Politics: Arizona/Phoenix

A few years ago, when it seemed that Phoenix had become the nation's fifth most-populous city, the New York Times decided to post a reporter to this unknown land somewhere on the other side of Jersey. Recently, the job has been handed off to Fernanda Santos. Lately, the Newspaper of Record has uncovered that it's hotter than hell in the un-air-conditioned atrium of the Sandra Day O'Connor Federal Courthouse (a plan which I remain convinced starchitect Richard Meier just pulled off the shelf from his student days, although others say he was enamored by the misters at a restaurant at Arizona Center). Santos has also revealed for the Times' influential readership the tortilla factory at the Ranch Market on Roosevelt at 16th Street.

Then came the topper: A story this week on the excessive heat that never mentioned the worsening urban heat island because of the loss of agriculture and sprawl, much less climate change and its dire potential consequences for a big city where, to paraphrase Ed Abbey, one should not be. The conclusion of this bastion of sophisticated journalism: It's very hot in Phoenix in August.

To be fair, Santos was said to looking for a house in the historic districts, according to sources who wished to remain anonymous because they wished to remain anonymous, as the Times might put it. Good for her. She has done some (reactive) lifting on the Badged Ego's legal troubles and immigration. And one never knows the misguidance being given by editors. But Phoenix desperately needs all the real enterprise journalism it can get, however much it discomfits the local-yokels. Let's help out the Old Gray Lady.

I don't mean to be harsh, but what is it with Arizona's climate-change denial? Sure, it's not as bad as North Carolina, which is trying to outlaw using climate science to estimate the rise in sea level. But Arizona is the focus of this blog, the home state I love (no matter what you believe) and fight for, even if it must be at a distance. Aside from the Republic's indispensable Shaun McKinnon, I am unaware of any public figures who are discussing a subject they should be screaming from the rooftops: The clear and present danger that climate change specifically presents to Arizona.

Of course, the Kooks (I coined the term, you're welcome) will be deniers. But consider the congressional primary race among Democrats Kyrsten Sinema, Andrei Cherny and David Schapira. I'm not sure the survivor from this circular firing squad will prevail in a new district that includes Chandler and Mesa. But one would think, especially given the talent and brains of the two candidates I know (Cherny and Sinema), that this could be a time for truth telling. Yet — and forgive me if I missed it — I can't find a mention of it on their campaign Web sites, much less in the "send money" push emails from Cherny and chirpy-happy-everything's-great-in-Arizona tweets from Sinema.

The New York Times on Sunday noted that Joe Arpaio's Arizona didn't become that way without some who fought back in public. It singled out Latino organizer Salvador Reza; Supervisor Mary Rose Wilcox; community organizer Lydia Guzman; videographer Dennis Gilman; state Sen. Kyrsten Sinema; ACLU Director Dan Pochoda; Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon and New Times reporter Stephen Lemons among others. If Arpaio finally goes down in the Department of Justice civil-rights lawsuit, they can hold their heads high.

Can you imagine what Attorney General Robert Kennedy would have done to Arpaio had he gone after his brother the president with a bogus quest over his birth certificate? Bobby wasn't called mean and ruthless for nothing. Or what LBJ or Nixon would have done? Arpaio would have been given the biggest IRS proctology exam in the history of the world, seen all his federal aid cut off, and been relentlessly hounded by federal prosecutors and FBI agents. President Obama, cool and contemplative, has a corporate lawyer as his Attorney General. So my hopes are muted.

The Resistence desperately needs heroes. Unfortunately, those listed by the Times either had no power or, in the case of Gordon, were severely constrained by both events and his own second-term swoon. The reality is that good intentions divorced from power get us nowhere. Dietrich Bonhoeffer lived his convictions against the Nazis, but the only reason we are able to celebrate his martyrdom today is the brute power used by the Allies to defeat them. When Lyndon Johnson suddenly became president, he was urged to back off on civil rights, so as not to use his political capital on a seeming lost cause. This master of the use of power, in Robert Caro's telling, replied, "Well, what the hell's the presidency for?" And a hero, with titanic, heroic flaws, emerged.

You might be tempted to pass on a story in Sunday's Arizona Republic with the process-y headline, "Case Asks Who Must Pay Taxes for Utility." Don't.

Ably reported by Ryan Randazzo, the article lays out a controversy in Sun Lakes. The small company that provides water for the "active living retirement community" wants a rate increase of about $6 a month from residents, the first such hike since 1994. Sounds reasonable. But it wants more: "About 40 percent of the increase would pay the utility owners' income taxes." The Residential Utility Consumer Office contends that the water company's "shareholders might have other business interests that lose money, and if they combine the tax credits of those operations with the tax liability from the water utility, they might not pay taxes at all, even though the customers would be paying a 'phantom tax.' 'When this happens, this is essentially free money for the shareholders paid by the ratepayers who receive no benefit from these payments,' RUCO wrote in a brief for the case."

This is about more than Sun Lakes. My sympathy is limited for people who want to buy houses in a leapfrogged, 98-percent white development with streets named after Michigan, Minnesota and Indiana, profaning our desert. But the case is a rare window into how power and influence work in the state. Power, especially, at what insiders call "the fourth branch of government," the Arizona Corporation Commission.

If all I knew was, as Will Rogers said, what I read in the papers, I'd be pretty depressed. This is ironic considering in Arizona their mission is to most of the time be the cheerleaders for the Everything's Fine! propaganda ministry.

Still, the sheer magnitude of the occasional story or a little bit of guerrilla journalism to slip out the truth happens. One example was an article by the Republic's excellent Gary Nelson on a recent meeting of the Maricopa Association of Governments. It was supposed to be a rah-rah-blah-blah lie-fest for the Sun Corridor, an insane brew of more sprawl and wishful thinking. But Bill Harris, the head of Science Foundation Arizona, warned that the state was headed for a Third World future without better leadership and education. This doesn't differ from what I've been writing for years or Mary Jo Waits' warning that Arizona was on track to be the "Appalachia of the 21st century," but it brought an absurd, tremulously defensive response from one of Gov. Brewer's stooges. This is how we know Harris was telling the truth.

Then, another article by Shaun McKinnon, who somehow survives to do fine reporting on the reality of climate change and Arizona. This one detailed how wildfires are bringing Arizona's majestic forests closer to collapse. "Fire has burned through one-quarter of the state's ponderosa-pine and mixed-conifer forests just in the past decade, leaving a blackened mosaic across 1 million acres. In all, nearly 4 million acres of Arizona's forests, grasslands and deserts — an area slightly larger than Connecticut — have burned since 2002." The only thing more upsetting about this is the utter lack of leadership to address it — let's have a Sun Corridor!

One must wonder what Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer's main constituency thinks about her junket to SOCIALIST Europe, to Germany and to France, whose new president is nominally a SOCIALIST. One must wonder what the Germans and French think of Brewer, the head of an American state that continues to up the bar not just on craziness (See Bennett, Ken) but violent craziness. Gun deaths in Arizona now exceed automobile fatalities. The extremism was loud enough to call for a New York Times essay from Timothy Egan: "We interrupt reality to bring you Arizona…"

According to the newspapers, Brewer's trade mission "includes leaders of the Arizona Commerce Authority and Arizona Office of Tourism." Just who these mammals are — as in, name names — is unclear. (The Republic's Yvonne Wingett Sanchez got at least a partial list of the entourage, but the governor's office declined to give the budget). The purpose of the trip is also murky. Stories mention that the EU imported $770 million in Arizona products in 2011. Germany is the state's sixth-largest trade partner, France No. 10. These are meaningless numbers because Arizona exports are distorted by the huge footprint of Intel semiconductors and, to a lesser degree, Boeing and Raytheon defense products. Arizona is not a conscious player in the export world.

As for tourism — forget it. Germans who want American sun go to Miami. Unless the state could lure or underwrite direct flights to Germany and France, it will never be a big player in this field.

Your humble columnist at this "comparatively low-traffic site" is back from a week in Phoenix. I must admit 60 degrees in Seattle is more pleasant than the 108 degrees when I flew out of Sky Harbor — including that big, twisty scream-inducing bump on the 737 as we tried to climb out of the heat.

I spent most of my time in tolerant, diverse central Phoenix. But outside that bubble, the forces of Peak Crazy kept trying to extract ever more madness. Secretary of State Ken Bennett kept Arizona as a national laughing stock (at least among the "liberal elites," read sane people) by pledging to make Hawaii come clean about the president's birth certificate. The Washington Post, read by people who make decisions about deploying capital and quality assets, thought Arizona's witlessness worthy of an editorial. Hawaii, a state for those of you who were home-schooled in the East Valley, turned the tables and is forcing Bennett to prove his bona fides to even ask. The mockery of Arizona's No. 2 elected official continues. But this did not prevent Sheriff Arpaio — who should be in jail — from sending a "threats unit" deputy to investigate in the Aloha State — something to please the "Valley" blue-hairs who vote. Where is Steve McGarrett when we need him? Bennett's antics are more than an embarrassment, more than pandering. He is the official who will preside over the elections. The secretary of state should not be a partisan office (but Jan Brewer used it just that way in 2004, also chairing the Bush re-election campaign in Arizona).

The "information center" has run off the majority of its best, most experienced journalists. One still there is Dennis Wagner, who reported what should be a national blockbuster on Sunday about the Pinal County Sheriff's Office stockpiling surplus military equipment and selling it off to private parties. This is no Babeu boo-boo, but a story that raises troubling questions about how the Military Industrial Complex is infiltrating law enforcement, with the added and sadly typical Arizona corruption thrown in.

What's the biggest danger facing Arizona's second city? According to Roger Yohem, writing in Inside Tucson Business, it is that the Old Pueblo will become Portland-ized:

Many of Portland’s traits infatuate Tucson’s bureaucrat copycats. To start with the obvious, Portland has a modern streetcar system that serves downtown. The real cost of Portland’s trolleys, infrastructure and tracks can be hard to gauge since much of it was taxpayer subsidized through government grants and tax gimmicks. But based on various public records, the consensus puts the initial cost at $25 million per mile. For $200 million, Tucson’s streetcar system will cost $50 million per mile. When subsidized by taxpayers, perhaps every city is entitled to pricey public transit.

I have no idea who this mammal is, but he perfectly encapsulates the retrograde ignorance that holds Arizona back. And he is an example of the endless streetcar hysteria that has enveloped the city since it began work on a (sit down, now) 3.9-mile line scheduled to open in 2013. Oh, the socialism! The Islamo-fascist-madness!

We know Amnesty International as an organization known for spotlighting human rights abuses in Third World places. You know, places such as Sudan, Syria and Arizona. A new report criticizes the state's prison system for conditions that "fall below international standards for humane treatment." Among the findings:

More than 2,900 prisoners are held in Arizona’s highest security maximum custody facilities, the majority in the SMUs at ASPC-Eyman. Most are confined alone in windowless cells for 22 to 24 hours a day in conditions of reduced sensory stimulation, with little access to natural light and no work, educational or rehabilitation programs. Prisoners exercise alone in small, enclosed yards and, apart from a minority who have a cell-mate, have no association with other prisoners. Many prisoners spend years in such conditions; some serve out their sentences in solitary confinement before being released directly into the community.

Among those held in these conditions are the mentally ill and children as young as 14. State officials refused to meet with Amnesty International representatives. Although the Arizona Republic carried a story, it will soon be forgotten. Newspapers don't crusade any more, which would require day after day of stories that dig into the conditions, the human pain and who is responsible. Anyway, who really cares about these people? As my character Sheriff Peralta says to the bleeding heart Mapstone, "The thing about the criminal justice system is that it's full of criminals." Out at the mega-churches and the stakes of Arizona, one is taught that Baby Jesus is there for the prosperous and the members of your tribe. Not, say, thieves hanging on crosses.

Jon Stewart did a priceless takedown Monday of the Kookocracy's war against the Mexican-American ethnic studies program in Tucson. Al Madrigal went to the Old Pueblo, where school board member Michael Hicks (happily? cluelessly?) sat down for an interview with the world's most famous parody/news show. He talked about his concern with "a lot of the radical ideas" of the program.

Had Hicks attended a class? "Why even go, why even go?" this GOPer from central casting said. "I base my thoughts on hearsay from others…" Yes, this is more of Arizona earning publicity one can't buy, further cementing the Crazy State's reputation. But it's also important to know that the Kooks succeeded. The ethnic studies program is gone — Tucson was under threat of a $15 million penalty from the state — although one for African-Americans continues.

The Kooks would have more standing if the Arizona they have now run for years didn't consistently rank at or near the bottom in per-student funding (and it's not Utah, with a homogeneous, heavily LDS population). That funding keeps declining. Education Week's Quality Counts survey ranked Arizona 8th from the worst nationwide in a variety of measures. All this has happened on their watch. Their solution is to get one of their many shills to explain it away. Nor has the state's "achievement" in being a leader in charter schools made things better. Quite the contrary, although public money has been used to privatize profits for the politically connected charter racket. The biggest victims: Hispanic students in ignored, under-funded districts.