A Monumental Task
A Monumental Task
How many monuments do you actually read? ... The cameras will catch you if you speed ... And we've had some bad politicians, indeed.
We told you last year about our quest to place a monument honoring murdered investigative journalist Don Bolles at the state Capitol.
This year, the fight continues, though the Agenda is not involved.1
Democratic Rep. Jennifer Longdon is once again leading the charge, and her House Bill 2595 has a cast of co-sponsors, including Democratic Rep. Jennifer Pawlik and Republican Reps. Tim Dunn and Matt Gress.
If you don’t know who Don Bolles is, you’re sadly not alone. Journalists aren’t assassinated very often in the United States, but Bolles was one of the few horrific exceptions.
The very short version2 is he was a bad-ass investigative reporter for the Republic who wrote about organized crime and corruption. In 1976, he was killed in a car bomb because of his work. Police arrested several people, but the motives were hazy, the convictions mostly failed to stick and mystery has surrounded his case ever since.
But have you ever walked around the Arizona Capitol lawn and looked at the monuments on Wesley Bolin Plaza? There’s some really cool stuff there. And a few weird ones.
Like the confederate monument that stood on our lawn until 2020, when former Gov. Doug Ducey, facing pressure from civil rights groups, had it removed in the dead of night and “re-gifted” it back to its original owners. Or the 10 Commandments monument that the Fraternal Order of Eagles donated to help promote the 1956 film, “The 10 Commandments.”3
Or the Vietnam War Memorial with some strange views on the Vietnam War and the media. It’s basically Arizona’s monument to fake news, drafted by a guy with some pretty offensive views.
So we figured this was a good excuse to take a stroll through the Arizona Capitol lawn and tell you all about it.
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We’re going to be posting a lot more video and audio stories throughout 2024, so follow us on Instagram, TikTok and yes, still Twitter unfortunately.
And if you want to send a letter to your lawmakers supporting the Bolles monument, you can punch in your address here and find your lawmakers here. We had our letters intern, ChatGPT, draft up a template for your convenience here. They’d also be happy to write a custom letter on your behalf.
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Red lights, ticket fights: After her past efforts were hit with a veto stamp, Sen. Wendy Rogers wants Arizona’s voters to decide to ban red light cameras, the Republic’s Reagan Priest reports. The senator said the cameras infringe on privacy rights, but some police chiefs say they promote safer driving while freeing up police resources. Meanwhile, Republic columnist Laurie Roberts writes about the red-light runner who hit her son, causing “severe and long lasting and life changing injuries,” and who died at the scene of the accident. And Rep. Alex Kolodin introduced legislation to ban traffic ticket quotas for police, renewing a 2015 effort with bipartisan support that former Gov. Doug Ducey vetoed over questions if police departments actually use benchmarks for handing out tickets.
In bad faith: After volunteers hung up orange ribbons in memory of slain 16-year-old Preston Lord, members of the homeowners’ association for a wealthy gated community ordered them to be taken down, the Republic’s Robert Anglen reports. Community activists have blamed the teenage gang dubbed the "Gilbert Goons" for Lord’s death, and police previously conducted search warrants in the affluent neighborhood that the Republic found are the likely residences of the teens in the Goons’ social media posts.
No do-overs: Attorney General Kris Mayes said Tucson doesn’t have to recount the votes for Prop 413, a measure to raise the mayor and council members’ salaries that passed by about 300 votes, the Repubilc’s Sarah Lapidus writes. State law triggers an automatic recount if a vote margin is at or less than half a percent, but Mayes said municipal measures are exempt.
Thanks, Uncle Sam: After Republican lawmakers passed a plan to issue family rebates of $250 per child in last year’s budget deal, the IRS announced those rebates are subject to federal income taxes, per Capitol scribe Howie Fischer. Families could get up to $750 worth of rebates, so each household’s tax deduction depends on the money they received and their federal tax bracket.
Good news, folks! Your subscription to the Agenda is not subject to federal income taxes. It may even be a tax-deductible expense!4
Freeze frame: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is giving its agents body-warn cameras in a shift toward transparency, the Tucson Sentinel’s Paul Ingram writes. There are not enough cameras to give every ICE agent one, but some agents in “select locations” will be outfitted with them throughout the next year.
Ballot blockade: A federal judge ruled the No Labels party can keep its members off Arizona’s ballots, blocking Secretary of State Adrian Fontes from accepting the party’s candidates for offices outside of the president and vice president, the Associated Press reports. The party eyeing a third-party presidential nomination said the ruling “strongly vindicates our constitutional rights,” but Fontes said it disenfranchises 19,000 registered Arizona voters and plans to appeal.
Hitting pause: The Arizona Supreme Court gave Kari Lake a stay in Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer’s defamation lawsuit against her, the Arizona Politics Blog reported based on a new court filing. The court said the postponement is a temporary measure while it considers Lake’s appeal to dismiss the case earlier. Richer is suing Lake over her claims he helped inject illegal early ballots and incite printer malfunctions in Maricopa County’s 2022 elections.
Mulling over mine concerns: The Arizona Department of Environmental Quality is considering granting an Air Quality Control Permit to a company that wants to construct a zinc, silver and manganese mine near Patagonia. The facility would be a major source of pollution, AZPM’s Katya Mendoza writes, and it could emit over 100 tons of regulated air pollutants like nitrogen oxides and carbon monoxide.
The Phoenix New Times listicles the 25 worst Arizona politicians of all time. Some are predictable (yes, Joe Arpaio topped their list) but the list also includes some good deep cuts and throwbacks.
Remember Paul Babeu? Or how about Bobby Raymond of AZScam fame? Or how many of you are you old enough to remember Arizona’s ninth governor, John Howard Pyle? All are pretty funny stories…
As we noted in our recap of our brief experiment in “lobbying,” Hank’s help was probably not super helpful to the cause.
The best longer version we’ve found comes from the Republic’s Richard Ruelas, who discovered a trove of Bolles’ audiotapes and dove into Bolles’ life, death and legacy in a six-part podcast. It’s totally worth your time.
We had heard this story as a legend and weren’t sure if it was true, but it seems to check out.
We are not tax professionals. Consult one if you’re deducting subscriptions.
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The Phoenix New Times 12 worst politicians is a good list, but out of fairness when they noted that the head of the anti-recall committee (trying to prevent Ev Mecham's recall) was convicted of child molestation they also should have noted that Ed Buck, the founder of the Mecham recall committee, was recently convicted of murder and sentenced to 30 years in prison. Kind of noteworthy...