Politics: Arizona/Phoenix Archives - Page 8 of 15

The governor’s race: a primer

Here's the short course: If you don't vote for Fred DuVal, you're an idiot. See you in November.

Here's the longer course: Most of what we will read and hear about the Arizona gubernatorial race will be worthless. There will be much sound and fury, signifying nothing.

A big example will be the Republican primary. The entertainment factor is not to be discounted if one is blessed or cursed with an acerbic wit. Who can be the craziest? Behind this, however, will be the reality that all Republicans are Kooks or under the thumb of the Kooks. I like former Mesa Mayor Scott Smith, and in a different Arizona he might make a great governor. These attributes will no doubt doom him. If he succeeds, he will be a prisoner of the Kookocracy.

Little or nothing will be said about how the party has become exclusively the province of extremists. The era of the "Sue Nation" (Gerard, Grace, etc.) and Carolyn Allen and even Gov. Jane Dee Hull is gone. The few non-crazy Republicans in office must carefully toe the line or be branded RINOs and destroyed.

The state that empowered a centrist, pragmatic wing of the GOP, the one that existed up through 2000 when experts kept predicting that population growth would turn the state purple or blue, is arguably gone. The state that Bill Clinton carried in 1996, gone. In its place is a Big Sort place where people of the same political leanings have gathered. In our Cold Civil War, Arizona is solidly in the New Confederacy.

Jon Talton June 9, 201427

Phoenix Politics: Arizona/Phoenix

Strong mayor

Phoenix is the most populous city in America with the council-manager form of government. Council sets policy which is carried out by a professional city manager.

The only places that come close are San Antonio (where the city manager is the former deputy city manager in Phoenix, Sheryl Sculley) and Dallas. San Diego abandoned council-manager in 2006.

The alternative is the strong mayor form, where the mayor acts as a largely independent chief executive and the city council is a legislative body. Think: New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., Detroit and Seattle.

Twelve of the 20 most populous American cities have strong mayors. The remainder are council-manager. Now there is at least a boomlet to bring a strong mayor form to Phoenix.

Jon Talton April 8, 201430

Phoenix Phoenix 101: History Politics: Arizona/Phoenix

Charlie Keating’s Phoenix

Everybody who was anybody in Phoenix has a favorite story about Charles H Keating Jr., who died this week at 90. Here's mine. By the time I came back in 2000, Keating, the disgraced imprisoned former S&L kingpin, was once again a fixture around town. I would run into him at Durant's, where he was cordial but declined my invitation to sit down sometime and tell his story.

One day the restaurant was packed and Keating couldn't get seated. He confronted the day manager, the fabulous Mari Connor, and said, "Do you know who I am?" Without a second's hesitation at a restaurant that had hosted governors and mobsters, Connor said, "No, but I'm sure they can seat you up the street at Alexi's. Otherwise, the wait is thirty minutes."

Time wounds all heels.

I was gone from Phoenix during Keating's glory days of the 1980s. He developed Dobson Ranch in Mesa and Estrella Mountain Ranch in Goodyear among many other projects. The most impressive physical monument he left behind was the Phoenician resort. The name says much about the time: Phoenix was still the center of "the Valley's" economic universe. It would never happen today; the resort claims it is in Scottsdale, even though it in the city. And for all the criticism heaped upon it, the Phoenician to me remains a beautiful place — built within the existing urban footprint — with an apt, evocative, allusionary name.

Jon Talton April 3, 201489

Phoenix Politics: Arizona/Phoenix

Keep out the vote

It is fitting that a federal judge chose this week to uphold the power of Arizona and Kansas to require proof of citizenship in order to vote.

This was the week in 1965 when 25,000 marchers led by Martin Luther King Jr. reached Montgomery from Selma, Ala., a landmark in the long, bloody struggle for equal voting rights.

Who says the clock can't be turned back?

My favorite quote came from Arizona Attorney General Tom Horney: “This decision is an important victory against the Obama administration because it ensures that only U.S. citizens, and not illegals, vote in Arizona elections.”

Ah! Now I understand! The reason a bunch of ignorant, nihilistic Krackpots have taken over state government in Arizona is because illegal immigrants have been voting them in. Now, thanks to this George W. Bush-appointed judge in Wichita, perhaps sanity can return to the capitol in Phoenix.

Jon Talton March 21, 201466

Politics: Arizona/Phoenix Politics: National

Fergit, hell!

It was reported earlier this week that independents have surpassed Republicans as the largest voting bloc in Arizona. Independents are only slightly ahead of GOP registration. The bad news is that only 29 percent of the state's registered voters are Democrats. In 1992, Democrats made up 42.5 percent of voters.

More bad news would come in the unasked questions. How many of these "independents" trend to the right when they vote? And how many are low-information voters who will also naturally vote for "conservatives," if they vote at all? Nationally, the "independent" label has been well exposed as misleading. I hate to sun on the parade, but Arizona is a red state not a purple one.

I mention this in the context of the wider political story of 2014: The Democrats are running scared, running away from President Obama and Obamacare. The political press is all but in agreement that the Republicans will take control of the Senate in the fall election.

As an editor of mine used to say, Why is that?

Jon Talton March 17, 201469

Phoenix Politics: Arizona/Phoenix

The fix was in

If I really wanted to grow Rogue's readership, this post would be something like "Ten Reasons Do(w)nton Abbey Sucks" (1. All the white guys look alike, can't tell a footman from a nobleman…). But no, we'll stick with the serious stuff in the antique essay form.

Yvonne Wingett Sanchez and Dennis Wagner wrote a fine piece of public-service journalism last week. It shows what the Arizona Republic would be capable of doing if its corporate masters at Gannett would allow it to commit more journalism and do less fad chasing.

It turns out that the FBI gave federal prosecutors all they needed to bring serious criminal charges against the High Sheriff for Life of Maricopa County, the ambitious right-wing county attorney, Andrew Peyton Thomas, and their top stooges.

The three-year investigation of abuse of power produced "found probable cause to recommend felony counts of obstructing criminal investigations of prosecutions, theft by threats, tampering with witnesses, perjury and theft by extortion."

Instead, the feds shut down the three-year investigation in August 2012.

Let me pause to note that this story didn't come from "crowdsourcing," "citizen journalists" or video and slide shows. It came from good, street-smart, shoe-leather investigative journalism, including the newspaper using the Freedom of Information Act to obtain all records of the investigation.

Jon Talton March 11, 201424

Phoenix Politics: Arizona/Phoenix

‘Picking on Arizona’

Let's close out the SB 1062 saga with a look at the meme, "Why is everybody picking on Arizona?"

1. While it is true that similar anti-gay Jim Crow laws have been introduced in at least nine other states, only Arizona passed it through both houses of the Legislature. It would have become law if not for the veto, under great pressure, by Gov. Jan Brewer.

2. Context matters. Arizona has already gained national infamy from such things as the anti-immigrant Jim Crow SB 1070, the ongoing misdeeds of the High Sheriff of Maricopa County, his highly publicized immigrant "sweeps" and horrendous jail conditions, Brewer wagging her finger in the face of the president of the United States with her mouth open in a hectoring pose, the assassination attempt on Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and ongoing gun liberalization, including guns in bars.

3. Phoenix is the nation's sixth most populous city, Maricopa County the fourth most populous county and the Phoenix metro area the 13th largest metropolitan statistical area. This is not rural Oklahoma. It has bureaus of influential news organizations, including the New York Times. So Arizona's Krackpot schemes will be noticed.

Jon Talton March 4, 201436

Phoenix Politics: Arizona/Phoenix Politics: National

SB 1062: The aftermath

Keep Arizona green. Bring money. — Old expression

It was well and right to let a day pass for celebration that Gov. Jan Brewer finally vetoed the anti-LGBT Jim Crow SB 1062. To thank the better angels of Arizona's nature and imagine more appeared. To join in the boozy cheering at Seamus McCaffrey's downtown. A day when, as one observer put it, "we (could) be gracious in victory and in defeat."

Now it is time for a serious assessment. The illusion that with the international spotlight off, Arizona can "move on," the usual "nothing to see here, move along," could not be more misguided or toxic.

I don't see much profit in dwelling on Gov. Brewer and wondering if she is more complex and pragmatic than thought. Do not be fooled. She is no surprising "liberal hero."

If that were the case, she could have made it clear to legislative Republicans that the bill would be vetoed even before it was passed. She would have avoided letting the bill sit for days like a vagrant's turd deposited on her desk.

She could have issued a veto statement clearly, strongly grounded in morality. Instead, it was largely fuzzy proceduralism and nods to the "religious freedom" crowd (probably drafted by fixer Chuck Coughlin) cloaking a fear of the state losing billions. Her manner was that of a pouty teenager being forced to clean her room. She is a kook. She is not too bright. But she is ambitious and can take orders. And she might want to become a U.S. Senator.

To be fair, Hendrik Hertzberg disagrees with me.

Jon Talton February 27, 201437

Phoenix Politics: Arizona/Phoenix

The ghost of Ev Mecham

Given Arizona's population churn, many living there now probably know little of Gov. Evan Mecham. He's the one who opposed a Martin Luther King Jr. holiday ("King doesn't deserve a holiday") and thought it was fine to call black children "pickaninnies."

A broad coalition came together to impeach and remove this embarrassment in 1988. Tolerance won over hate. The beloved Rose Mofford became governor. And Arizona marched forward into its greatest era of (population) growth ever. Or so the elevator speech goes.

Now I'd like that, as Samuel L. Jackson's character says in Pulp Fiction, but that shit ain't the (entire) truth.

Which is why we should study Mecham as people come together again to press Gov. Jan Brewer to veto the Jim Crow, anti-LGBT "denial of service" law. Backed by today's coalition, Brewer can use her power as governor to stop the bill that has brought fresh infamy on the state, much as in the 1980s the Legislature stopped a hateful governor.

Jon Talton February 24, 201425

Phoenix Politics: Arizona/Phoenix

The Hate State

Why does the Kookocracy hate Arizona? For years this has been the unasked but most pressing question. Far more important than, say, tut-tutting that a certain columnist doesn't have multiple growthgasms every time the sun comes out and another tract house is laid down ("Talton hates Arizona").

Which brings us to the bills just passed by the Legislature which would essentially allow businesses to discriminate against LGBT individuals — right down to refusing service — based on the owners' "religious beliefs."

Naturally, this has been pushed under the jingle of "freedom of religion."

Pre-emptive war based on false pretenses and torture by my government offend my Christian religious beliefs. But I had to suck it up. That's the way majority rule works and thank God for the Bill of Rights, tattered though it may be. More to the point, discrimination based on an individual's sexual orientation is another iteration of Jim Crow — it would not even get past the Roberts court.

But the damage done to Arizona by this action, whether or not it is signed into law by Gov. Jan Brewer: Priceless. (Among the many national news organizations covering it, the New York Times, Los Angeles Times and the widely read parody, the Borowitz Report).

Jon Talton February 21, 201459

Phoenix Phoenix 101: History Politics: Arizona/Phoenix

Phoenix’s charter journey

For better or worse, Phoenicians with a sense of civic pride claim as their finest achievement not a magnificent city hall as in San Francisco, or a great subway system as in New York, or the breathtaking parks of Cincinnati. No, it is the efficient, professional handling of city business through the council/manager form of government. It's the most populous city in America without a strong mayor (with the city council acting as a legislature).

And it all began with the charter government movement of the late 1940s. Anyone that wants to understand Phoenix City Hall today or contemplate changes such as a strong mayor, must have at least a basic understanding of how we got here.

Once upon a time, Phoenix was a wide-open town, full of vice, politics dominated by unsavory bosses, and city hall eminently bribable. Then a group of crusading young businessmen, who knew the city could not grow and prosper under this corrupt yoke, threw out the rascals and created the cleanest city government in America. They went by the name of the Charter Government Committee. The rest is history.

But history is written by the victors. And the real story of Charter is more complex…and far more interesting.

Jon Talton February 7, 201426

Politics: Arizona/Phoenix Politics: National

The McCain censure, explained

My email boxes filled up this weekend with people wanting my take on the "censuring" of wealthy Republican John Sidney McCain III by the Arizona Republican Party.

The decision certainly attracted much attention among his chief constituency. The Wire reported, "Citing his 'long and terrible record of drafting, co-sponsoring and voting for legislation best associated with liberal Democrats,' the Arizona Republican Party passed a resolution attacking Senator John McCain for being too liberal." It added, "It remains difficult to be a maverick."

For the New York Times, McCain "has become known for his willingness to work across party lines" and the Gray Lady (using a Reuters story) took comfort in former Sen. Jon Kyl telling the Arizona Republic, "I've gone to dozens of these meetings and every now and then some wacky resolution gets passed."

Over at the Washington Post, the story noted that "McCain has been dogged by conservatives objecting to his views on immigration and campaign finance, among other issues, since he first ran for Congress in 1982. Republican activists were also turned off by his moderate stances in the 2000 presidential race."

McCain's constituency is the media and they just can't quit him, their make-believe straight-talk express "moderate."

Jon Talton January 27, 201424

Phoenix Politics: Arizona/Phoenix

Shoveling sunshine

The image to the right was making the rounds on Facebook over the weekend. I can take a joke. Hahaha. On a more serious note, the state Tourism Office spent $200,000 on advertising in Chicago reminding residents that they can "warm up in AZ." If this brings in some visitors with money to spend, good on them. Like it or not, tourism is one of Arizona's most important industries — and also a source of mostly low-paid jobs.

On the other hand, if it brings more people to stay, it is a calamity. Arizona needs about 4 million fewer Midwesterners. And the ones — Anglo, older, Republican — that come will merely reinforce the reactionary politics of the state, a la "the Big Sort."

Arizona's experience has made me deeply suspicious of people who move places for the weather or of states that promote sunshine as their prime asset.

Jon Talton January 13, 201416

Downtown & central Phoenix Phoenix Politics: Arizona/Phoenix

Questions for Arizona in 2014

So many myths, so little time or brain cells. I suppose that is why malign falsehoods carry us forward. The latest was a story I read where a UofA professor is having a loud growthgasm over Arizona's spectacular income growth and how 2014 will be even better.

I don't mean to be unfair or pick on people, but when these ideas enter the public square through the most powerful media outlets they reinforce the "everything's fine" lie that keeps Arizona backward.

To be sure, "staying positive" on the party line is a good way to keep one's job. I am proof of what happens to dissidents.

About income: Unless something radical has changed, Arizona is an underperformer and will remain so. The snapshots of "growth" are statistical noise caused by the large population churn. A certain right-wing columnist has ridden this for years to say, in essence, "Arizona does not suck, Talton!" — even though reality is quite different.

Jon Talton December 27, 201339

Phoenix Politics: Arizona/Phoenix

Double down

One must give the Real Estate Industrial Complex credit for chutzpah. It will not go down with a whimper, but with a bang. And many fires.

Or rather, Arizona. The elites behind the growth machine will be long gone, safely behind their gates and walls in more hospitable climes.

I am reminded of this after reading a report that three subdivisions comprising 4,500 tract houses are "in the pipeline" in Flagstaff.

Situated in what was once the largest virgin ponderosa pine forest on the planet, now a slowly dying tinderbox thanks to climate change, Flagstaff was once a real town. It depended on the Santa Fe Railway, Kaibab Lumber Industries and other sawmills, and the college. The town was safely separated from the forest primeval.

Now the railroad merely passes through, the switching yard being removed. There's a mall and Super Wal-Mart. Subdivisions have been rammed into the trees. Aside from NAU and a few other employers, Flag is one more real estate hustle to be played until it gives out. Or burns down.

Jon Talton December 18, 201338