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.

What Stephen Lemons Missed About The 17th Amendment

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By Tom Prezelski

Re-posted from Rum, Romanism and Rebellion

464px-Henry_Fountain_AshurstFor Arizonans, the rise of the TEA Party nationally has only meant that we now have a convenient name for a strain of Republicans who have always menaced the political scene and been, to at least some extent, an obstacle to our progress as a state. Back in the 80s and early 90s, we called them Mechamites, after our not-so-esteemed Governor Evan Mecham. This particular breed was already decades old by this time, as even Arizona’s first Governor, George W.P. Hunt referred to the “standpat reactionary furies” in what we now call The East Valley as the chief obstacle to his progressive agenda.

These days, there is little question that this crowd is driving the Republican agenda, and they made a spectacularly successful effort to embarrass us as a state this week. The thing that got most of the attention was a resolution by the Arizona Republican Party condemning Senator John McCain (R-Arizona) for attempting to be an effective legislator. The author of the resolution, a failed candidate for legislature and noticeably less than telegenic fellow, stumbled through an interview with Chris Matthews, refusing to admit that the President was lawfully elected and lecturing the former chief of staff to House Speaker Tip O’Neill about Ronald Reagan. Apparently he was unaware that Matthews worked with and personally knew President Reagan, and if you wait long enough, he will even tell you about the book he wrote about him.

All of this begs the question: given that the Republican Party runs the state, shouldn’t they be able to find a more effective spokesman than this guy?

What got a little less attention was a resolution calling for the repeal of the 17th Amendment, the 1913 revision to the United States Constitution that calls for the direct election of Senators rather than having them elected by the state legislatures. Stephen Lemons at the New Times was one of the few reporters who gave this more than passing mention, but he failed to give it the proper context.

Abuse of Language: SOTU Edition

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By Tom Prezelski

Re-posted from Rum, Romanism and Rebellion

In the wake of Tuesday’s State of the Union Address, two reactions stand out, not so much for the degree which they contributed to or failed to contribute to public debate, but for their complete and hollow meaninglessness.

The first has to be Representative Michael Grimm’s (R-New York) by-now-notorious tirade against a reporter. By now this has been analyzed to death, either as an example of racial double standards in the light of the criticism endured by Seattle defensive back Richard Sherman over his rant, or as a manifestation of an unfortunate macho swagger particular to East Coast Republicans, one in which one plays tough by abusing the weak and powerless, whether they be ethnic minorities, the poor, underpaid women, or nebbish journalists who are smaller than oneself. But more than this, what he said was silly.

Specifically, he threatened to “break” the reporter “like a little boy.” Whatever the hell does this even mean? The simile implies that breaking little boys is somehow familiar to him, so maybe he has done this before, or he knows people who do it. More likely, he’s just a preening jackass who said whatever he thought would make him sound like a big man by employing the rhetoric of his (allegedly) mobbed up Staten Island constituents.

The other comes from Senator Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina), who we keep hearing is a thoughtful guy, even though so much of what he says is predictable. Graham declared that “the world is literally about to blow up.” As comedian David Cross once put it so eloquently, “when you misuse the word ‘literally’ you are using it in the exact opposite way it was intended.”

We need LAW ABIDING GOVERNMENT

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In preparation for the State of the Union Address, they have been soliticing input from the public, via http://my.barackobama.com/State-of-the-Union-Survey   You are encouraged to go there and contribute.  FYI, here's what I submitted: We need LAW ABIDING GOVERNMENT. The stuff that is going on with Menendez and Christie and McDonnell is only 0.01% of the … Read more

Help Britt Farbo Go To DC

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By Tom Prezelski

Re-posted from Rum, Romanism and Rebellion

Britt_FarboFolks who have been active in Baja Arizona Democratic politics for a while probably remember Britt Farbo, the feisty badass from the Sulphur Springs Valley who made her mark on the Young Democrats back in the aughts. Since then, she has led a wandering life of adventure, including a stint in DC with EMILY’s List, studies in Norway, and work with an NGO in Afghanistan. Currently, she is doing NGO work for the advancement of women in Cambodia and is working on a degree in Phnom Pen.

Farbo is also active as an officer with Democrats Abroad, the arm of the Democratic Party that represents expatriate Democrats around the world. She is raising money so she can go to Washington DC to represent the Asia-Pacific Region in her capacity as a Regional Vice Chair at Democrats Abroad’s 50th Anniversary meeting at the end of February. In Farbo’s words:

John Kavanagh Does Not Want People Like Himself To Go To College

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By Tom Prezelski

Re-posted from Rum, Romanism and Rebellion

Kavanagh_QCState Representative John Kavanagh (R-Fountain Hills) is an ex-cop from a working class background who earned a PhD at a public university and teaches at a community college. This should be considered in light of his recent comments attacking financial aid for allowing "too many" Arizonans to attend our state's universities.

I am not going to pretend that I know exactly what programs Kavanagh may or may not have benefited from during what must have been a remarkable academic career. Though I served with him for two years, I really know little about his story. Suffice it to say, I made many Republican friends while I was at the capitol and he was not one of them.

However, during my college career, I knew many people from backgrounds very similar to Kavanagh's. Most of them were helped directly by financial aid in one way or another. More importantly they were helped by the fact that the college experience is very different than it was in previous decades because legislation like the GI Bill (the brainchild of Arizona's own Senator Ernest "Mac" McFarland) and the Higher Education Act of 1965 made college accessible to more people. As a result, colleges have been forced over the years to accommodate so-called "non-traditional students," including working people, older students and students with families by altering their schedules, loosening stuffy traditions, and providing services on campus for a population with different and diverse needs. The once-elite experience of college has been democratized, and financial aid has been a big part of this.