Month: March 2018

More about that Prop. 123 ruling (Updated)

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Linda Lyon covered this in her post below, but here are the links that media reports have been leaving out.

Judge Neil Wake’s 33 page Order in Michael Pierce v. Douglas Ducey, CV-16-01538-PHX-NVW.

The massive 2,232-page, $1.3 trillion spending bill approved by Congress last week.

The provision that Governor Ducey’s attorney Michael Liburdi asserts “retroactively” authorized what Judge Wake ruled was an unconstitutional act by Governor Ducey is found at “DIVISION S—OTHER MATTER – Title IV—Consent of Congress to Amendments to the Constitution of the State of Arizona”:

Screen Shot 2018-03-27 at 5.47.44 AMScreen Shot 2018-03-27 at 5.48.43 AM

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Prop. 123 Deemed Unconstitutional

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Cross-posted from RestoreReason.com.

Capitol Media Services reported yesterday, that a Federal judge ruled Governor Ducey’s funding scheme, that became Proposition 123, is unconstitutional. Judge Neil Wake “said the federal Enabling Act that made Arizona (and New Mexico) a state in 1912 and gave it lands to hold in trust for schools allows the state to use only the interest off the money earned. The idea, Wake explained, was to preserve the body of the trust – and the future interest it would earn – for future generations.” Wake deemed that Prop. 123, the solution to settle the lawsuit filed in 2010, does not comply with that law.

“Nowhere in the history does anyone request or suggest that Congress give unfettered discretion to either state or that it was abdicating its oversight obligations under either state’s Enabling Act,” he wrote.

Ducey’s attorney however, said there is a provision in recent federal legislation that authorizes future payments from the trust that helps fund the school finance formula, but also ratifies the $344 million in payments already made. The Governor’s press aide, Daniel Scarpinato, said, “We’re not terribly worried”.

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Plan to Modernize TEP Power Plant in Tucson will Produce More Air Pollution

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TEP's Sundt generating station on Irvington Road in Tucson.
TEP’s Sundt generating station on Irvington Road on Tucson’s south side.

Tucson Electric Power is proposing to modernize the Sundt Generating Station  at 4120 E Irvington Rd. in Tucson by replacing two 1950’s era steam units with 10 natural gas-fired combustion engines. The purpose of the new engines is to ramp up more quickly and to balance the variability associated with solar and wind energy generation. But all that ramping spouts more pollution into the air than the current steam units.

TEP claims that these units are part of a larger goal for 30% renewable energy by 2030, but gas-fired engines should not be equated with clean, renewable power from wind and solar. The Reciprocating Internal Combustion Engine (“RICE”) units are fossil-fuel based generating units that would create significant greenhouse gas emissions.

According to the Pima County Department of Environmental Quality, the project expects to cause an increase in emissions of carbon monoxide, particulate matter (fine particles PM2.5 and coarse particles PM10) and volatile organic compounds.

Over a third of carbon dioxide emissions in the US are from power plants.

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Cambridge Analytica had foreigners running GOP campaigns in 2014

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The Bolton PAC, the Mercer family, Steve Bannon and Cambridge Analytica have some serious splainin’ to do. And so do some GOP candidates.

Whistleblowers have provided the Washington Post with some documents from Cambridge Analytica which show that foreigners were running the campaign of some GOP candidates in 2014, which is prohibited by law. It is not a complete list of candidates in 2014. Nor does it include candidates in the 2016 campaign, or any current 2018 campaigns. Former Cambridge Analytica workers say firm sent foreigners to advise U.S. campaigns:

Cambridge Analytica assigned dozens of non-U.S. citizens to provide campaign strategy and messaging advice to ­Republican candidates in 2014, according to three former workers for the data firm, even as an attorney warned executives to abide by U.S. laws limiting foreign involvement in elections.

The assignments came amid efforts to present the newly created company as “an American brand” that would appeal to U.S. political clients even though its parent, SCL Group, was based in London, according to former Cambridge Analytica research director Christopher Wylie.

Wylie, who emerged this month as a whistleblower, provided The Washington Post with documents that describe a program across several U.S. states to win campaigns for Republicans using psychological profiling to reach voters with individually tailored messages. The documents include previously unreported details about the program, which was called “Project Ripon” for the Wisconsin town where the Republican Party was born in 1854.

U.S. election regulations say foreign nationals must not “directly or indirectly participate in the decision-making process” of a political campaign, although they can play lesser roles.

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