Legislature should focus on putting books in schools, not guns
After failing last year, tea party lawmakers again push for guns on campus

STATE CAPITOL, PHOENIX – Democratic Senator Steve Gallardo, along with fellow Democratic legislators, the Coalition to Oppose Guns on Campus and the Arizona Students Association will hold a press conference Monday, Feb. 6 at noon on the House Lawn to show opposition to SB1474, which would allow the carrying of a concealed weapon on public university and college campuses.

The Coalition to Oppose Guns on Campus is comprised of the following groups:

Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence
Arizonans for Gun Safety
Students Against Guns in Education (SAGE)
Faiths United to Prevent Gun Violence in Arizona (including the Arizona Ecumenical Council, Church Women United of Arizona, Health Ministries Association/Faith Community Nurses of Arizona, United Methodist Women of the Desert Southwest Conference)
Graduate and Professional Student Association (ASU)
Graduate and Professional Student Council (UA)
Campaign to Keeps Guns Off Campus

MEDIA CONTACT:
Aaron Latham
Director of Communications and Policy Advisor
Arizona State Senate Democratic Caucus
602-926-4471
alatham@azleg.gov

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.

Liberals do tend to think that government should maintain a social safety net that keeps people from falling into poverty and provides health care. Conservatives tend to disagree and insist that private charity should take care of the indigent. As I’ve said in previous posts, most liberals think private charity plays a role but it can only fill in the gaps in the social safety net, not be the entire thing. History and current events show that religious institutions can and do provide assistance in the community, but sometimes while enriching themselves substantially along the way.

And it seems that even some secular charities headed by conservatives are so freighted with a political agenda that it detracts in a large way from their mission. When the Susan G. Komen Foundation announced they were pulling grants for breast cancer screening from Planned Parenthood under the flimsy premise of a trumped up Congressional investigation, the response was swift and explosive. The internets not only rained down reams of condemnation upon Komen, they also stirred up a tempest of criticism that presents the organization in a much less flattering light than their carefully crafted public image would have you believe. Daily Kos diarist Betty Pinson is not too impressed with Komen, and for good reason.

Upon calling my GOP senator and speaking with his aide, I was shocked to hear her tell me “Sen.__ can’t sign on as a co-sponsor to the bill because all the breast cancer groups aren’t in agreement on it.” Shocked, I asked her who was opposing it. She told me that Komen opposed the bill. When I asked her why, she explained that Komen felt that treatment for uninsured breast cancer patients should be funded through private donations, like the pink ribbon race. I was speechless, in shock. A phone call to another activist confirmed it was true – Komen was lobbying behind the scenes to kill the bill. A moment later, Sen.__’s aide called me back and begged me not to repeat our conversation to anyone, that she had given me the information by mistake.

Thus my lesson about Komen began in 2000. They spend a lot of money lobbying for a very different agenda.

The bill passed anyway and Bill Clinton, who pushed hard in Congress for its passage, was happy to sign it. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the end of Komen (and its founder, Nancy Brinker’s) political maneuvering to stall or kill legislation in Congress and in state legislatures that was supported by other breast cancer advocacy groups.

They fought behind the scenes in my state to prevent the governor from adopting the Treatment Program. They worked for several years to stall or kill the Breast Cancer & Environmental Research Act. In the end, they eviscerated it by removing new funding for environmental research and substituting a panel to review all research on breast cancer & environment. Using private funds, they recently collaborated with the Institute of Medicine to develop said report. Released last December, it sadly detailed the same old arguments that there’s no evidence of links between environmental toxins and that no further research should be done on the subject since everyone has those toxins in their bodies already. Instead they chose to blame breast cancer patients for getting the disease (more here).

In 2009, Komen lobbied behind the scenes to weaken the health care bill (ACA) as it was being debated in Congress. They hired Hadassah Lieberman, wife of Joe, in an effort to convince Joementum to vote against the Public Option. Komen spent over $1 million in 2008 & 2009, on behind the scenes lobbying related to the health care reform bill, so who knows what else was on their agenda.

She goes on to describe Komen’s founder, Nancy Brinker, as a major GOP fundraiser and would-be power broker. Brinker and other conservatives in leadership positions in the Komen organization clearly subscribe to a right wing worldview – emphasizing personal responsibility over corporate accountability, and private charity over public assistance. They are entitled to those views but it’s worth noting that despite all the races and the pink ribbons and the millions Komen has raised to find a cure for breast cancer, no cure is in sight and breast cancer rates continue to climb. That’s not to say it’s their fault but it’s not smashing evidence of their success either. This Komen affair just reinforces my contention that right wing authoritarians are as incompetent and self-serving at running charities as they are at running the government.

They just announced on the news that they’re reinstating the funds to Planned Parenthood. I think PP should turn them down and raise their own funds.

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

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.

So teachers, you are not required to use a specific version of the Bible. I recommend this one: The Skeptic’s Annotated Bible

They have this idea that people should be left alone, be able to do whatever they want to do, government should keep our taxes down and keep our regulations low, that we shouldn’t get involved in the bedroom, we shouldn’t get involved in cultural issues.

That is not how traditional conservatives view the world. There is no such society that I’m aware of, where we’ve had radical individualism and that it succeeds as a culture.

– Rick Santorum

Iowa’s eventual winner, Santorum, came in third in South Carolina. The winner was the guy who proposed an open marriage to his second wife because he didn’t want to give up his mistress.

Per Jamelle Bouie in American Prospect

This was the Gingrich that Republicans love. A confident, combative firebrand, who exudes a persona of erudition, even as he offers an incoherent take on the world, the issues, and the views of his opponents. To wit, Gingrich accused Barack Obama of believing in a “Saul Alinsky European radicalism where the stage is sovereign and we are its subjects.” This is absolute nonsense—Obama is a center-left Democrat with centrist instincts—but it sounds correct to he audience. They were thrilled.

Indeed, the enthusiasm was infectious. Everyone I spoke to was either a long-term fan of the former House Speaker, or a new supporter, who was eager for Gingrich to win the nomination, and—as one attendee said—“destroy” Obama in debates. “I like him because I really enjoy watching him debate…he could just tear people apart and be really intelligent about it. And I would to see him do that to Obama”, said Cathy Nichols, a local high school student who plans to vote in Saturday’s primary.

For everyone I talked to, I asked if they were concerned about the recent revelations from Gingrich’s ex-wife, who alleged that the House Speaker wanted an “open marriage.” Chuck Gregoire, a semi-retired internet marketer, had a response that was pretty typical of the reactions I received. “We really need someone to come out and kick some but, and I think that’s really where the country is now, and he’s got the ego to get it done.”, said Gregoire. He clarified—he wouldn’t “trust him with my wife,” but he does believe that he could lead the country and correct for Obama’s presidency.

Brian and Cathy Renaud, who moved to South Carolina from Michigan after losing their homes to the Great Recession, were also dismissive of the allegations against Gingrich. “I think we all see through the media’s ploy,” said Brian, “Putting her up to talk two days before a primary? Give me a break.”

As popular feminist blogger and Facebook friend of mine Amanda Marcotte observed: “‘Family values’ is code for “putting bitches in their place”. Gingrich’s behavior is consistent with that.” South Carolina GOP primary voters preferred Gingrich to Santorum because Gingrich comes off as a tougher opponent against the Kenyan Usurper, not because there’s any difference between the two on the culture war. Individual liberty and privacy are reserved for straight white Republican men. It’s “radical”, to use Santorum’s description, for people who aren’t straight white Republican men to have those things.

That’s it in a nutshell.

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.