When the Legislature worked
Posted inPhoenix 101: History Politics: Arizona/Phoenix

When the Legislature worked

AZ_House
You know the Arizona Legislature. It's the bunch that reduces education money for some of the worst-funded schools in the nation, savagely cuts financing for universities, has its hands in the hustles of the Charter School Racket and Private Prison Racket. The worthy solons who sold off pieces of the Capitol area in the Great Recession.

It was the birthplace of SB 1070, the anti-immigrant (really voter suppression) law. This is only one of its creations that helped give the impression that Arizona is one of the craziest and most bigoted states. Anything forward looking, the majority opposes. Tax cuts? You bet. It is the Kookocracy.

But there was a time when Arizona had one of the most respected legislatures in the nation. Yes.

In fact, there were at least two sustained periods in the state's history when the Legislature worked.

This is no small thing because the Legislature is by far the most powerful branch of government in the state. Constitutionally, the governor was barely more than a figurehead — a status that has improved in recent years, but not by much. In other words, Arizona moves ahead, or backwards, depending on the Legislature.

18
Posted inUncategorized

Fire and rain and blame

I keep getting emails from friends asking if I'm okay. The national news has been saturated with reports of the flooding in western Washington. I'm fine, largely because I live within the long-established urban footprint of Seattle (downtown, happily). Most of the damage has come in the exurbs, and much of it is human-caused. This is our second straight year of unusual flooding. It won't be the last.

This reminds me of my return to Arizona in 2000. Every year forest fires would erupt threatening cabins on the Mogollon Rim (pronounced Mug-e-on) in the High Country. One particularly devastating fire began in 2002 when a woman had a fight with her boss (boyfriend?) while they were on a trip to service his vending machines (I am not speaking in euphemism here). She stalked off into the forest, wearing only shorts, tank top and flip-flops, carrying a towel, cigarettes and lighter — a survival kit I never learned about as a Boy Scout. When she became lost, she lit a "signal fire" that turned into one of the worst conflagrations in state history. (And you wonder why Arizona is rated America's dumbest state). Comedy aside, I was puzzled because these areas of the High Country had been mostly uninhabited National Forest land when I was a boy. Then I drove up and saw the "cabins" were mostly subdivisions plopped down amid stands of combustible pine trees.

These disasters, repeated around the West and indeed the nation, bring large public burdens, from relief efforts and firefighting, to higher insurance costs. Yet nothing is being done to address the cycle of disaster. And with climate change and other environmental degradation, we ain't seen nothing yet.

2