Civil & Human Rights

Corrupt Kavanagh’s disdain for democracy, abuse of power

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Rep. John Kavanagh (R-Fountain Hills) is a corrupt politician who uses his position to advance his own personal, often bizarre agenda, rather than to represent the best interests of his constitutuents and Arizonans.

There was this tidbit in the Arizona Republic this morning, Brewer wants Legislature to take up her priorities:

TPT is the state transaction privilege tax. A bill to streamline the tax, which effectively is the sales tax, is set for a hearing before the Senate Finance Committee this afternoon.

The bill had stalled in the House, where Speaker Andy Tobin, R-Paulden, had worried that the bill’s overhaul of the construction sales tax could hurt local governments and where Appropriations Chairman John Kavanagh, R-Fountain Hills, had not scheduled it for a hearing. Kavanagh’s wife, Linda, is Fountain Hills’ mayor.

The House Approriations Committee is not his personal fiefdom to keep his wifey happy. This tax reform bill is important to the state of Arizona and for future economic development. This is an abuse of power.

Arizona Republic editorial: Arizona voter ID law should be overturned

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The Arizona Republic editorialized in an opinion today that Arizona's voter ID law should be overturned. Voting law isn’t useful:

The Arizona voting-rights case now before the U.S. Supreme Court is more about states’ rights vs. federal control of elections than about the particulars of the case itself.

Yes, that sounds like a familiar, Arizona-centric issue.

From efforts to nullify federal laws to this current question of whether Arizona can pack additional requirements onto a federal voting-rights law, our state is highly prone to challenging federal dominion.

NY Times editorial: Arizona voter ID law should be overturned

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The New York Times editorialized in an opinion today that Arizona's voter ID law should be overturned. Arizona’s Barrier to the Right to Vote:

Arizona’s Proposition 200, passed in 2004, prohibits local officials from registering any would-be voter who does not provide “satisfactory evidence of United States citizenship.” That requirement conflicts with the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, also known as the Motor Voter Act, which set up a national registration system for federal elections.

On Monday, the Supreme Court heard arguments (.pdf) about whether states have the power under the federal law to add restrictions to voter registration. They clearly do not. The justices should reject Arizona’s law as invalid and avoid recreating the problem that the federal law was intended to fix.

WaPo Editorial: Arizona voter ID law should be overturned

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The Washington Post has an editorial opinion this morning on Arizona's Prop. 200 voter registration case before the U.S. Supreme Court this morning. Arizona voter ID law should be overturned:

COMPARED WITH WHAT some Americans have to tolerate on Election Day,
registering to vote is relatively painless. That’s partly thanks to the National Voter Registration Act, a 1993 law at the root of a case the Supreme Court will hear on Monday. The state of Arizona argues that it should be allowed to subvert the law’s obvious purpose. The court shouldn’t let it.

In 1993, Congress looked at the “complicated maze” of often
confusing and sometimes discriminatory state election rules, and it
found that “unfair registration laws and procedures can have a direct
and damaging effect on voter participation in elections for federal
office.” So lawmakers established national standards. Americans could
register to vote when getting driver’s licenses, which gave the act its
unofficial name: the “motor voter” law. Congress also required every
state to accept a simple, common, mail-in registration form
drafted by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission. The record
indicates that Congress meant these to be among the “procedures that
will increase the number of eligible citizens who register to vote in
elections for federal office.”

Supreme Court argument recap in Arizona v. The Inter Tribal Council of Arizona

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Lyle Denniston has a recap of oral argument before the U.S. Supreme Court this morning of Arizona's Prop. 200 voter registration case. Argument recap: Does “may only” mean “shall only”?

Anyone entering the Supreme Court’s chamber Monday morning expecting
constitutional drama over the right to vote had to come away quite
disappointed.  It took all of fifty minutes of a one-hour argument to
get to any constitutional issue, most of the Justices wanted to focus on
what “may only” means in a federal law, and one Justice pronounced the
current federal-state voter registration regime “a crazy system.”  In an
era when very heated debates over curbing voters’ rights regularly
occur in political circles, there was none of that as the Court heard Arizona v. The Inter Tribal Council of Arizona (12-71).

At the center of the case is an Arizona law, approved by the state’s
voters nine years ago, that requires a would-be voter seeking to
register to show proof of U.S. citizenship as an additional requirement
besides submitting a federal form which includes a question — enforced
by possible perjury prosecution — asking whether or not one is a
citizen.