voter suppression

State Political Meetings: AZ GOP Nullifies Fed Law, while Dems Endorse Marijuana Legalization

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by Pamela Powers Hannley

The party faithful of the Arizona Democratic and Republican Parties gathered on Saturday, January 25, 2014 in Maricopa County for their respective State Committee Meetings. State law requires official political parties to meet quarterly. Precinct committee people, state and county party leaders, elected officials, and candidates gather to discuss strategy, issues, money, and candidates.

The outcomes of those two meetings show the STARK differences between Arizona's two major political parties. (Even where the two parties met shows their ideological differences. Democrats met in a public high school; Republicans met in a church.)

At the Arizona Democratic Party's (ADP) State Committee Meeting, the ADP continued to show its progressive side, unanimously endorsing a resolution against fracking. With only two dissenting votes, ADP also endorsed a resolution supporting the marijuana legalization initiative, Safer Arizona, which was endorsed by ADP's Progressive Caucus at the November 2013 State Committee Meeting. (BTW, if you support legalization, help them out by signing and circulating petitions and/or donating money.)

A resolution barring the ADP from accepting funds from members of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) was endorsed by the ADP's progressive caucus on Saturday, as was the fracking resolution. When proposed to the entire State Committee, it was tabled.

Sunshine Is Best Disinfectant: AZ Legislature Delays Voter Suppression Discussion

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Wave05-sm72by Pamela Powers Hannley

Yesterday, the Judiciary Committee of the Arizona House of Representatives was scheduled to discuss repealing last year’s omnibus voter suppression bill (HB2305). Since thousands of Arizona citizens had signed petitions to stop implementation of HB2305 and put voter suppression on the 2014 ballot, sneaky legislators had devised a plan to do an end-run around voters by repealing the destined-to-fail-at-the-polls bill and replace it with several individual voter suppression bills. (After all, we can’t let citizens decide issues as important as who gets to vote or how measures are put on the ballot.)

Thanks to a widely distributed press release from the Protect Your Right to Vote Committee, news of Republican legislators’ Voter Suppression Plan B flew out across the blogosphere on Wednesday, resulting in much citizen– and news media– interest.

Overnight, hundreds of concerned Arizona voters called and wrote to members of the committee urging them to respect the will of the voters and let them have their say on HB2305 in November. Dozens of people showed up to speak at the hearing as well as three television news crews. Judiciary Chairman Eddie Farnsworth then told the amassed crowd that he was holding his repeal bill (HB2196). He has since rescheduled the hearing on his bill for next week.

Proving once again that sunshine is the best disinfectant and voter suppression is a topic best discussed in the dead of night with no witnesses, Farnsworth decided not to open discussions with TV cameras rolling and citizens watching.

HB2305 Redux: Arizona Legislature Hell Bent on Suppressing Your Right to Vote

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by Pamela Powers Hannley

In the wee hours of the 2013 session of the Arizona Legislature, Republican legislators cobbled together several voter suppression initiatives that had gone no where and passed them (at the urging of House Speaker John Boehner) as an omnibus voter suppression bill (HB2305).

During the summer, outraged Arizonans collected 145,000 signatures to halt implementation of HB2305 until the people voted on it in 2014.

Hell bent on cheating their way into office… er… voter suppression,  a group of legislators now wants to circumvent a statewide vote on HB2305 by repealing HB2305 and re-introducing its component parts for potential passage in the 2014 session.

Below is a press release from the Protect Your Right to Vote Committee. It’s time to make some phone calls – especially to Ethan Orr (LD9)– and tell your representatives that if they want to pass a voter initiative it should be a bill that guarantees the right to vote– not a set of bills that will deny citizens their rights.

 

Merry Christmas, Infidels!

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    Okay, now that I have your attention, what I'm really excited about this evening is that state Sen. Steve Farley (D-LD9) has pre-filed for the upcoming legislative session, his ALEC Accountability Bill, which looks to be essentially the same (and may be exactly the same) as SB1219, the one he filed for the 2013 session. … Read more

Election integrity: Why does Pima Board of Supes tolerate ‘anti-transparency’ in elections?

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by Pamela Powers Hannley

Two local election integrity advocates–Jim March and Mickey Duniho–addressed the Pima County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday, during the call to the audience. 

Pima, Maricopa, Cochise and other counties are still counting ballots from last Tuesday's presidential election. Hundreds of thousands of uncounted ballots have caused delays in finalizing multiple races and ballot propositions. Main stream news sources and blogs have been on fire with stories about Arizona's election incompetence and stories of voter suppression– before and after the election. 

Let's face it. We have systemic election problems in Pima County, in Arizona, and nationwide. In the 2010 election, hundreds of thousands of ballots were counted throughout the week after the election. Why weren't these election problems addressed and fixed before the 2012 election? The Board of Supervisors needs to man up and face election integrity issues instead of stonwalling.

Read Election Integrity Commissioner Duniho's comments after the jump.