Month: February 2019

Support HB 2395 to Save Local Recycling, the Environment, and Our Economy

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This has been a year of action for Sustainable Tucson. We committed to including an action with every educational meeting.

At our Recycling and Beyond meeting, we not only learned about the new rules for recycling and why they are important, but we also formed a Zero Plastic Waste team. Here is a recording of our first meeting. But it is really a working group. We already wrote and promoted the blog, “Lessons from Our Recycling Queen.” (I suggest everyone read and learn it. Our bad recycling is making it cost prohibitive to have a recycling program in Tucson.) We just finished drafting a one-sheet (two sides) about HB2395 – which repeals the law that makes it illegal for towns like Bisbee to ban plastic grocery bags and other packaging. The one-sheet will be included in attendees’ folders for Environmental Day at the Capitol and they will be handed to our state legislators.

Even if you can’t attend Environmental Day at the Capitol, you can still help out by e-mailing your state representatives and asking them to support HB2395.

Feel free to attach a link to the one-sheet to your e-mail:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1L6LYwJBw640kMmrgZbVvgKG3TClm9R36/view?usp=sharing

And here is the link to the actual bill, HB2395, that repeals ARS 9-500.38 and 11-269.16:

https://bit.ly/2GD3LIO

To find out who your Representative is, just find your district and use that to look up your Rep.

If you haven’t already, you might wanna go ahead and sign up for Request to Speak. I will be posting opportunities to weigh in on this bill when it gets into committee.

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TOMORROW: Senate Judiciary Committee To Question Mike Liburdi For Judgeship; Trump Nomination Bypassed Arizona Senators

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Mike Liburdi will have his hearing in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee tomorrow morning. Liburdi was nominated last month by Presdient Donald Trump to fill one of the two judicial vacancies on Arizona’s U.S. District Court bench.

Liburdi was Governor Doug Ducey’s General Counsel between 2015-2018. He applied for the lifetime appointment in August of last year by going directly to the Department of Justice. In 2016-17, he had not been considered by a judicial selection committee that had been set up by Arizona’s two Senators.

Typically, the Senators recommend individuals to the Administration for such nominations in their home states – particularly when the Senators and the President are of the same party. For example, the other pending judicial nomination from Arizona was vetted and recommended by McCain and Flake in early 2017.

Hon. Bridget Bade’s nomination for a position on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals was approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee last week on a remarkably bipartisan vote of 17-5. Her nomination is now ready to be voted on by the entire Senate.

The differing pathways for the Bade and Liburdi nominations was set forth in their written submissions to the Committee, and lays bare some of the tension that existed between Trump, McCain and Flake.

Bade is an uncontroversial pick both because of her judicial experience as a U.S. Magistrate

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10 Great Reasons to Support Mark Kelly’s Run for AZ Senate

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Let’s face it, there is no such thing as a “good” politician. But those who come to the dark art of politics later in life – those who are forced into the immoral world of politics out of a genuine, and often desperate necessity for change – are our best hope. Those who spend most … Read more

Retired astronaut Mark Kelly announces U.S. Senate bid (updated)

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This has been a long time in coming, but it’s now official: Mark Kelly, an American astronaut and husband of former Rep. Gabby Giffords, is running for US Senate in Arizona in 2020. Former astronaut Mark Kelly announces his Arizona Senate campaign:

Kelly announced on Tuesday that he would seek the late John McCain’s seat, which Sen. Martha McSally was appointed to last year after losing her Senate race to Kyrsten Sinema. The emotional four-and-a-half-minute video starts with Kelly recalling his first sunrise in space, traces his family history, and then turns to Giffords’s shooting in 2011 and the themes on which he will run in the upcoming campaign.

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“What I learned from my wife is how you use policy to improve people’s lives,” Kelly says, citing health care, economic stagnation, and climate change as challenges that need to be addressed.

“Solving some of the problems requires one thing, and that’s teamwork,” Kelly says. “Partisanship and polarization and gerrymandering and corporate money have ruined our politics and it’s divided us.”

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Rep. Pam Powers Hannley

Repeal SB1487: Bring Back Local Control

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It is time to repeal SB1487. If you are one of those political wonks who has memorized the numbers of the horrible bills that have been passed by the Arizona Legislature, you will recognize this number as the ultimate local control preemption bill. This is the bill that allowed Rep. Mark Finchem to complain about … Read more