The Daily Agenda: Safety first
But accountability is important, too ... It's January 2023 ... And maybe Katie A. Ducey is Doug's twin.
A decade ago, we would have been outraged at Senate Bill 1061, a proposal from Republican Sen. T.J. Shope that would allow lawmakers to keep their addresses secret from the public.
But these days, we’re not so sure.
As reporters, we lean strongly in favor of the public’s right to know. That includes being able to verify that those seeking to represent us at the state Capitol actually live in our communities.
There are practical reasons that a politician should live in the neighborhood or district that they represent. An elected representative needs to know what’s happening in their area so they can effectively advocate for issues important to their constituencies.
There are also legal reasons. State law requires lawmakers and local politicians to live in their districts. Unfortunately, politicians aren’t always the most truthful bunch, and there’s no government agency in charge of verifying that they actually do live there. It falls to neighbors, reporters and political opponents to keep them honest.
On the other hand, the reality of running for office has dramatically changed in recent years. It is scary out there. Public officials receive a near-daily onslaught of hate and threats, not just online. Far too frequently, armed protesters will show up at their doors angry about a vote, a position or an online conspiracy they read.
“I’ve had three actual death threats that came in emails. … I’ve had people protest my home, probably about a dozen of them, all armed,” after he voted against a ban on employer vaccine mandates, Shope told us.
Shope’s SB1061, which cleared the Senate Government Committee yesterday, would make it nearly impossible for citizens to know whether a candidate actually lives in their neighborhood and is equipped to represent them. But it would provide a measure of safety and peace of mind for politicians.
Still, there might be a way to get the best of both worlds. Shope said he has been talking to Secretary of State Adrian Fontes about an amendment to mandate the Secretary’s Office check if candidates are actually registered to vote at their given address. Their addresses would still be kept from the public, but someone would at least do a cursory check that they live there.
That might actually be an improvement, considering the courts have shown little interest in policing candidates’ addresses, regardless of what the law says. The courts have essentially taken the position that home is a state of mind.
But as drafted, the bill would only provide protection for lawmakers, statewide elected officials and members of Congress. It does not include local officials or election workers, who are under siege because of the reckless rhetoric of some of those same politicians who voted to protect their own addresses yesterday.
But that also may be subject of an amendment, Shope said.
“I would like to, at the very least, put elections officers into that,” he said, adding that “many times we're the ones guilty of stoking a lot of it.”
Make 2024 stop: Politico, the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times all have questions about Arizona’s upcoming U.S Senate race, asking, in order: Will Republicans blow it again, can Ruben Gallego really energize Latinos, and is Arizona becoming more purple? The correct answers are: Don’t underestimate their ability to blow it, don’t overestimate his approval ratings and please stop asking that.
Not my project: The new governor of Sonora, Mexico, doesn’t like the Israeli company trying to create a desalination plant in Rocky Point that was a big priority of former Gov. Doug Ducey. Sonora Gov. Alfonso Durazo tweeted that he would “never meet with the company again” after a courtesy meeting turned sour, KJZZ’s Murphy Woodhouse reports. Durazo said Ducey and former Sonoran Gov. Claudia Pavlovich cooked up the idea, but he has made no commitments.
The Super Bowl > civil rights: As cities attempt to clean up their acts for the Super Bowl, the legal threats are flying. The ACLU and Public Justice recently sent a letter to Glendale demanding it stop enforcing the panhandling ban it approved last October, saying it is “nothing more than a blanket ban on speech to reduce public discomfort about panhandling in anticipation of the Super Bowl,” the Yellow Sheet Report reports. Meanwhile, the Goldwater Institute isn’t satisfied with Phoenix City Council’s amended rules about signage in its “clean zone” for the Super Bowl, arguing in court that the new rules still bar its client from functionally getting approved for signage in time for the event, the Yellow Sheet writes.
The Super Bowl > safety: State Farm Stadium, which will host the Super Bowl, has received a lot of red flags during safety inspections over the years, 12News reports, including for blocked exits, unsecured hazardous materials and defunct fire extinguishers. The Department of Forestry and Fire Management wouldn’t turn over the 2022 inspection report, saying they wanted to “sit down with stadium management and go over it” first, 12News writes. The stadium spokesperson says it’s totally safe.
Time to reassess: After arresting Cochise County Attorney Brian McIntyre for “super extreme DUI” last weekend, the local police drove him home, the Herald/Review writes in a story about his future in the office. He’s elected, so the county supervisors can’t fire him.
We get no respect: Fellow Substacker Robert Robb has something of a rebuttal to our piece about the historical origins of the school spending cap, saying the 10 questions lawmakers sent to the voters in 1980 were sound public policy to address the “creeping governmentalism” of the time. Though it ultimately failed to constrain the growth of government, he says policymakers were smart to create a “circuit breaker” rather than a “straight jacket” to control spending.
Must be something in the water: After a divisive and “nasty” campaign handed the Fountain Hills City Council to a new far-right conservative majority, the new council members are struggling to keep competing campaign pledges, such as fixing the roads without raising taxes, the Republic’s Sam Kmack writes.
Hacks and power outages: Tucson Unified School District officials are tight-lipped about a data breach that happened Monday, saying only that the “data security incident” “impacted some of our systems” and that district leaders “appreciate your patience and understanding” as they try to fix it. Teachers and families are worried that their personal information, like social security numbers, addresses and disciplinary records may have been stolen, the Arizona Daily Star’s Genesis Lara writes. Meanwhile in Santa Cruz County, schools, businesses and government offices were closed yesterday due to a massive power outage at UniSource Electric, the local power provider, the Nogales International writes.
Where’s your report?: A committee of faculty studying safety following a professor’s murder by a former student at the University of Arizona declared that its “approach to violence risks established an administrative culture that consciously and consistently disregards employee and students’ safety concerns.” A university spokesperson panned the report, calling it misleading. The university hired a consultant to do its own report on the incident. It was due last month but hasn’t been released and the university wouldn’t answer questions from the Arizona Daily Star’s Kathryn Palmer about it.
Weird indeed: Bike lanes get slippery in snow, Flagstaff is discovering after it installed a couple of controversial separated bike lanes downtown, the Arizona Daily Sun’s Sean Golightly reports. They’re also pretty difficult to plow because they require special skinny plows that the city had to buy.
“(W)e run into some weird issues with it,” Samuel Beckett, the city streets section director, told Golightly.
