Michael Bryan

Michael founded BlogForArizona.net as the Howard Dean presidential campaign blog for Arizona in 2003, and has been blogging ever since. The Blog is now coming up on 20 years of continuous publication, a major achievement for any political blog, which usually have the life-spans of mayflies. Michael is an attorney living in Tucson with his wife Lauren. In 2008, Michael remade BlogForArizona into a collaborative project. Michael is now but one of the contributors to the blog and provides editorial and publishing direction in consultation with the Board of Directors and the other authors. If you want to keep up with the latest Arizona and National political news in an entertaining quick hit of news and opinion, check out the BlogForArizona twitter feed, which Mike largely curates and writes. Michael is also an AAPC member who occassionally consults on political campaigns, strategy and communications.

Contrary To Popular Belief, AZ Sen. Kyl Will Still Need To File Financial Disclosure Statement – Even If He’s 🎶Already Gone

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It has apparently become a universally-accepted fact that a key reason Arizona Senator* Jon Kyl is resigning on December 31 is so he will not need to file the Senate’s Personal Financial Disclosure statement that all federal elected officials (and, some in their offices) are obligated to file. It is unlikely that it was a motivation, because Kyl will still be required to file his statement.

The widely-accepted speculation centered around Kyl’s inter-Senatorial stint (2013-18) as a high-powered lobbyist at one of the nation’s biggest lobbying law firms (Covington & Burling). Arizona’s Politics first reported on Kyl’s financial disclosure statement back when he first announced his retirement from the Senate, in 2011. He then had a mid-range net worth estimate of $554k, which ranked him as only the 82nd richest member of that body. (Bonus fun fact: he said then he did not want to be a lobbyist.)

Soon after Governor Doug Ducey appointed him to fill out at least a portion of the late Senator John McCain’s term, Kyl asked for an extension from the

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Taking Public Policy out of the Cathedral and into the Bazaar

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In a previous post, I said we need to Innovate as well as Advocate.  How?  Here is one idea. For the non-engineers reading this, a quick explanation: Once upon a time, software was created by coding wizards in ivory towers, who would carefully prepare major software releases, having only trained testers examine them, before with … Read more

BREAKING: McSally Locked, Loaded and Ready For 2020 Run – Well, Definitely Loaded

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Outgoing Rep. Martha McSally is locked, loaded and ready for another run at a U.S. Senate seat from Arizona. Or, at a minimum, she is loaded. The former fighter pilot, who narrowly lost an expensive campaign to replace retiring Sen. Jeff Flake, keeps more than $1M in the McSally For Senate bank account.

Considering  she spent more than $19.7M on the race against fellow Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, keeping approximately 5% in the tank may not seem like much. But, given that there is already pressure on Governor Doug Ducey to appoint her to take Sen. Jon Kyl’s place serving out the term for the late Sen. John McCain, having a significant head start has already increased speculation that she will soon join Sinema in the Senate.

The ongoing war-chest numbers come from the campaign’s latest FEC filing,

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Noliwe M. Rooks, director of American studies at Cornell University

Wealth Redistributed

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Noliwe M. Rooks, director of American studies at Cornell University
Noliwe M. Rooks, director of American studies at Cornell University

Cross-posted from RestoreReason.com.

I was recently in a public forum on education when a school board member asked me whether my call to address inequities in our schools was a call for the “redistribution of wealth.” I told him local control dictates that our Governing Boards, representing the communities in which they live, are best positioned to decide how to allocate district resources for the maximum benefit of all their students.  I hoped, I said, they would do that.

His question though, caused me to think about this term, and why it seems to be a lightning rod for conservatives. Social scientist researcher Brené Brown believes it is because of the “scarcity” worldview held by Republicans/conservatives. “The opposite of scarcity is not abundance” she writes, “It’s enough.” Basically, “they believe that the more people they exclude from “having”, the more is available to them.” And, in this binary way of thinking, the world is very black and white (pun sort of intended), e.g., if you aren’t a success, you’re a failure, and should be excluded. Of course, this sort of mindset is a gold mine for those who fear-monger to garner support for their exclusionary agendas. “We’ve got to stop the illegal hoards from coming across the border” the narrative goes, or “they’ll be stealing our jobs and elections.”

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Special Election To Replace AZ Sen. Jon Kyl Next Summer, AZ Law Unconstitutional –New Lawsuit

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The constitutionality of Arizona’s law giving Governor Doug Ducey the right to control the U.S. Senate seat vacated by the passing of John McCain has been challenged in federal court.

A group of plaintiffs led by William Tedards filed the action against Ducey and Senator Jon Kyl yesterday and asks that the Governor be required to call for a special election within six months. Their contention is that the 17th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution (text below) which requires that U.S. Senators be elected invalidates the Arizona law (also below) that the special election for a Senate vacancy can only be held at a biennial general election.

17th Amendment, U.S. Constitution

McCain passed away in August, too late for Governor Ducey to add a primary and general election to be held by November 6, 2018. Instead, he appointed former Kyl to the seat, even as Kyl indicated that he might very well only stay in the position through the end of 2018. That would permit the Governor to make a new appointment for another two years, for a total of 28 months.

When asked by Arizona’s Politics about the timing of this action, nearly three months after the Kyl appointment, lead attorney Mike Persoon stated there was

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