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State Senator John Kavanagh's avatar

The Craig Harris Arizona Agenda quote by Nichole Ludden and Hank Stephenson was not completely in the screenshot. Here it is:

"About a dozen reporters keep an eye on all the chaos. Another dozen

or so pop in regularly for Capitol stories that touch on their beats.Z

A decade ago it was twice as many reporters. Two decades ago, it

was double that. In those 20 years, the number of lawmakers has

remained the same. The state budget has roughly tripled."

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State Senator John Kavanagh's avatar

Ooooooops. That comes from my new book. "State Legislatures: An Owner's Manual," which is available on Amazon.com.

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Hank Stephenson's avatar

I gotta check my PO box to see if it arrived!

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Zack Jarrett's avatar

I was hoping someone would fill in that blank. Thanks!

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bisbeefred's avatar

Woowee! You left the door open on this. Although this may not be what you are looking for... Mark Finchem has cheated AZ taxpayers by supporting a grants of a million bucks to print ballot paper with 'security' measures on the paper, although no evidence ever of fraudulent paper being used in voting. Cochise County returned the grant when the spotlight became too warm. And what about the Santa Cruz County treasurer who cheated taxpayers out of $34 mil?Sen David Gowan cheating on his gas receipts and per diem? (On another topic how bout an article detailing how when reps or senators are term limited they can simply switch jobs via elections and carry on such as happened with Gowan and Griffin)

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Patt's avatar
Jul 30Edited

Add in Kavanagh, Hoffman, and Petersen to House/Senate Senate/House switching.

I'd like an article on that too. What's the point of term limits if they can be ignored?

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Hank Stephenson's avatar

I'll even go a step beyond saying term limits are useless to say term limits are a bad idea. It takes years for a politician to go from ideologue to pragmatist, and as soon as they start making that journey, they're shuffled out.

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bisbeefred's avatar

I tend to agree, but I don't see any other mechanism to differentiate the 'learners/pragmatists/good govs' from the 'graft accumulators/porkers/coasters'. How would that be done?

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Patt's avatar
Jul 30Edited

"...as soon as they start making that journey, they're shuffled out." Hell no. They just move to the other House. I beieve Mr. Kavanagh has been in the State Houses for 20 years.

Please identify these politicians by name who have grown from ideologues to pragmatics. I don't see any in the AZ state Republican Party.

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Hank Stephenson's avatar

Kyrsten Sinema, Ruben Gallego, Katie Hobbs. lol but yah it's harder to do from the Republicans. But I'd even point to like a Vince Leach, or Adam Kwasman or heck, even Steve Montenegro have all been around long enough to have stopped thinking of their jobs as throwing bombs and started thinking of it more in terms of getting stuff done. They're still conservative, but it's a different flavor with age and experience

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Patt's avatar

Sinema? She literally transformed into a republican.

This Vince Leach?

Arizona Senator questions loyalty of foreign-born lawmakers, some from his own caucus

https://azmirror.com/briefs/arizona-senator-questions-loyalty-of-foreign-born-lawmakers-some-from-his-own-caucus/

Adam Kwasman?

Echoing Trump, Scottsdale guts its diversity office

“You can’t walk into Scottsdale City Hall without being bombarded with DEI,” Kwasman tweeted on Jan. 23. “This poison will be rooted-out of our beautiful city.” In the picture accompanying Kwasman’s tweet, he’d circled city brochures depicting people of different racial backgrounds standing together.

https://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/news/scottsdale-to-gut-diversity-office-trump-anti-dei-fervor-21197066

C'mon Hank. That leaves one...Montenegro, who I don't know enough about to cite a lack of a transformation.

Republicans don't change. Just look at Congress.

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Hank Stephenson's avatar

I mean Sinema is a lot of things, but one of those things is definitely a pragmatist. And 10 years ago, those people were way weirder! lol

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Chris Elsner's avatar

Would it be too much to expect lawmakers to start as pragmatic rather than bomb throwers? Ranked choice voting and open primaries would help. Why should the public suffer so extremists can (sometimes) leave to chill out?

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Hank Stephenson's avatar

I especially appreciate the gowan reference

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Corinne Cooper's avatar

A former Pima County elected official was once arrested at the old El Rancho market for shoplifting a steak in his shorts.

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Hank Stephenson's avatar

What?

I'm gonna need some links

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Corinne Cooper's avatar

https://tucson.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/elections/article_3d40297c-3129-5b25-8dca-e62cbfa8de78.html

He was also involved in a fatal car accident.

“When Asta, a former Pima County supervisor, announced his bid Tuesday, he addressed the 1978 shoplifting embarrassment, which he knew would come up in the campaign. "I'm human," he said in a statement. "With nobody to blame but me, it was one of the great humbling experiences of my life. So I am the only candidate who will admit to making mistakes. But I've come back strong from each of them."”

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Hank Stephenson's avatar

Holy shit!

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Jeffrey's avatar

Don’t forget about the illustrious 7 legislators who gave us “AZScam” in 1991…🙄

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Hank Stephenson's avatar

AZScam could be repeated today.

And for those of you who don't know what azscam is, here's a great documentary

https://youtu.be/Mn8aRYHD5_Q

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Scott S's avatar

Snowflake was actually named after the Snow and Flake families who were part of a group sent from Utah by LDS Church leaders to settle Arizona. Your description is just a bit misleading.

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Hank Stephenson's avatar

Interesting i know nothing about the snows. But the flakes we know are of that flake family, right?

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Scott S's avatar

I believe you got the Flake family connections correct. The Snows and the Flakes were the leaders of the group that founded the town. Sharing the name of the town shows they were equals. I guess the Flakes were just more prolific in leadership as the generations passed.

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Carolyn's avatar

Commander and Cheat is one of my favorite books, Rick Riley is a wonderful author and wrote for many years for Sports Illustrated. Besides calling Trump a cheat in so many incidents he gets down, in detail, what happened as he had golfed with Trump many times. His love of golf, his grandmother was a golf lover, was inspirational. I read it during the first term. He’s even a bigger cheat and bully now, in horrible ways.

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Mark Estes's avatar

Darrow 'Duke' Tully once was a major player in the state as Arizona's leading newspaper publisher. Tully had boasted, 'I tell Arizona what to think.'

Tully's “legend” came apart in December 1985, courtesy of Maricopa County Attorney Tom Collins. Miffed at news stories and editorials about him in the Republic and the Gazette, Collins exposed fabrications in Tully’s CV.

Collins looked into the military background Tully often boasted about. He found there wasn't one -- Tully had NOT been a lieutenant colonel, and had NOT been shot down during the Korean War, and had NOT flown more than 100 missions in Vietnam. The medals Tully would wear at ceremonial functions had never been awarded. Tully also had said he was a football player at Purdue. He was not.

Tully quickly followed up Collins' exposé/news conference by resigning, apologizing and retreating to the privacy of his Phoenix home. It was a major embarrassment for the Republic and Gazette.

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Hank Stephenson's avatar

What?! This is crazy

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Mark Estes's avatar

Darrow 'Duke' Tully once was a major player in the state as Arizona's leading newspaper publisher. Tully had boasted, 'I tell Arizona what to think.'

Tully's “legend” came apart in December 1985, courtesy of Maricopa County Attorney Tom Collins. Miffed at news stories and editorials about him in the Republic and the Gazette, Collins exposed fabrications in Tully’s CV.

Collins looked into the military background Tully often boasted about. He found there wasn't one -- Tully had NOT been a lieutenant colonel, and had NOT been shot down during the Korean War, and had NOT flown more than 100 missions in Vietnam. The medals Tully would wear at ceremonial functions had never been awarded. Tully also had said he was a football player at Purdue. He was not.

Tully quickly followed up Collins' exposé/news conference by resigning, apologizing and retreating to the privacy of his Phoenix home. It was a major embarrassment for the Republic and Gazette.

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Cimex's avatar

We can't talk about Arizona Cheaters without mentioning Tom Horne's baseball cap. Don't forget to leave a note, Tom!

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Hank Stephenson's avatar

Ooh good memories. Thx for bringing that tryst back. And in case people don’t get the cap reference …

https://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/12/us/legal-woes-pose-hurdles-for-arizona-attorney-general-tom-horne-in-campaign-.html

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