LD 25 legislators take flak from their constituents

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

So I am a little late getting to this, but the Nogales International did not publish this until last Friday. Griffin, Judd take heat over budget, benefits:

State Sen. Gail Griffin and Rep. Peggy Judd found little support for their conservative message of fiscal belt-tightening and corporate tax cuts when they hosted a meet-the-public event on June 28 at Nogales City Hall.

The meeting drew only about 12 people, including current or former Democratic Party leaders and their friends, who challenged the Republican legislators over everything from their failure to support an extension of federal unemployment benefits to their pledge to campaign for more U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers at the Nogales ports of entry.

Griffin, a first-term senator from Hereford, led off the meeting by touting the Legislature’s 2012 budget, which offered a balanced spending plan but included approximately $150 million in cuts to K-12 education and $50 million in cuts to both the Department of Economic Security and the Department of Health Services.

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But some audience members who spoke during the hour-and-a-half meeting accused the Republican-dominated Legislature of balancing the budget on the backs of local governments.

“The state is obligating our counties and our municipalities and our rural areas to take a greater responsibility for services that should be state services, thus impacting the budgets of the local areas,” said Ed Delci, chair of the Santa Cruz County Democrats.

Griffin and Judd also caught flak over the Legislature’s decision in June to maintain the period that Arizonans can collect unemployment benefits at 79 weeks, rather than extend it to 99 weeks, with the federal government footing the bill.

Morris Farr, former Democratic state senator and current resident of Sonoita, accused the Republicans of turning away money that could stimulate economic activity.

“Those federal monies that come in, they’re going to go straight through the pockets of those people and into the pockets of store owners,” he said. “Why do you want to turn down a gift that would help our economy and might even create some jobs?”

This next part shows just how out of touch with reality these Tea-Publicans are. Wow. Just… Wow!

Griffin said that more spending by the federal government means more borrowing from lenders like China.

Griffin also suggested that people who want their unemployment benefits extended lack motivation. She said one man who called to ask for her support blanched when she offered to help find him a job in his area. “He said, ‘They want you to work 40 hours in a week… that’s slavery,’” she said.

“Another lady said, ‘I don’t want you to find me a job, I want you to vote on that bill,’” she said.

Judd said she didn’t have any unemployed people lobbying her for the benefits extension, either on the streets or at the state capitol.

“They needed to let us know,” she said. “We got very few letters that said, ‘We are not going to make it without this $250 a week.’ I didn’t feel like I had the support to vote ‘yes,’” she said.

Griffin said one way to get Arizonans back to work is to attract California-based businesses that have been bypassing Arizona for opportunities in Texas. She said the Legislature’s move to reduce the corporate tax rate from 6.9 percent to 4.9 percent would make the state more competitive. [Because cutting corporate taxes is ALWAYS the answer — it is the ONLY answer you will ever hear from Tea-Publicans]

“We can entice businesses to come to Arizona, put people to work and generate revenue,” she said.

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The Legislature’s 2012 budget also cut $198 million from the state university system and $70 million from community colleges. But Judd said the hits came, in part, because public education had suffered only “minimal hits” in the past. Still, she said, the rural caucus in the Legislature fought “tooth and toenail” to save money for rural colleges.

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During the meeting, the legislators reported on a tour they had taken earlier in the day to the Nogales ports of entry and local produce warehouses. After hearing from local business leaders how backups at the ports are hurting economic activity, they had promised to speak up for better staffing.

Their critics were not impressed.

“Basically, it doesn’t have anything to do with you guys,” said Farr, noting that the ports are federal facilities.

When Griffin said she planned to lobby Washington for more CBP officers at the ports, just as the business leaders had asked her to do, Farr said: “So you’re going to lobby for a greater federal presence in this area?”

And when Judd noted that CBP officials had told her that federal officers conduct screenings for 23 different agencies at the ports, and that state agencies have a hand in port operations, Farr was incredulous. “They do?” he asked. “I’m sorry, what’s the state border agency?”

The state does not have a dedicated border agency, but the Arizona Department of Agriculture, the Arizona Department of Transportation and the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality are among the state entities with an active presence at the ports. Judd suggested that if the state could hire more people to work at the ports, it might help with traffic flow.

Keep holding your legislators accountable for their actions.