Month: January 2019

Action Alert: Tell your state senator to vote no on GOP voter suppression bills

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In Arizona, nearly all municipal elections are now conducted by mail-in ballots.

For state and federal elections, in 2018 more than 80 percent of the votes cast in Arizona were by early ballots (which include mail-in ballots dropped off on Election Day).

Arizona should be following the lead of Oregon (2000), Washington (2011) and Colorado (2013) which hold all elections entirely by mail. (In California, some counties are permitted to conduct all-mail elections. After 2020, the option will be available to all counties in the state.) ALL-MAIL ELECTIONS (aka VOTE-BY-MAIL).  Arizonans previously rejected the “Your right to vote by mail act,” Prop. 205 in 2006, but given the overwhelming percentage of Arizona voters who are now comfortable voting early by mail-in ballot, it is time to revisit this election reform.

Instead, Arizona’s new reigning Queen of Voter Suppression, Rep. Michelle Ugenti-Rita, wants to restrict your right to vote early by mail-in ballot, in particular, to eliminate your right to drop off your early mail-in ballot at a polling location on election day. She wants to make you stand in long lines on election day (a form of voter suppression because it discourages people from voting) to present a photo I.D. and to cast a provisional ballot instead, you slackers!

Ignoring the testimony of county election officials, Republican lawmakers voted to bar Arizona voters who receive their ballot by mail from turning them in by hand. GOP bill would restrict vote-by-mail options:

On party lines, the four GOP senators on the chamber’s Judiciary Committee advanced SB 1046 (.pdf), which would restrict how voters who sign up for the Permanent Early Voting List, known as PEVL, can cast a ballot. Current law allows them to return those ballots by mail, or hand-deliver them to election facilities at any time leading up to or on election day.

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ACLU of Arizona’s “Sixty Years of Daring to Create a More Perfect Arizona” exhibit opening at Arizona History Museum

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This traveling exhibit is closing at Etherton Gallery (135 S.6th Avenue) on Feb. 2nd, moving to the Arizona History Museum, 949 E. 2nd Street on Feb. 5 (to March 5), 2019. From Tucson the exhibit travels to Prescott, Flagstaff, Phoenix, Winslow, and  back to Tempe where it started.

“HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE ACLU OF ARIZONA’S 60 YEARS OF DEFENDING CIVIL LIBERTIES

Since 1959, the ACLU of Arizona has worked in courts, the Legislature, and communities statewide to protect the constitutional rights of all people. With the help of nearly 20,000 members and tens of thousands more supporters, we are able to take up the toughest civil liberties fights. Our work is not about one person, one party, or one issue. It is about all of us, we the people, coming together and daring to create a more perfect Arizona. We are in this together.
More information.
This exhibit will be open from February 5th to March 5th 2019.
Opening Reception and Workshop about Civil Discourse February 6th 5:30 p.m.-7:30 p.m.”

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Allen Sales Tax Plan to help fund Education is deemed “regressive” by many Democrats.

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Superintendent of Public Instruction Kathy Hoffman said work needs to be done to “find sustainable and dedicated revenue streams to fund our schools.”

Education funding after last years Red for Ed Movement will continue to dominate discussions in Arizona Political and Economic Circles this year and next.

While the 20 percent raises for instructors and staff over two years and other increases in education funding  (like extending Proposition 301) passed by the legislature are certainly helpful, it still does not fully address the funding shortfall of public schools in Arizona in 2019. For that matter, it does not rectify the funding shortfall at 2008 levels.

What is to be done to bring public school funding up to 2019 levels?

Governors Ducey’s 2019 budget, according to Superintendent of Public Instruction Kathy Hoffman is a step in the right direction but work must be done to “find sustainable and dedicated revenue streams to fund our schools.”

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We need to talk about marginal tax rates

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Earlier this month, freshman Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the youngest woman ever elected to Congress, was interviewed by Anderson Cooper on 60 Minutes. One brief comment she made about taxes has the billionaire plutocrats of the New Gilded Age clutching their pearls and attacking her as a proxy for attacking progressive tax policy in general:

Anderson Cooper: This would require, though, raising taxes.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: There’s an element where— yeah. There— people are going to have to start paying their fair share in taxes.

Anderson Cooper: Do you have a specific on the tax rate?

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: You know, it— you look at our tax rates back in the ’60s and when you have a progressive tax rate system. Your tax rate, you know, let’s say, from zero to $75,000 may be ten percent or 15 percent, et cetera. But once you get to, like, the tippy tops— on your 10 millionth dollar— sometimes you see tax rates as high as 60 or 70 percent. That doesn’t mean all $10 million are taxed at an extremely high rate, but it means that as you climb up this ladder you should be contributing more.

Anderson Cooper: What you are talking about, just big picture, is a radical agenda — compared to the way politics is done right now.

Really Anderson? High marginal tax rates were the norm in American tax policy for many years, when America still had a progressive tax system that built a vibrant American middle class.

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The GOP tax cut scam was even worse than you imagined

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MSNBC’s Chris Hayes did a brief segment on Monday night’s episode of All In with Chris Hayes about a new economics report that got lost in all the noise of the corporate media’s fixation this week with Billionaire plutocrats of the New Gilded Age dismissing progressive proposals to increase taxes on the super-wealthy to address extreme wealth inequality (i.e., Michael Bloomberg and Howard Schultz).

See Oxfam’s new report, “Public Good or Private Wealth,” which shows how the growing gap between rich and poor is undermining the fight against poverty, damaging our economies and fueling public anger across the globe. Last year, billionaires saw their wealth grow by $2.5 billion a day while the poorest saw their wealth fall:

The 2017 US tax bill is super-charging the worldwide tax race to the bottom and exacerbating the trend of governments dramatically cutting tax rates for wealthy individuals and corporations around the world. In the US, 30 people hold as much wealth as the poorest half of the population. Cutting wealth and corporate taxes predominantly benefits men who own 50 percent more wealth than women globally, and control over 86 percent of corporations.

“The recent US tax law is a master class on how to favor massive corporations and the richest citizens,”said Paul O’Brien, Oxfam America’s Vice President for Policy and Campaigns.

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