Now that the confetti has settled, let’s be honest about one thing. We haven’t come such a long way, baby. Earlier this month, Arizona made history by swearing in women to the top five elected offices in the state. Big deal. I’m sick of the calls from my East Coast…
In Washington, D.C., the Democrats are bleating about the politics of personal destruction. But here in Arizona, some Democrats are doing a pretty good imitation of Ken Starr. Last week, a three-inch stack of paperwork hit my desk, the result of a local Democrat’s opposition research into one of his…
Don’t cry for John McCain. The senator would have you believe that he’s too much the maverick. That his support of campaign-finance reform has cost him any small chance he ever had at becoming your next president. That the very system he wants to destroy will destroy him first, preventing…
Myra Goldstein’s house is falling down, falling down, falling down. The windows leak. Electrical outlets don’t work. Outside, stucco is cracking. Inside, drywall is flaking. Upstairs, the balcony is rotting and sagging. Downstairs, a crack in the foundation runs the length of the house, moving the house and, among other…
Every year for the past five years, Tucson Democrat Herschella Horton has introduced legislation that would require insurance companies to cover mental-health care at the level they cover treatment of physical maladies. Every year that the legislation has gotten a hearing, Sue Davis has appeared at the Legislature to testify…
A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you’re talking about real money. –Senator Everett Dirksen For $14 million, you could immunize every 2-year-old in Maricopa County against disease. Or you could give the money to companies like Circle K, McDonald’s and Fry’s. Last year, the Arizona Legislature did…
Water, water, everywhere, Nor any drop to drink. –“The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” Arizona’s got water. It’s tucked away beneath the ground, in reserves called aquifers. But when we need it, will it be fit to drink? In large part, that’s up to the Arizona Legislature. Environmentalists, government bureaucrats,…
How does a bill become a law? It’s not the way you learned it in school. The 44th session of the Arizona Legislature won’t officially convene until next week, but the lawmakers are already huddling at the Capitol, planning their agenda, writing bills, lining up sponsors, strategizing votes. No, we’re…
Mark Fleisher is an eternal optimist, which is amazing since the guy is also the chairman of the Arizona Democratic Party. He’ll look you in the eye and with all sincerity tell you that 1998 was a good year for Democrats. Uh-huh. The Democrats’ only statewide victory went to attorney…
I’ve been through legislation creating a dozen national parks, and there’s always the same pattern. When you first propose a park, and you visit the area and present the case to the local people, they threaten to hang you. You go back in five years and they think it’s the…
Former Chilean president Augusto Pinochet stands charged of murder, torture and kidnapping, but even he has access to the British court system as he fights his extradition to Spain. That’s better treatment than another Chilean, Oscar Fuchslocher, is getting in the United States. Fuchslocher, who has been ordered deported by…
Ruby, the Phoenix Zoo’s Asian elephant, died last month when her pregnancy went awry, and the city got the blues. Ruby had lived here almost 25 years–longer than most of us–and she’d become famous as one of the world’s most unlikely painters. Her works raised hundreds of thousands of dollars…
For a one-party state, Arizona has a surprisingly split political personality. On one hand there’s proposition politics. Place a question on the ballot, and Arizona voters instantly think like Abbie Hoffman. In recent times, Arizonans have said “yes” to radical campaign finance reform and one of the country’s highest tobacco…
The Symington administration cleared out more than a year ago. Like a bad enchilada from yesterday’s lunch, however, a favor the Symingtonians laid on a friend as they left office is making a lot of government officials queasy. The dyspepsia-inducing culprit? A proposed statewide Uniform Plumbing Code. This little tempest…
Spur Cross Ranch must’ve looked as good to John McCain as prickly-pear fruit does to a hungry javelina. Last year about this time, Arizona’s senior senator toured the 2,250 acres of pristine Sonoran desert on the northern end of Cave Creek abutting the Tonto National Forest, home to endangered wildlife…
The long cookie bake-off is finally over for Granny Hull. Here is what she’s been camera-mugging, sweet-talking and publicly patting small school children on the head for throughout the past year. In this, her moment of truth and reconciliation with the people of Arizona, Governor Jane Dee Hull finally can…
Two years ago, television sportscaster-turned-congressman J.D. Hayworth was just one more name on Arizona’s list of political embarrassments. The Gingrich-ite made headlines for overnighting in his office and picking fights with seasoned House members like Maryland’s Steny Hoyer and Wisconsin’s Dave Obey. The Progressive called him one of the 10…
Janet Napolitano plays it straight. While her opponent, Republican Tom McGovern, is chasing down the soccer moms and dads with boomer-ready buzz words, the Democratic candidate for attorney general stumps on her legal and managerial experience as a U.S. attorney and a private lawyer, and on her vision for the…
Big Red is back. Governor Jane Hull shed her Granny Hull get-up and came out swinging last week after her Democratic challenger, Paul Johnson, accused her of taking campaign cash from Nevada developers thirsty for Arizona’s water. Hull has a 30-point lead in the polls. She could have scoffed at…
At first glance, Proposition 202–the IRS Elimination Pledge Initiative–looks like the worst kind of amateur, copycat Contract With America drivel. If passed, the ballot measure would force candidates for federal office to choose between pledging or not pledging to support the elimination of the federal income tax and Internal Revenue…
You may not know that you’ll be deciding the fate of the Arizona State Lottery on November 3. You’ll be asked to vote on Proposition 304. Vote yes, and the Arizona Lottery will be extended until 2003. Vote no, and you’ll have played your last PowerBall in this state, come…
Every election year, dozens of special interest groups quiz candidates for public office. Questionnaires flow in from groups as diverse as the Christian Coalition, the Sierra Club and the Arizona Association of Manufactured Home Owners. Campaigns are hell. Amid boring chores like stuffing envelopes, circulating petitions, nailing up campaign signs…
