From Progress Now Arizona…
PHOENIX – Arizona State Senator Steve Yarbrough now knows why U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham never uses email.
On Tuesday Yarbrough, R-Chandler, sent a mass email to at least 300 constituents defending his late-night state budget vote to slash university and community college budgets, reduce per-pupil funding for public schools and pull the safety net out from under thousands of Arizonans. The text of Yarbrough’s email can be found here.
We know exactly how many people Yarbrough contacted because – you guessed it – he forgot to blind copy the list of recipients before hitting send. Political Communications 101 fail. And we also know how his constituents responded. At least a dozen ticked off, well-informed and clever recipients hit “reply all” with their comments.
It wasn’t pretty for Yarbrough. Below are just a few of the highlights (WARNING, this is long but totally worth it), with last names redacted. Enjoy!
From “Dan”:
You admit in your email that, “Universities were cut by nearly $100 million” and that doesn’t even include the devastating cuts to Maricopa and Pima Community Colleges which brings your cuts to higher education to more than $110M.
With these cuts that you voted for you have guaranteed that Arizona will remain in the lowest tier of the states for future quality job growth for decades. You are essentially locking many of our children into dead-end low-wage jobs or forcing them to move out of state to pursue higher education and 21st century jobs. I know many parents with children will remember your vote in the next election. I know I will.
From “Bea,” a lifelong Republican
I agree with all of the others that have said that you, or your office intern should learn how to BCC that many email addresses, or how to set up a group in your mail program – maybe call it something like – “Mad as heck parents who don’t like short changed education”.
The AZLeg has been cutting money in our K-12 programs at an alarming rate since 2008. Cuts have been over 40% in that time frame (adjusted for inflation). This is unacceptable!
How can we ever expect to bring high paying jobs and economic development to this amazing state if we are not willing to support an education system that helps to produce educated graduates that are ready to move either into the workforce, technical schools, community college or universities. Economic growth is spurred on by an educated citizenry coupled with a business friendly environment that has reasonably taxes and regulations.