Jonathan’s big day

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The wannabe tinhorn dictator of Tucson, Sen. Jonathan Paton, had a big day on Tuesday.

First up was Paton's effort to punish the City of Tucson for being a "liberal bastion" by dictating to its residents how they are to conduct their local elections. Paton and his pals from Maricopa County got together and passed "Paton's Law," a special punitive measure aimed at the City of Tucson and of questionable constitutional validity. The City of Tucson was in Court on Tuesday challenging the constitutionality of Paton's Law. Tucson asks judge to void new state law controlling how City Council is elected:

City attorneys on Tuesday asked a Superior Court judge to throw out a new state law that makes sweeping changes in how Tucson's City Council is elected, saying state lawmakers don't have the right to trump local control.

The state Attorney General's Office told Pima County Superior Court Judge Michael Miller that there is a state interest in having uniform elections, noting that Tucson stands alone in having citywide, partisan elections.

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The question of whether the structure of city elections is strictly a matter of local concern is key. If the judge finds there is a statewide interest, the legislation can supersede the city's charter, which under the state constitution provides sovereignty on issues of local concern.

To head off this problem, state lawmakers inserted a sentence in the legislation simply saying it was a matter of statewide concern. [the "because I say so" clause]

"If the state can do that, it renders the charter meaningless," argued Assistant City Attorney Dennis McLaughlin, because the state could declare essentially anything a matter of statewide concern. Same with finances, he said, in response to questions from the judge about whether the state has an interest, given that it kicks resources down to municipalities and has an interest in how those resources are used. "I'm not sure they get to say, 'We give you money and therefore we get to kibitz in your political system.' "

City Attorney Mike Rankin added if there were such a compelling state interest in switching to nonpartisan elections, then lawmakers should have also imposed that standard on the Pima County Board of Supervisors. Instead, city officials have argued that state lawmakers singled out the city of Tucson.

The city steered the judge to a 1951 state Supreme Court case in which Phoenix didn't want to follow what was then a state requirement to have partisan primaries. The justices in that case determined, "We can conceive of no essentials more inherently of local interest or concern to electors of a city than who should be its governing officers and how they shall be selected."

Miller asked all three parties to submit new arguments to him, providing guidance on how he should balance local versus state interests.

He also sought input on whether he should strictly consider what lawmakers said in debate on the bill, or whether he should take a more expansive look, such as the fact that city voters as recently as 1993 rejected charter changes that would have switched to nonpartisan elections.

Judge Miller asked for arguments by February, indicating he hopes to have a ruling by early March to allow the case to move to a higher court in time to provide guidance should a local recall effort be successful.

Next up was Paton's attempt to dictate to the residents of the state of Arizona that you are all just a bunch of rubes for enacting Arizona Clean Elections, Proposition 200 approved by voters in 1998. Arizona Clean Elections has proved to be popular with both voters and candidates seeking office. (In 2000 only 26% of the primary candidates ran using clean elections funding. In 2008 participating candidates increased to 65%.)

Craig McDermott was live blogging from Sen. Paton's Senate Judiciary Committee hearing yesterday of Paton's bill stealthily designed not to ask the voters of Arizona to outright repeal Arizona Clean Elections (he knows the voters would never approve), but to destroy its funding mechanism to effectively gut the program and render it useless. Live Blogging Senate Judiciary ; Random Musings: Live blogging Senate Judiciary. This may have been Paton's last act of betrayal of the voters of Arizona before he resigns from his Senate seat to run for Congress.

Calling the system "morally wrong," a state senator hoping to become a member of Congress pushed legislation through the Senate Judiciary Committee designed essentially to kill the system of public financing of state elections. Senate panel OKs public campaign funds ban

On a 4-2 vote Tuesday, the committee approved the proposal by Sen. Jonathan Paton, R-Tucson, that would make it unconstitutional to provide public funds for candidates. SCR 1009 now goes to the full Senate.

The last word, though, would remain with the voters, who first approved the program in 1998.

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Tuesday's vote to kill public financing was along party lines, with only Republicans in support. It also was a victory for the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry, which opposed public funding when it was first proposed and then attempted repeatedly to have it declared unconstitutional.

That opposition drew a bit of derision from Sen. Ken Cheuvront, D-Phoenix, who has run for office with both public dollars and private donations.

"The way it was before (public financing), it was special interests and lobbyists" funding the campaigns of candidates, he said. "Are you trying to tell me that you think we get a better legislator when most of their campaign funds have come from special interests and lobbyists?"

Chamber lobbyist Marcus Osborn responded that lobbyists are "just a subset" of campaign fundraising. He pointed out that no person can contribute more than $480 to any one candidate.

But Cheuvront said his experience showed him that the lobbyists are the ones who funnel donations to candidates.

"The reality is that most legislators raise their money to run for office through lobbyists and through special interests," he said.

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Cheuvront pointed out that Paton's proposal, while banning public funding of elections, does not spell out where the money still being raised would end up going. Paton conceded the point, saying he would have a separate measure later this session – and a separate ballot question – to deal with that.

"I'm not sure this is an honest way to do it," he said.

Paton, however, said he had a political reason for that decision: A straight-out repeal would be asking people to "repeal Clean Elections," something he said might cause voters to have second thoughts about killing the system.

Paton's deviousness and authoritarian streak ought to give people pause and concern.

U.S. District Court Judge Roslyn Silver is expected to rule, perhaps as early as this week, whether to allow matching funds to be paid to publicly funded candidates. Judge Roslyn Silver already has concluded that the dollar-for-dollar match of what candidates spend in their own money is likely unconstitutional.

The U. S. Supreme Court is expected to announce its decision in Citizens United v. FEC as early as today, striking down a century old ban on corporate financing of elections and reversing long-standing Supreme Court precedent.

Welcome to the new "corporatocracy" of corporate owned and operated government. A government "of the people, by the people and for the people" has been replaced by a government "of corporations, by corporations and for corporations." To paraphrase T.S. Eliot, "This is the way democracy ends. Not with a bang but a whimper." (The Hollow Men).