The Arizona Republic is part of the problem, not the solution

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The corporate media is failing us.The Arizona Republic is part of the problem, not the solution.

The Republic has an editorial opinion today on Arizona redistricting which bears the imprimatur of Laurie Roberts because it repeats the GOP talking points and is still whining about "the ugly lobster shape that hooks up Fountain Hills and Colorado River communities," a particular bugaboo in Roberts' previous columns. Each side must keep its cool on redistricting.

This asinine opinion attempts to blame everyone, including the Arizona Supreme Court for doing its job. Apparently no one at the Republic has ever heard of Marbury v. Madison, nor has any concerns about procedural due process and the constitutional rights of the accused.

Even worse is right-wing apologist and water-carrier for the Goldwater Institute, Robert Robb. He also blames everyone involved, repeating all the GOP talking points like a good little boy, and expresses no concerns for procedural due process and the constitutional rights of the accused (which departs from his position in a previous column). 

He then advances a goal of the far-right: ending the voter-approved constitutional provision for merit selection of judges in Arizona and returning to partisan elections of judges. The Tea-Publican assault on the Independent Redistricting Commission is now morphing into a Tea-Publican assault on the independence of the judiciary. Arizona faces a political morass:

I suspect that there is now a 50-50 chance that the issue of going back to electing appellate judges and trial judges in Maricopa and Pima counties will be on the ballot in 2012.

The Mathis decision will be almost universally regarded by Republican legislators as a judicial usurpation. In the past, the court has always had a sympathetic Republican legislator with sufficient influence to stop or deflect populist sentiment to return to electing judges. There is no such goalie in this Legislature.

Justice Sandra Day O'Connor who has been a tireless advocate for Arizona's merit selection of judges, which she helped to enact, will have her work cut out for her.

The only thing the Republic got right today was publishing this letter to the editor by former Attorney General Terry Goddard. Brewer not heeding oath of office:

As Arizona attorney general, I had the privilege and obligation to defend our laws — even when I disagreed. I usually succeeded, but my staff and I always did our best.

I followed the law; that's what every public official swears a solemn oath to do.

Now, the governor and the state Senate should do the same. Our Arizona Supreme Court, with a majority of Republican justices, has rebuffed the governor's effort to control the Independent Redistricting Commission.

The governor's lawyers admitted in court that her flimsy justification for firing the commission chair would allow her to remove a commission member if she didn't like that person's hairstyle. That's not justice, it's tyranny!

Arizona has too long tolerated arrogant disregard for law. Arizona's reputation took another beating when two-thirds of the Senate meekly affirmed the illegal action now tossed by the Supreme Court.

These nervous politicians, scared that an independent commission might be actually, well, independent, are willing to trample our Constitution.

It is up to the people of Arizona to demand that this shameful conduct stop. That the governor obey the Supreme Court's order and not, as her press spokesman indicated, try to fire the commission chair again.

Let's demand that our elected officials follow their oaths. A good step toward recovering our self-respect!

— Terry Goddard, Phoenix