AZ BlueMeanie

The Blue Meanie is an Arizona citizen who wishes, for professional reasons, to remain anonymous when blogging about politics. Armed with a deep knowledge of the law, politics and public policy, as well as pen filled with all the colors stolen from Pepperland, the Blue Meanie’s mission is to pursue and prosecute the hypocrites, liars, and fools of politics and the media – which, in practical terms, is nearly all of them. Don’t even try to unmask him or he’ll seal you in a music-proof bubble and rendition you to Pepperland for a good face-stomping.

BREAKING: Rep. Giffords to step down from Congress

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie: U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords announced in a personal message on YouTube today that she is stepping down from Congress this week. Giffords thanks the community for its support as she recovered from the shooting. Giffords says she plans to focus on her recovery. She promises to return when she gets better. I believe … Read more

‘Don’t make me angry’ Frank Antenori does ‘red meat’ self-parody

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Our Southern Arizona Tea-Publican tools for our colonial overlords from the state of Maricopa have been hating on the City of Tucson and Pima County for years, trying to subjugate its "librul guvmint."

They have imposed a Rio Nuevo Board appointed by our colonial overlords, sought to impose new election rules on the Charter City of Tucson, sought to impose new rules for contract bids for government services and wipe out the civil service merit selection system for county employees. They stole millions of dollars from state revenue sharing to "balance" the state budget leaving us without enough money to even fill potholes. They outright stole a wastewater treatment facility from Pima County and handed it over to the Town of Marana.

The latest attempt by Southern Arizona's Tea-Publican tools for our colonial overlords from the state of Maricopa to subjugate our "librul guvmint" is this, Panel would let 3 towns veto county bonds:

Republican lawmakers from Southern Arizona are proposing a new authority that would give Marana, Oro Valley and Sahuarita, together, veto power over new borrowing for roads and other projects in Pima County.

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HB 2656 would bar the county from even seeking voter approval for new bonds without first getting the OK from the majority of a new six-member board consisting of one county representative and one representative of each incorporated city within the county.

That means it would take four votes for any project to proceed, allowing any three representatives to block new bonds.

The new board would also have to approve any changes in bond spending.

Here is the best part:

All of the sponsors of the legislation, like Rep. Terri Proud, are Republicans. Sen. Frank Antenori, R-Tucson, one of the sponsors, acknowledged there is a partisan element.

"You have Republican bedroom communities that are being punished, literally punished, by the county and the Democrat stronghold of Tucson who are upset that these Republican bedroom communities are sucking people and businesses out of Tucson and into their communities," he said.

In other words a Tea-Publican minority should be allowed to impose its will on the Demoratic majority of Pima County. This is authoritarianism and tyranny.

SCOTUS rejects Federal Court redistricting maps in Texas

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The Supreme Court on Friday unanimously overturned orders issued by a federal court in Texas that drew its own new maps for legislative districts, and ordered it to reconsider. Lyle Denniston writes at SCOTUSblog UPDATE: Court rejects Texas maps, delays W.Va. map:

In an 11-page unsigned opinion, the Court said that the three-judge District Court in San Antonio may not have used the “appropriate standards,” which the Court spelled out in some detail. 

Justice Clarence Thomas, in a separate opinion, repeated his view that a key federal voting rights act implicated in the Texas case is unconstitutional.  The decision is here.

Because of Justice Thomas’s view about Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, he would have ordered the San Antonio court to let Texas use its own maps without change for the 2012 elections.  However, the other Justices did not accept that approach, instead ordering the court in Texas to start with the state’s plan but also to make some rulings about whether any parts of it are likely to be nullified in court.

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When the case is taken up again by the San Antonio court, it is now under orders to use a series of maps drawn by the state legislature last year “as a starting point” for crafting any new districts.  Although Texas’s own maps have not yet been legally cleared in Washington, as Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act requires, the Court said that does not mean that the legislature’s maps, or the policies that lay behind the creation of those maps, “can be disregarded by a district court drawing an interim plan.”

The San Antonio court is judging challenges to the Texas maps only under a different part of the Voting Rights Act — Section 2 — and under the Constitution.  A federal District Court in Washington this week began a trial of the Section 5 issue.  The Supreme Court told the San Antonio court not to prejudge what the Washington court may do under Section 5, but the Texas court is under a duty to decide whether it is “reasonably probable” that parts of the plan will not get cleared under Section 5.

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Turning to its own past precedents, the Court — citing its 1996 decision in Lopez v. Monterey County — said that a District Court may not adopt “as its own” a state plan that needs Washington clearance but does not yet have it.  However, the precedents “say nothing about whether a district court may take guidance from the lawful policies incorporated in such a plan for aid in drawing an interim map.”  Turning then to its 1982 decision in Upham v. Seamon, the Court said that a district court has a duty to “defer to the unobjectionable aspects of a state’s plan” even in a situation where clearance was sought but had been denied.

The Justices flatly rejected the declaration of the San Antonio court that it was “not required to give any deference” to what the legislature had crafted.