish it were commonly accepted wisdom in this country that women should be able to determine when and whether to have children and that everyone deserves respectful medical care and accurate information about sexual health. But it’s not. The radical right certainly isn’t backing off on their freakish crusade to regulate the ladies. When the Tea Party freshman class took over Congress in 2011, the first thing they did was to try to defund Planned Parenthood. This was after the media assured us that this Tea Party movement was totally driven by anger over excessive government spending and corruption.

Bishop Thomas Olmsted of the Phoenix diocese is having a hissyfit over the health care law’s mandate for private insurance to cover birth control. This makes total sense, if you’re not a crazy sex-obsessed authoritarian, since contraception prevents unplanned pregnancies and saves a lot of money. It’s so sensible that 77% of Americans approve of insurers having to cover contraception. Not that public opinion should be the determinant of these things but public opinion (including that of most Catholics) is clearly on the side of birth control. Yet Olmsted and other extremists who oppose birth control are wielding influence over public policy. Recently the Obama administration overruled the FDA on expanding over-the-counter-access to Plan B. The move drew a lot of criticism from pro-choice groups and it was largely based on wild falsehoods about the Morning After Pill (that it causes abortions and leads to promiscuity). So a medication that reduces the risk of pregnancy after unprotected intercourse, and therefore the risk of needing an abortion, remains less available in order to placate the “pro-life” people. That makes a lot of sense, doesn’t it?

Liberals and moderates who treat reproductive rights like a trivial issue obviously aren’t paying attention to the extent that opposition to them is a central issue in right wing politics. Anxiety and anger over women’s liberation and the sexual revolution have definitely fueled the ascendance of more than a few Republican politicians in Arizona and across the country. For example, Congressman Trent Franks isn’t where he is because of his position on marginal tax rates. He was motivated to go into politics and won primaries for the state legislature and Congress because of his rabid “pro-life” stance. I would argue that this issue has more to do with the GOP going hard to the right and driving out moderates than any other. And 2011 was the year that the movement really came out and admitted they’re after birth control access in addition to legalized abortion.

So yeah, it’s actually important.

“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.

Per Clint Bolick of the Goldwater Institute (GI):

It’s not every day that the New York Times makes a compelling case against government giveaways. But a recent page-one article underscored that the Solyndra scandal was only the tip of the solar-subsidy iceberg. Huge companies like Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, General Electric, utilities including Exelon and NRG, and even Google are receiving government guarantees that ensure large profits with virtually no risk — except to the taxpayer.

Bolick cites a November 2011 NYT article, “A Gold Rush of Subsidies”, describing various federal, state, and local incentives and suggesting that caution is in order when handing out subsidies to wealthy companies where profit is all but insured and private risk is minimized. Fair enough, but Bolick sees a “compelling case” to eliminate all government incentives for solar where no such case was made in the article. Bolick ignores the pro-subsidy argument that writers Eric Lipton and Cifford Krauss included in their piece:

Industry executives and other supporters of the subsidies say that the public money was vital to the projects, in part because financing for renewable energy projects dried up during the recession. They also note that more traditional energy sectors, like oil and natural gas, get heavy subsidies of their own. For example, in the 2010 fiscal year, the oil and gas producers got federal tax breaks of $2.7 billion, according to an analysis by the Energy Information Administration.

“These programs just level the playing field for what oil and gas and nuclear industries have enjoyed for the last 50 years,” said Rhone Resch, president of Solar Energy Industries Association. “Do you have to provide more policy support and funding initially? Absolutely. But the result is more energy security, clean energy and domestic jobs.”

Michael E. Webber, associate director of the Center for International Energy and Environmental Policy at the University of Texas, Austin, said renewable energy subsidies were a worthy investment. “It is a form of corporate welfare that is consistent with other social goals like job creation, clean air and boosting a domestic source of energy,” he said.

Fossil fuels got more than three times as much in subsidies as renewable energy got from 2002 to 2008. But the Goldwater Institute has never decried “giveaways” to Big Carbon. That might have to do with their donors and affiliations. If the Koch Brothers et al got big into solar or wind I expect GI would suddenly grow very silent on subsidies to those industries. (CORRECTION: Clint Bolick responded to this post and linked to a Republic op-ed where he did, in fact, call for an end to fossil fuel subsidies. Fair enough, Clint, but the ratio of GI statements opposing renewable subsidies to those opposing fossil fuel subsidies is very high.)

Not to mention that investments in clean energy are highly popular, whereas fossil fuel subsidies are definitely not. That’s an important consideration since energy consumers have far less leverage in that market than they do in consumer goods, such as shoes or computers. Unless you are very wealthy, you can’t just say, “I would prefer solar energy for my house, as opposed to coal or nuclear.” The only way most people can make their energy preferences known is through support for government investment. And they’ve spoken. They want the government to invest in renewable energy.

GI claims to oppose any favorable treatment to any industry via the tax code. It is true that they have gone after public pork for sports stadiums and the like, often at odds with Republican politicians and business leaders who are their usual allies. One of their favorite talking points is “government shouldn’t pick winners and losers”. Which sounds impressive except GI is wildly inconsistent about it. Hence their support for school vouchers and tuition tax credits, to the extent that they have joined lawsuits in favor of them. Those make winners out of private schools and parents sending their children to private schools using public dollars.

Which is interesting, because I’m not familiar with any poll showing widespread public support for diverting public education funds to private schools. A recent poll in Pennsylvania shows the opposite. Maybe GI could commission a poll in Arizona showing something different. I doubt they’ll succeed in that. Otherwise, I guess this all means the Goldwater Institute is consistent on one thing: They don’t care about what the people want. They care about what their donors want.

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.

Statement from David Lujan on Board of Supervisors’ Appointment to Arizona Senate
Lujan vows to advance forward-thinking, inclusive vision for Arizona

PHOENIX – “I’m grateful for the opportunity to complete the term of my former seatmate, Kyrsten Sinema, and look forward to fighting harder than ever before for the forward-thinking, inclusive values that the voters of our district hold dear. The Arizona Legislature will be faced with two competing options this session. We can either return to the divisive, destructive agenda of Tea Party extremists; or we can pursue an agenda to jumpstart Arizona ’s business climate by embracing our diversity as a strength, and remain laser-focused on creating quality jobs and world-class schools,” Lujan said Wednesday morning. “I look forward to that debate, and look forward to standing on the side of prosperity and inclusion.”

Lujan was appointed to the Senate after being selected by fellow Democrats in Legislative District 15 and the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors for the seat. He will be sworn in on the floor of the Senate tomorrow, January 12, during the Senate’s regular floor session.

“I know there will be some who take issue with my appointment,. I humbly ask them to join me in looking to the future; that we might move forward together, fighting side by side for hard-working Arizonans in this Centennial Legislature. Let me be perfectly clear: it is only by standing together that Arizonans of good will can put a stop to the destructive agenda of the remaining extremist Republicans, and I look forward to standing tall for a prosperous, long-term vision of Arizona,” Lujan said. “It’s no mystery what kind of policies it takes to get Arizona moving in the right direction: policies that focus on quality schools and that value diversity. Anyone who is willing to let personal gain get in the way of those policies should consider themselves on notice.”

Lujan’s priorities for the 2012 Legislative Session include:

Working with Sen. Steve Gallardo as co-sponsor of a bill repealing SB 1070.
Fighting for our children’s education, including restoring funding for public schools.
Supporting SB 1071, which would prohibit racial profiling in Arizona .
Standing up for the rule of law by opposing any appropriations to MCSO should it fail to cooperate with the DOJ Civil Rights Investigation, and joining with other community leaders and elected officials across Arizona in calling for the resignation of Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

David Lujan is a former three-term member of the Arizona Legislature, where he was the prime sponsor of the Arizona DREAM Act and a proud advocate for additional funding for English Language Learners. He is also a former Phoenix Union High School District Governing Board President, where he helped reform schools, improve student achievement and led the charge to create a district-wide Cesar Chavez holiday. A nationally-recognized child welfare attorney, Lujan serves as Chief Administrator of a college preparatory charter school in Central Phoenix . He has lived in Central Phoenix for over 15 years.

It’s not my district and I didn’t have a dog in the fight. I like both Lujan and Ken Clark. I know people are still understandably upset with Lujan for abstaining from the SB1070 vote in 2010 (and we all know why he did) but I think Lujan’s statement demonstrates contrition by embracing strong progressive stances. If he’s pandering I don’t care because he’s pandering to us, for once, instead of making a big point of how moderate he is.

Speaking of how incredibly popular progressivism is, some of y’all may have seen this:

Pretty remarkable considering how hard the right wing has been working to denigrate the word ‘progressive’ as it did with ‘liberal’, which actually isn’t faring too badly either (and beating ‘libertarian’, ha!). Notably, 68% of independents have a favorable association with ‘progressive’. Arizona skews somewhat more libertarian than the rest of the country but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a big hunger for progressive change here too. Arizonans have expanded Medicaid, increased the minimum wage, created First Things First (early childhood education and support), authorized medical marijuana (okay that’s libertarian too), etc. Hugging the middle and being eager to compromise with the Republicans isn’t the best course for Democrats in every case. And doing so all the time needlessly demoralizes the left and doesn’t necessarily resonate with independents.