The Daily Agenda: It's a super dry heat
Shorten your shower ... What's on your Pinterest? ... And RIP to BDE.
The federal government announced yesterday it will cut more water from Arizona’s share of the Colorado River, yet another sign of the dire nature of our water supply problems.
Arizona will lose more than 20% of its water delivery in 2023, more than we were cut in 2022. We’re now in a Tier 2 shortage, the second tier of cuts, which will affect “the Gila River Indian Community, Tohono O'odham Nation and some cities, including Phoenix,” according to Axios’ Jeremy Duda.
The cuts to Arizona, Nevada and Mexico came after the feds warned western states that rely on the river that if they couldn’t work together to come up with a plan to share the burden and preserve more water, the feds would draft the plan for them. The states didn’t. So, the feds announced cuts that were part of a 2019 plan, with potential additional cuts still on the table.
All states need to contribute to conserving our water supply from the river, and the federal government needs to do more to compel a shared burden, the Republic’s Joanna Allhands argues. It’s not only water that’s in jeopardy — if Lake Mead levels fall low enough, Hoover Dam can’t generate power.
If you’ve been paying attention at all for the last few years, you know that the water crisis Arizona experts warned of for decades has come to bear. We cannot rely on the Colorado River supply. Our decades-long drought only exacerbates the fact that the river has been overpromised since the start.
We’ve seen recognition of a problem, but not much in the way of immediate solutions. Lawmakers finally approved a big infusion of money this year for water supply, but the fruits of those dollars likely won’t be seen for years. We do not have years.
Cities across Arizona have put their drought plans in place, but they don’t do much to curb water usage overall, and few even touch residential usage.
But we’re not too far gone. And our ability to live and thrive in the desert depends on our ability to find more water and conserve what we have.
We all need to do our part to cut back on water. If you have a lawn, you need to rethink it. But all of the correct actions by individual citizens won’t overcome the corporate gifts and negligent policy that allow big water users to keep guzzling.
Our policymakers need to decide how to curb the Saudi Arabian company that gets a “sweet deal” on water (Democratic AG candidate Kris Mayes, for her part, thinks the deal violates the gift clause). They need to reel in the golf courses that overuse water. They need to address groundwater overpumping in areas that have been begging for help for years.
Lord help us, we agree with GOP gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake on something — water is perhaps the top issue facing our state in this year’s election. But it’s more than an election issue. It’s a survival issue.
Arizona requires political will and strong collaboration to make it through what will be some very painful years for water. It’s not too late to start doing what we should’ve been doing for a long time now.
Hidden in plain Pinterest: Conspiracy-laden Republican secretary of state candidate Mark Finchem has a Pinterest account, where he shared a “treason watch list,” a cartoon comparing former President Barack Obama to Hitler and claims that the Holocaust could happen in the U.S., CNN reports.
“While Finchem has some light-hearted and conventional boards on food, fashion and dogs, he also has a board titled ‘Treason Watch List,’ featuring photos of Jesse Jackson, former Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and former Secretary of State John Kerry,” CNN reports.
He’s either celebrating too late or too early: Gov. Doug Ducey “signed” a bill to create universal private and religious school vouchers in Arizona again yesterday after having already signed it last month, the Associated Press reports. The victory lap was met with scorn from education groups that are working to refer the bill to the ballot and overturn it. Save Our Schools, the group that referred and killed Ducey’s last voucher bill, will need to collect more than 118,000 valid signatures from registered voters by Sept. 24 in order to force a referendum on the issue.
Speaking of celebrating too late: If you didn’t give us a birthday present by paying for your subscription yesterday, it’s never too late. We love birthday presents.
Don’t get ahead with Fred: Former regent and Democratic gubernatorial nominee Fred Duval wants you to start repaying your student loans. He writes in the Republic that the ongoing temporary pause in repayments has gone on long enough and should include a means test going forward.
Gonna need more millions than that: The Accountability Project, a GOP-run anti-Trump PAC with some memorable ads, is setting its sights on Republican gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake, investing $2 million in TV and digital ads against her, Axios Phoenix reports.
Don’t be fooled by her protection for the rich: U.S. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema may have single handedly saved us from a recession with her amendments to the Inflation Reduction Act, Substacker Robert Robb argues, but she’s no true supply-sider when it comes to her economic policies.
It’s not the ACLU: Judicial Watch, a conservative activism group that advocates for government transparency, and Phoenix Law Enforcement Association, which represents police officers, are both putting pressure on the City of Phoenix to review its policies about communicating on apps like Signal, after ABC15 showed top cops were using it to hide their communications from the public, ABC15’s Melissa Blasius reports.
It’s not Pinal: The Pima County Board of Supervisors unanimously voted to review the county’s election processes after a series of minor mistakes caused some hiccups in the primary, the Tucson Sentinel’s Bennito Kelty writes. None of the alleged mistakes would have altered election results, but were instead things like people not receiving their sample ballots or receiving voter ID cards with incorrect information.
“Little things like this add up to big things where people have no faith in the system,” Supervisor Steve Christy said.
Time is a circle: National and state Democrats filed a federal lawsuit attempting to strike down Arizona’s new voter ID law, which requires people to prove citizenship before registering to vote, or in some cases, even if they’re already registered to vote. A similar 2013 law was shot down at the U.S. Supreme Court, and the Justice Department has already filed its own suit.
Wait, she’s running for office?: A clearly political attack ad against Kari Lake was clearly a political attack ad, and therefore must disclose its donors, the Arizona Citizens Clean Elections Commission said in a preliminary ruling following a complaint about it. The Republic’s Richard Ruelas writes that the ads from Freedoms Future Fund, which aired in February, attacked Lake as being soft on the border and for donating to former President Barack Obama. The nonprofit’s lawyers argued the ads were issue advocacy, not political ads, and that they were trying to inform the public of her stance not because she’s running for office, but because she’s a former “prominent television news journalist.”
Today in cacti and critters: A saguaro in Marana named “Strong-Arm” that was born sometime around the Civil War has died after a long bout of bacterial infection, the Arizona Daily Star’s Henry Brean reports. It was among the largest and most-armed saguaros in town, and among the few that earned a name. Residents are in mourning. Meanwhile, the desert rains are bringing out desert critters like palo verde beetles and Sonoran toads, KJZZ reports. But please don’t lick the toads.
While Legislative District 17 is not one of the five competitive districts this election cycle, it’s a potential dark-horse district in the general election.
LD17 is the district Republican Sen. Vince Leach wanted for himself, and he urged the redistricting commission to draw him into something that favored Tucson-area Republicans. But Leach got ejected in the primary in favor of a slate of far-right candidates. Now, politicos are eyeing it as a potential upset, despite its conservative leanings.
Justine Wadsack, the Purple for Parents and QAnon-friendly Republican, defeated Leach for the Senate seat and will now face Mike Nickerson, a Democrat who is also a pastor.
In the House, Rachel Jones and Cory McGarr made it out of the five-way Republican primary. Jones is a former teacher and “Border Patrol wife,” and McGarr is a millennial New Jersey transplant who works for a pest control company. Along with Wadsack, the three candidates formerly employed an alleged rapist as a consultant. Jones and McGarr will face Democrats Dana Allmond, a retired Lieutenant Colonel and graduate of West Point Academy and Brian Radford, a retired corrections officer, former teacher and foster parent.
Democrats are hoping the race will be a re-do of 2008, when Democrat Nancy Young Wright won in a similar Republican-leaning Tucson-based district. She ended up losing in 2010, a strong year for Republicans.
We’re still laughing at Kari Lake’s comments about Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis having “Big Dick Energy.” This is the last time we’ll be able to laugh about it, since the term is now officially dead, Caitlin Cruz writes in Jezebel.
“If I could remove my ears and let them marinate in a bucket of sanitizer for a week after hearing this, I would,” Cruz wrote, adding that by commandeering BDE, Lake ensured the term has “officially gone soft.”
Thanks for the comprehensive post. The water disaster in the Southwest is complicated by the fact we are experiencing drought and water shortages all over the planet. It is at once political, real climate connected and economic. We are facing real dire survival issues.
LD17 is indeed a stretch for Democrats; on the other hand, as with LD16, planscore gives it roughly a 1 in 4 chance. So it's not as far fetched a win for blue as the fully "safely red" districts (most of which planscore gives less than a 1% chance for a D win). 1 in 4 chance things happen every day (or maybe every 4th day? :) ).