Shorter Howie Fischer: Brewer is right! Democrats are . . . I don’t see any Democrats

by David Safier

Howie Fischer is back to swooning over Jan Brewer in his latest article about the Republicans' ongoing effort to take over the redistricting process. It's all Brewer, Terri Proud, Frank Antenori and Steve Pierce. Not a whisper from any Democrats.

That's not because Dems have been quiet, of course. Plenty of them have been complaining loudly about Republican overreach. Take, for instance, the statement by AZ Dem Chair Andrei Cherny in the Capitol Times (subscription only).

“They refuse to listen to the people, and they refuse to listen to the courts,” Cherny said in a press statement. “Republicans won’t stop until they own the next 10 years of Arizona elections. For the sake of good government and fair elections, their schemes must be exposed and these politicians must be held accountable.”

Note, Cherny's statement is in a press release, which Howie certainly received. He didn't even have to make a phone call to state the Democrats' position to provide a bit of balance.

Howie will have none of it. His article gives the impression that these wonderful Republicans, besieged by a Democratic shill, are fighting the good fight to bring justice back to Arizona. If he means old style "frontier justice," where the rich and powerful trample on the rights of everyone else, he's right. In anything like a . . . say, a democracy . . . he's wrong.

Fortunately in the Star, you can read the editorial, Brewer's meddling in commission a detriment to state. Ironically, the editorial, which, as an opinion piece, doesn't have to provide balance, does a fairer job of discussing Brewer's point of view than Fischer's "reporting" does of presenting the Democrats' position.