The Farley Report: April 27, 2010

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Time once again for the Farley Report from Rep. Steve Farley (D-LD28):

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Here in the Arizona Legislature, Republican leaders are getting a pretty intense burn from the national limelight over the past week or two, so it looks like we may actually adjourn the session Sine Die for good this week.

In fact, President Burns told the Capitol Times he wanted to be done by Thursday after a meeting with Adams this morning. Speaker Adams for his part agreed via — no kidding — Twitter: "No longer confident Senate will pass, nor Gov sign, jobs bill with necessary tax cuts. Working toward Sine Die this week."

Yesterday's Senate Republican caucus made clear that the Speaker's coveted HB2250 (the Jobs Bill in his language, the Corporate Bailout Bill in reality) was not being well received by majority Senators who rightly saw that it was not a good idea to run for re-election on a platform that included chopping income and property taxes on out-of-state corporations while jacking up property taxes on Arizona homeowners.

The Speaker for a while was threatening to hold the KidsCare and AHCCCS restoration hostage in order to get 2250 through the Senate. You will recall that we have to (and should) restore KidsCare healthcare for children and re-enroll AHCCCS medicaid recipients below the poverty line by June 15 or else we would forfeit more than $7 billion annually in federal funds.

Luckily, he backed down from what could have been another economic disaster for Arizona and we will finish work on the KidsCare and AHCCCS restoration bill tomorrow. Whew!

Last week I told you about a missed golden opportunity for us to bring back from DC more than $100 million that we already pay in gas taxes in order to build public transit. After two victories on the floor, one majority member used a parliamentary maneuver to kill my amendment to do just that.

This week, we will have the opportunity to vote on a "Postcard to Congress" sponsored by Senator Chuck Gray (R-Chandler) to whine to our federal government about the fact that we don't get all our money back that we pay in gas taxes. This type of bill, a "Senate Concurrent Memorial" has no legal effect, but simply declares that the Arizona Legislature feels a certain way about some issue over which we have no jurisdiction, and spends $1700 to send a letter to the Congress and the President to that effect.

The folks who vote for this useless jeremiad will be the same folks who decided not to vote to actually do something about the problem last week during debate on my amendment. I prefer to fix a problem rather than simply complain about it.

Back to that national spotlight: If you haven't seen these clips, I highly recommend them for viewing.

Jon Stewart tells us that if state legislatures are the laboratories of democracy, the Arizona Legislature is the meth lab of democracy: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/27/stewart-hammers-arizona-f_n_553157.html  

And Rachel Maddow finds connections between authors of SB1070 and the white separatist and neo-nazi movements: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/#36791568

[Editor's note: Posted here at Blog for Arizona] 

What the national commentators are unfortunately missing is that there are plenty of us here in Arizona, including in the Arizona Legislature, who are just as horrified by the actions of the majority as they are. Just check out the last 108 editions of the Farley Report.

I believe we need to demonstrate our presence and our resolve by working as hard as we can to support Democrats in November. Starting NOW.

This majority and their wrong-track actions have made us the laughingstock of the nation. Worse, they have trashed our education system from Kindergarten through graduate school, caused hundreds of thousands of citizens to lose their jobs and healthcare, and hurt our economy for decades to come.

We must fight NOW. And our means must be political. Contribute to candidates who stand for reason and vision. Volunteer for their campaigns. Talk to your friends & neighbors. Show the rest of the country that we can do better. We all deserve better.