They’re not ready

It was an honor to be invited by Mike, Dave, and AZBlue to join the voices here at Blog for Arizona.  The writers here are among the best in the AZ blogosphere and to be counted as worthy of being one of their peers is a compliment of the highest order.

My focus here will be on shining a light on the activities of the Arizona Legislature.  Arizona, like most Western states, utilizes a "weak executive" model of government, meaning that the legislature is the most significant governmental body in Arizona.

It also means that a bright light of scrutiny should be focused on the antics of the legislature, especially one that is as dysfunctional as ours.

This first post will be a cross-post from my "home" blog, Random Musings.  As a post that covers the opening of the new session of the legislature, it will serve as an appropriate beginning here.

Today's opening of the 2nd Session of the 49th Arizona Legislature was marked by many things that we have seen before –

…House Speaker Kirk Adams promising to listen to Democratic proposals…before standing idly by, watching the Governor snub Democratic Attorney General Terry Goddard after her speech…

…Governor Jan Brewer, in her stump speech in the State of the State address, to the resounding cheers of the members of her caucus of the lege, promising to balance the budget on the backs of Arizona's poorest citizens…

…The Governor using her State of the State speech to move to the right, positioning herself as the anti-government (and anti-immigrant, anti-poor people, and anti-fiscal reality) Governor…

…The Governor sounding Presidential…if you consider George W. Bush a good example to follow. She touched upon privatizing government, deregulating industry and funnelling resources to "faith-based" charities. Bush started spouting that stuff in early 2001, and enhanced corporate bottom lines at the expense of effective government and a healthy society for the next eight years…

…The Governor challenging listeners with "if you have a better plan, produce it" while blithely ignoring the fact that the Democrats did "produce" one, nearly a year ago…

…State Senator John Huppenthal using a point of personal privilege to hijack the Senate floor for a speech supporting his run for State Superintendent of Public Instruction (when every other senator was introducing friends and family, he introduced Don Covey, the Maricopa County Superintendent of Schools, and raved about they work that they had done together)…

…State Treasurer Dean Martin, perhaps in preparation for the announcement of his own run for Governor, using the exterior of the old Capitol building as the backdrop for an "unplanned, candid" run-in with Rep. Frank Antenori (R-Don't say I represent Tucson, even though I do"). The reason for the quotes around "unplanned, candid"? The TV cameraman and the photographer that he kept waiting outside until the crowds passing through the doors thinned out enough for their purposes…

– It may come to pass later this year that the Republicans in the legislature and the Governor will finally take the state's budget issues seriously.

– It may come to pass later this year that the Republicans in the legislature and the Governor will finally engage with their Democratic colleagues to discuss solutions for the state's problems.

– It may come to pass later this year that the Republicans in the legislature and the Governor will finally step away from their ideological talking points and knuckle down to doing some real work to address the state's fiscal crisis.

But it hasn't come to pass yet, and it may never – they're not ready.

They're not ready to be professional government officials and anti-government panderers second.

They're not ready to be public servants first and partisan ideologues second.

They're not ready to be Arizonans first and Republicans second.

They're just not ready.

AZRepublic coverage here and here.

EV Tribune coverage, courtesy Howard Fischer of Capitol Media Services, here.

Arizona Capitol Times and Arizona Guardian have coverage behind subscriber firewalls.