Melvin’s war on border commerce

by David Safier

Tim Steller at the Star has a terrific follow-up article to the story about Cap’n Al Melvin and his fellow Republicans refusing a request from businessmen to recommend to the feds that they add a few more customs officers at the Nogales border in order to speed up the vehicle crossing.  Currently, it can take as long as five hours to cross, which puts a damper on all kinds of commerce — commercial and personal — which benefits Arizona’s economy. Melvin said he’s against the idea because he doesn’t want to add more government workers. (I wrote about the story last week and provoked a snark-fest tsunami of comments from an irate citizen troll who appears to live in Melvin’s neck of the woods.)

One of the businessmen, Jaime Chamberlain, is a Republican who is the antithesis of a grow-government progressive. He just wants to see more money and goods flowing north from Mexico more efficiently. He believes Phoenix legislators only see the border as a place to put fences.

“Sen. Melvin should know better because he represents Tucson,” Chamberlain said.

What Chamberlain may not be aware of is, Melvin may reside in southern Arizona, but his allegiance is to his Phoenix bosses and cronies.

Chamberlain also gives the lie to Melvin’s protestation that he doesn’t want to add more government employees.

Said Chamberlain: “Every time [Melvin] asks for the federal government to add more Border Patrol agents, he’s asking for more federal employees.”

Chamberlain also points out that Melvin’s idea of taking cargo around Nogales in trains would also mean more inspectors.

[ASIDE: In my previous post, I made fun of Melvin by portraying him as Marie Antoinette, saying, “Let them eat cake take trains.” I actually think trains are potentially a good idea. The only thing I’ve ever heard Melvin say that sounded like it made sense was creating more commercial train traffic from Mexico to Southern Arizona and creating a hub here, which could bring more commerce and jobs to the area. But just like the French peasants needed bread immediately and had no access to cake, we need our commerce now and don’t have any quick access to the kind of rail traffic Melvin is talking about. Give us more customs officers now, Al, then let’s see if your train idea makes sense for the future.]

My one very minor quibble with Steller’s article is when he writes Melvin “has supported Minuteman-like efforts to have citizens patrol the border.”

Not Minuteman-like. Minuteman period, without qualification. During Melvin’s first LD-26 campaign, he portrayed himself as a “proud Minuteman” and ran these photos on his campaign website.