Carolyn Allen sounds like she gets it

by David Safier

When I was 6, my father died, leaving my mother no choice but to go on public assistance for three months to support our family until she could find a job as a maid, take in laundry, and apply for my father's Social Security.

We didn't plan it; we didn't want it. My mother was a proud woman. But we needed it. And, thank God, the help was there for us.

Arizona's human services safety net exists to support people – like my mother – with temporary services that help them work their way back to self-sufficiency.

[snip]

We have time to consider not only what these cuts mean in terms of dollars and cents, but also what they mean to people who need services now, and what they mean to our state in the future.

The research is clear about what happens when families do not get the services and support they need: educational failure for children, higher crime rates and economically depressed communities.

That's not the Arizona I know. It is not the Arizona many of us worked so hard to build. And it is not the Arizona I want to live in or leave to our children and grandchildren.

She uses a quote I didn't recognize to seal the deal. AZ Blue Meanie, who knows his political history, told me it's from Hubert Humphrey. I checked. He's right.

It has been said, "The moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; and, those who are in the shadows of life – the sick, the needy and the handicapped."

Let me get this straight. An Arizona Republican State Senator quoting Hubert "The Happy Warrior" Humphrey, a famous liberal, to support her contention that we've cut services too far. Is there a new wind blowing?

UPDATE: Comments from SonoranSam, as well as Craig of Random Musings, confirm my suspicion that Allen is a decent human being. Craig writes:

Carolyn Allen is one of the few true public servants left in the AZGOP. Kavanagh may be from the same district, but he isn't from the same planet.

Allen is definitely a Republican, but she's a chamber of commerce Rep with a soul, which royally ticks off the "kill 'em all and let God sort 'em wing (led by the Pearces and Kavanaghs) of the GOP. She's fended off primary challenges from the wingers before (Colette Rosati in 2006), but she may be termed out soon.