The Daily Agenda: Serious issues, unserious people
This is why we can't have nice debates ... The bar is low for Kari 2.0 ... And do you want Clint to just stay home?
The pace is picking up at 1700 W. Washington this week as lawmakers convene hearings about COVID-19, Big Tech and water, energy and the environment ahead of the new legislative session in January
These interim, ad hoc and intergovernmental committees don’t have much authority to act independently, but they’re supposed to help flesh out the issues that lawmakers set their sights on in the upcoming session. Mostly, they keep lawmakers looking busy through the summer and generate enough headlines to justify their per diem payments for the day.
This week’s hearings will all focus on serious issues facing Arizonans. Unfortunately, many of the committees are populated with not at all serious people.
Monday will kick off with a hearing of the House Ad Hoc Committee on Oversight, Accountability and Big Tech. Thursday should mark an especially low note as U.S. Rep. Paul Gosar and QAnon tweeter Sen. Janae Shamp lead a discussion on vaccine mandates.
The last time the Big Tech committee met, it invited researchers who declared Google a liberal ”mind control machine” and claimed — without a hint of self-awareness — that if it hadn’t been for all damning search results that come up with you Google “Kari Lake,” Lake would have won Arizona in a landslide.
Lake, of course, was on hand to agree.
This week, the committee is investigating whether Gov. Katie Hobbs censored people when she was secretary of state by asking tech platforms like Twitter to take down election disinformation, like that Sharpies are used to rig the election.
It’s no big surprise that none of Arizona’s 15 county recorders volunteered to show up when the committee chairman, Republican Rep. Alex Kolodin, invited them to explain how they work with social media companies “to censor or restrict online speech.”
Instead, the committee will hear from a former Georgetown Law professor who was canceled after tweeting that Biden's pledge to nominate a Black woman to the Supreme Court would result in a "lesser" nominee, and others with little bearing on the question at hand. Members of the committee are considering legislation making it illegal for politicians to ask social media platforms to take down misinformation, among other policy solutions, the Capitol Times’ Jakob Thorington reports.
The legislative workweek will wind down on Thursday with the Novel Coronavirus Southwestern Intergovernmental Committee, which is using the acronym, NCSWIC, which stands for “Nothing Can Stop What Is Coming,” a slogan of the QAnon community.
Committee members’ claim that the acronym is just a coincidence1 would be a lot easier to believe if not for the involvement of U.S. Rep. Paul Gosar, whose affinity for all things QAnon needs no introduction, and Republican state Sen. Janae Shamp, who says she was fired from her jobs as a nurse for refusing to get vaccinated against COVID-19, along with others who travel in the QAnon circus, including this Substacker/doctor:
Another of the presenters is Aaron Siri, a Substacker/anti-vaccine lawyer2 who is leading a charge to get state lawmakers to sign a pledge to repeal any mandatory vaccine laws, which would seemingly include vaccine mandates for children in schools. Lots of Arizona lawmakers have already signed the pledge. The last time he showed up to the Capitol, he tried to convince lawmakers that the Polio vaccine didn’t actually work.
The previous committee hearing was a two-day conspirathon that graced the pages of Rolling Stone under the headline “Arizona Republicans Embrace QAnon With Quack Covid Hearing.” So you know we’re in for a real treat this week.
The sad thing is, the Arizona Legislature absolutely should be discussing issues like informed medical consent and ensuring politicians don’t have the power to censor their critics online.
They’re legitimate issues that deserve a thoughtful policy discussion.
Instead, legislative leaders have handed off important topics like this to zealots who make a mockery of the discussion by inviting people who believe vaccines killed more people than saved or that Google is controlling our minds.
Time and again, lawmakers have taken legitimate concerns, like wanting to ensure elections are fair and accurate, and infused them with conspiracies to serve their political ends, like, say, that the Mexican drug cartels have bribed every official in Arizona.
And when that happens, it’s hard not to disregard the whole issue as just another airing of conspiracies at the Arizona Capitol.
Suddenly she’s a statesman: The New York Times examines Kari Lake’s “tactical retreat” on abortion — she now opposes a federal ban — saying it could be a roadmap for other Republicans. Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board declares Lake 2.0 has “quit stopping the steal” because her singleminded focus on the topic alienates even Republican voters.
“Ms. Lake’s edge hasn’t been dulled: She told the crowd that she misses Mr. Trump’s mean tweets, poked the ‘fake news fools’ covering her speech, and promised to ‘stop the push toward communism.’ But her few nebulous lines about election integrity almost could have been uttered by any other Republican official…”
Taking their wells and going home: A Republican state senator and a farming representative resigned in protest on Friday from Gov. Katie Hobbs’ Water Policy Council, which is tasked with updating Arizona’s groundwater laws, 12News’ Kyra O’Connor reports. Republican Sen. Sine Kerr said in a letter to Hobbs that she was upset that the committee was seeking a majority approval for its plans, rather than consensus. Arizona Farm Bureau President Stephanie Smallhouse said the council has been “deaf to the concerns and priorities of Arizona’s farm and ranch families.”
Every squiggle is unique: Votebeat’s Jen Fifield checks signatures on ballot envelopes in Maricopa County to see if it’s impossible to do in three seconds, as Lake and others charge in a lawsuit challenging the signature verification process. It’s actually pretty easy to tell, she writes, and she didn’t even have the full training that a real employee would.
“I got going pretty quickly at times – approving a signature every three seconds or so – but then I would slow down as the voice inside my head reminded me that this was a crucial task. I was identifying potential forgery on ballots – and I was unqualified to do it,” she writes.
Number 1 in drama: ASU police are investigating a potential aggravated assault after Turning Point USA employees knocked down a gender studies professor on who was Turning Point’s “watchlist” while targeting the professor for harassment after a class. The professor lunged at the Turning Point people, who were following him and filming while calling him a pedophile, though it’s not clear from the security video if the professor actually touched them. The Turning Point crew then shoved him to the ground. ASU President Michael Crow condemned Turning Point for the incident. Meanwhile, Meghan McCain wants ASU to take her father’s name off the new library it’s building if the school won’t condemn pro-Palestine student demonstrators, the Republic’s Laura Gersony writes. Her husband, a conservative commentator, also trashed the library, saying it goes against the late senator’s opposition to earmark spending.
The future is terrifying: Boeing and Hyundai told lawmakers that they’re working on unmanned aerial drone taxis, and lawmakers want to make sure Arizona is the testing grounds, the Capitol Times’ Jakob Thorington writes.
“(I)f the technology is already there for these little drones, I’m sure it’s there (for larger aircrafts),” Republican Rep. David Cook said.
We love it when politicians get caught in a Ferris Bueller-style moment at a ballgame. (Remember David Gowan?)
So we were pretty excited to click on a recent story in the Republic headlined, “A state Supreme Court Justice and former Phoenix councilman had great seats at DBacks game. Who paid for them?”
Turns out that Supreme Court Justice and frequent +1 Clint Bolick paid for his own ticket to the game — he just got a really really good deal.
His buddy, political operative Chuck Warren, has season tickets and paid $3,200 for the box. But Bolick and his son only had to repay Warren $200 a pop.
Former Phoenix City Councilman Sal DiCiccio, recently freed from having to care about media scrutiny of his junkets, proudly told the Republic he did not repay Warren for the tickets.
Warren, who helped organize Kari Lake’s failed gubernatorial campaign, didn’t see the big deal that a Supreme Court justice was watching the game in his box.
“You can make anything out of this you want,” he told the Republic. “I don’t know if he’s supposed to just stay home after work. Would that make everybody happy?”
The committee has removed one letter from its acronym since getting called out.
Substack is truly a grifters’ paradise. Also please subscribe today to this Substack.
Meghan McCain and her authoritarian husband (check out his background) are getting pretty Trumpy.
Another good Substack, although I would challenge you to dig deeper when it comes to Arizona’s openness to innovation. As a society, we increasingly throttle innovation based on resistance to risk. However, if you examine history, the benefits of innovation far outweigh the initial risks associated with testing new methods and products. I am all for informed consent, full and transparent tracking of all innovation initiatives, etc. - but also applaud our state’s openness to hosting innovation initiatives, such as Waymo (as to which the data is now in - rolled out in a thoughtful manner, as has happened in Arizona, the risk of riding in a self driving vehicle is far less than driving oneself).