AZ Senator – and Our Official Blog Jester – John Kavanagh Seeks to Empower Bigots Through Our Schools and Courts

Arizona Senator, and frequent commenter and source of quality entertainment on this blog, John Kavanagh has introduced SB1001 (the number indicates he thinks THIS is the most important bill, perhaps?) which seeks to restrict the free speech of employees and contractors of our public schools by controlling the PRONOUNS they can use to refer to a student.

The bill contemplates that teachers, staff, and contractors would have to get the parents’ permission to use any pronouns that don’t match “THE PRONOUN THAT ALIGNS WITH THE STUDENT’S BIOLOGICAL SEX.” Just how that is to be determined by teachers, etc., and what it would mean for a child with no clear biological sex, is totally unexplained, of course. Kavanagh is not really interested in making policy with this bill, I suspect; just whipping his base of bigots and know-nothings, and fundraising off of the controversy it will create.

SB1001 also provides nothing in the way of an enforcement mechanism; that is left to one of Kavanagh’s other bills, SB1005 – although the chaos SB1005 bill would create in our courts potentially goes well beyond lawsuits over pronouns. This bill forbids courts from imposing sanctions on plaintiffs who sue the state, or its agents (read: TEACHERS), for any act that is alleged to “interfere with or usurp the fundamental right of parents to direct the upbringing, education, health care and mental health of their children.”

Again, I doubt the seriousness of Kavanagh’s intent. AlLWAYS: Kavanagh is less of a policy and lawmaker than an insult comic with a legislative seat. SB1005 exempts from immunity legal actions that contravene 12-349 – our courts’ legislative basis for most sanctions – so that wholly frivolous lawsuits could still be sanctioned. I suspect he’ll just tell the rubes that this bill protects them if they file claims pursuant to violations of SB1001.

In any case, Kavanagh is clearly demonstrating his desire for our already overworked courts to be flooded with nonsense culture war claims about our public schools by his rabidly intolerant base, wasting state and school resources defending against petty and bigoted claims that SB1001 enables with reasonable assurance that it won’t blow back on the plaintiffs when they lose.

Probably Kavanagh got this stupid legislation from some Christo-fascist lobbying group: he’s not clever enough to come up with this culture war enabling stunt legislation on his own.