Courts & Law

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Earlier this month, Cronkite News reported No state law on 'dark money' coming this legislative session:

For all of the controversy during the last election over the
influence of so-called dark money in politics, the Arizona State
Legislature is unlikely to produce any laws on the subject this session.

Sen. Steve Farley, D-Tucson, introduced the only bill
addressing dark money, one that would have increased disclosure
requirements for groups making such donations, but it didn’t receive a
hearing.

Farley said that the “future of our democracy” depends on citizens
knowing who is funding campaigns, something that certain corporations
can keep secret because of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United ruling.

“I just think that we owe it to our voters to do everything we can to
reveal as much as we can about where it comes from,” he said during a
recent Senate Elections Committee session on Citizens United.

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The lawyers/lobbyists of the GOP's secretive redistricting organization FAIR Trust take their wild conspiracy theories about the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission (AIRC) to court today in U.S. District Court. These hucksters are challenging the state legislative districts which they believe should have been gerrymandered to create a permanent Republican majority in perpetuity because, after all, it is the divine right of Republicans to lord over us all.

Based upon the biased reporting of Howard Fischer today in the Arizona Daily Star, Arizona redistricting challenge heads to US court today, it appears that lawyer/lobbyist David Cantelme from FAIR Trust is pinning his hopes on  the claim that population deviation between the districts is a violation of law. He apparently believes that state legislative district populations must be strictly equal.

Challengers are pinning their hopes on the fact that 30 districts
crafted by the Independent Redistricting Commission are not all equal in
population.

Attorney David Cantelme contends the differences were
done "deliberately, intentionally and in violation of the
one-person/one-vote principle."

The goal of the commission, he charges, was to cluster as many
Republicans as possible together in districts, leaving the other,
underpopulated districts with more Democrats than otherwise would occur,
giving Democrats an unfair and illegal advantage in electing their own
candidates to the Legislature.

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Earlier this week, Respect Arizona, the organization behind the recall of crazy uncle Joe Arpaio, announced that it is suspending its paid signature gathering campaign due to a shortage of funds (you can help alleviate this cash flow problem by using the link to contribute and to volunteer to circulate petitions).

This announcement from Respect Arizona caused The Arizona Republic(an), which first opposed the recall effort and then supported it, to have another manic depressive episode. Laurie Roberts clutched her pearls and reached for her smelling salts with a post assigned two doom and gloom captions. Joe Arpaio recall doomed by political miscalculation and Joe Arpaio recall in trouble:

Just 12 days after anti-Joe Arpaio forces announced that they had collected an impressive 120,000 signatures in the campaign to recall Sheriff Joe Arpaio, the campaign has taken a nosedive.

Lilia Alvarez, campaign manager of the Arpaio recall, confirmed the campaign is out of money and can no longer pay petition circulators. Instead, Respect Arizona will rely on volunteers to get to the promised land of 335,317 valid signatures by May 30.

Alvarez remains optimistic that it can be done.