webodec3ARCHIVEPreview
Open in TheBrain

Arizona

RW bellweather?

no merri

az tag

promoted primary 717 on RPS

see ARIZ2 9/18 for newer

ninja fraudit

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https://www.alternet.org/election-03918/how-thousands-voters-swing-state-arizona-could-be-walking-trap-election-day

vote supp

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Arizona Charges Giuliani and Other Trump Allies in Election Interference Case

Those charged included Boris Epshteyn, a top legal strategist for Donald Trump, and fake electors who acted on Mr. Trump’s behalf in Arizona after the 2020 election.

By Danny Hakim and Maggie Haberman

Published April 24, 2024

Updated April 25, 2024,

Rudolph W. Giuliani, Mark Meadows, and a number of others who advised Donald J. Trump during the 2020 election were indicted in Arizona on Wednesday, along with all of the fake electors who acted on Mr. Trump’s behalf there to try to keep him in power despite his loss in the state.

Boris Epshteyn, one of Mr. Trump’s top legal strategists, was also among those indicted, a complication for Mr. Trump’s defense in the criminal trial that began this week in Manhattan over hush money payments made to a porn star, Stormy Daniels.

The indictment includes conspiracy, fraud and forgery charges, related to alleged attempts by the defendants to change the 2020 election results. Arizona is the fourth swing state to bring an elections case involving the activities of the Trump campaign in 2020, but only the second after Georgia to go beyond the fake electors whom the campaign deployed in swing states lost by Mr. Trump.

Danny Hakim is a reporter on the Investigations team at The Times, focused primarily on politics. More about Danny Hakim

Maggie Haberman is a senior political correspondent reporting on the 2024 presidential campaign, down ballot races across the country and the investigations into former President Donald J. Trump. More about Maggie Haberman

A version of this article appears in print on April 25, 2024, Section A, Page 1 of the New York edition with the headline: Arizona Indicts Allies of Trump Over 2020 Vote. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

grover open ltr ~ BBB

not ward?

The Honorable Jake Hoffman

Arizona House of Representatives

The Honorable Brenda Barton

Arizona House of Representatives

The Honorable Leo Biasiucci

Arizona House of Representatives

The Honorable Walt Blackman

Arizona House of Representatives

The Honorable Judy Burges

Arizona House of Representatives

The Honorable Joseph Chaplik

Arizona House of Representatives

The Honorable John Fillmore

Arizona House of Representatives

The Honorable Gail Griffin

Arizona House of Representatives

The Honorable Justin Wilmeth

Arizona House of Representatives

The Honorable John Kavanaugh

Arizona House of Representatives

The Honorable Becky Nutt

Arizona House of Representatives

The Honorable Jacqueline Parker

Arizona House of Representatives

The HonorableKevin Payne

Arizona House of Representatives

The Honorable BeverlyPingerelli

Arizona House of Representatives

https://www.alternet.org/election-03918/red-state-victory-voting-rights-federal-court-protects-hundreds-thousands-new-voter

Voting rights advocates won a major victory in Missouri late on Friday, when a federal district court ordered the state’s Driver License Bureau to promptly forward address change information for an estimated 200,000 people who recently moved to election officials to update voter rolls before the midterm election.

This technical snafu—where one state agency has not been sharing its latest information with another; in this case, the driver bureau not sharing the latest address information with statewide election officials—is not simply bureaucratic bungling.

It is willfully turning what should be a simple matter—transferring data—into a potential voter suppression tactic. That’s because it could complicate the process for hundreds of thousands of people in states with close races, starting with U.S. Senate contests.

Slightly different variations of this problem have surfaced in Missouri and Arizona.

In Arizona, civil rights groups have been frustrated by its state Motor Vehicle Division refusal to forwarded address changes for an estimated 384,000 people to election offices. That number comes from people who did not check a box on a form agreeing to forward the change of address information, a Secretary of State spokesman said Friday, adding officials were going to fix that problem after the November 2018 election.

Unlike Missouri, voting rights activists in Arizona did not win a court order after suing. As a result, the affected individuals could face a more arduous task of casting a ballot that would be counted—as their voter information on file will not be accurate—unless they take proactive steps between now and the state’s close of voter registration. But, of course, these individuals are probably not aware there’s even a potential problem.

At issue in Missouri, where Democratic U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill faces a tough re-election bid, is whether or not a sizeable number of the estimated 580,000 voters who move within the state every year will have their voting credentials updated as part of getting news driver’s licenses. A 1993 federal law, the National Voter Registration Act, called the motor voter law, requires state agencies to offer voter registration services.

“Specifically, the lawsuit alleges that DOR [Missouri Department of Revenue that oversees driver’s licenses] is failing to provide Missouri residents with the opportunity to register and update their registration information during various license and identification card transactions,” the voting rights attorneys saidthis spring.

“Over 580,000 Missourians move within the state each year—approximately 200,000 of who move to a new electoral jurisdiction,” they explained. “When a voter’s registration information does not reflect their current address no matter whether they have moved within the county or not, the voter must cast a provisional ballot; and, if a voter has moved to a different election jurisdiction, their vote is discarded entirely.”

Late on Friday, U.S. District Court Judge Brian C. Wimes ordered the driver agency to fulfill the NVRA’s voter registration obligations, and ordered the state to send voter applications to people who got a new license in the past year.

“There is no dispute among the parties that ‘ensuring qualified voters exercise their right to vote is always in the public interest,’” the court held. “While the Court is cognizant of the extreme nature of preliminary injunctive relief, the circumstances of this case suggest the public’s interests in the right to vote, and ensuring that state processes follow federal law, outweigh the public costs for Defendants to comply with a preliminary injunction.”

The court ordered the state to act quickly, citing an October 10 voter registration deadline in Missouri for the November 6 election. In contrast, in Arizona, organizations like Mi Familia Vota will be scrambling to urge people to check and possibly update their voter registration information before that state’s October 9 close of registration.

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Trump is not the only Republican to be spitting on the memory of Sen. John McCain—it’s a long list, and one that includes all three candidates for U.S. Senate in McCain’s home state of Arizona. Felonious former Sheriff Joe Arpaio, former state Sen. Kelli Ward, and Rep. Martha McSally have all embraced Trump and rejected McCain, along with retiring Sen. Jeff Flake, who they’re all hoping to replace.

Ward’s suggestion that McCain announced he was stopping cancer treatment to steal her thunder as she began a campaign bus tour wasn't her first such classy moment, and while she deleted her “it’s all about me” moment from Facebook and expressed pro forma condolences for McCain’s death, she hasn’t backed off much: “As of Sunday afternoon, Ward’s campaign website bore no mention of McCain’s death, and was still promoting an old statement that calls him ‘a problem for President Trump’s agenda.’”

For his part, Arpaio pivoted from praising John McCain to complaining that Cindy McCain had blocked him on Twitter. McSally has managed to avoid overt offense since it became clear that McCain’s death was imminent, but just a couple weeks ago:

McCain’s daughter Meghan was sharply critical of the congresswoman this month after she mimicked Trump and neglected to mention the full name of the “John S. McCain National Defense Authorization Act.”

“McSally’s inability to even mention my father’s name when discussing the bill named in his honor is disgraceful (just as it was with Trump). I had such higher hopes for the next generation of leadership in my home state,” Meghan McCain wrote.

This is today’s Republican Party. They’re petty and mean-spirited to the bitter end if you’re not one of their own—and the list of who’s one of their own is shrinking fast as Republicans move from targeting poor people and non-white people to targeting their own elected officials if they commit the sins of criticizing Donald Trump or insufficiently loathing all non-Republicans at all times.

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RAGA ballotpedia bs

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https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/twitter-again-suspends-fringe-republican-senate-candidate-who-promoted-conspiracy

Republican running for U.S. Senate in Arizona has been suspended from Twitter after posting conspiracy theories about the Parkland school shooting massacre, the Phoenix New Times reported Friday.

“Recently, [Craig] Brittain had been spreading gross conspiracy theories about the Parkland shooting survivors, calling them paid actors,” the paper reported. “Brittain tweeted constantly under the name @SenatorBrittain, sharing missives that ranged from utterly bonkers to deeply offensive.”

Jaclyn Corin, a Parkland survivor, responded to one of the allegations Brittain made.

“I have already appealed, but Twitter’s appeal process is a kangaroo court,” Brittain charged. “Once banned, you don’t get unbanned.”

“After continually hiding tweets from most of our followers and refusing to verify our account, today Twitter proved that it is in the business of trying to rig elections for the left, as CEO Jack Dorsey is a donor and member of the Clinton Foundation,” Brittain claimed. “Millions of conservatives and libertarians have been banned without reason, including Milo Yiannopoulos, Roger Stone, and others.”

The Federal Trade Commission reached a settlement with Brittain in 2015 over a revenge-porn website that would demand hundreds of dollars from victims.

Previously, Brittain claimed his Twitter account had been suspended because of his support for President Donald Trump with a doctored image.

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https://www.ecowatch.com/fracking-waste-laws-2526588629.html

Fracking Waste Lawsuit Highlights Dangerous Trend of Corporations Targeting Community Rights Defenders

By Simon Davis-Cohen

In early January, a federal judge ordered the nonprofit law firmCommunity Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) to pay $52,000 to an oil and gas exploration company for defending a rural Pennsylvania township's ban on underground injections of fracking waste.

This sanction comes at the request of Pennsylvania General Energy Company (PGE) and the Pennsylvania Independent Oil & Gas Association, but is part of a growing trend to prevent municipalities across the nation from pushing back against state and federal attempts to overrule them.

Starting in 2012, PGE proposed an injection well which, according to Grant Township's Board of Supervisors, "would receive 30,000 barrels [1.26 million gallons] of frack wastewater per month for 10 years." The board of supervisors for this small community near Pittsburgh warned that the injection well "threatens to subject every resident of Grant Township to a slow poisoning, and threatens thousands more who depend on Grant Township's watershed for clean water."

The community's law, they added, bans the injection well "as a violation of our basic civil rights." PGE operates multiple gas-extraction wells in the township.

Rights of Nature, Local Governance

CELDF, which has defended Grant's efforts to prevent waste injection wells for over three years, has worked with some 200 municipalities in the U.S. to defend local laws challenging similar corporate projects. The group aims to drive state constitutional change to bolster the rights of local residents and ecosystems against what it calls regressive state preemption and corporate personhood.

Grant Township, for example, is elevating a "right of self-government," rights "to clean air, water, and soil" and "ecosystem rights" above corporations' "rights" to inject waste from oil and gas extraction in the township.

These types of local laws often face substantial legal pushback from private corporations and states which claim authority over issues such as fossil fuel production. Along with the sanctions against CELDF, PGE is suing Grant Township itself, population 741, for damages that would likely be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Among its claims: The injection well ban violates the corporation's rights as a "person" under the First, Fourth, and Fifth Amendments; the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment; and the Contract Clause and Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution.

Grant Township is the fourth local government CELDF has defended in federal court.

'Frivolous' Legal Arguments

At the heart of the court's decision awarding PGE sanctions against the legal nonprofit (the company originally asked for $500,000) is an argument that the sanctions are justified because CELDF's legal arguments are contrary to "settled" law and therefore "frivolous." This reasoning asserts that corporate personhood and Pennsylvania's authority over municipalities on issues affecting drinking water and fossil fuel development is settled, and therefore CELDF's defense of Grant's claim to the contrary is "clearly unreasonable."

Grant Township, the court wrote, "seeks to disavow constitutional rights afforded corporations so as to prevent PGE from the lawful exercise of its right to pursue gas extraction related activities within its borders." On top of all this, Grant's law recognized legal rights for a local ecosystem. CELDF's attempt to represent that ecosystem in court, the judge ruled, violates the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, a set of rules that govern how legal proceedings take place in U.S. district courts.

Local Governments Sanctioned Across U.S.

CELDF is not alone in facing sanctions for challenging so-called settled law on similar issues. Defend Local Solutions is a campaign led byTallahassee's Mayor Andrew Gillum which is aimed at expanding the powers of municipalities in Florida. The campaign said at least seven states have "super preemption" bills on the books that sanction local officials who dare challenge specific state preemption bills that rescind powers from municipalities.

In Florida, for example, Gillum personally faced the threat of sanctions after he refused to repeal a local law that banned fire arms in public parks (even though the ordinance wasn't being enforced).

New bills, such as Texas's highly controversial "show me your papers" and sanctuary city preemption bill (SB4), also include punitive language for municipalities pushing back against state and federal authority.

Texas's bill would fine local officials and employees $25,000 per day or even remove them from office if they defy the law, according to the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund. Parts of this section of the law, however, are hung up in court. However, the court ruled that local officials can be sanctioned if they outright ban police from asking for people's immigration papers, and other sections of the bill are in effect, including a section that threatens punishment for local jail officers. The concept of economic retribution for noncompliance is spreading.

Georgia's 2017 bill, HB37, removes funding from any private college that "prohibits or restricts officials or employees … from communicating or cooperating with federal officials or law enforcement officers with regard toreporting [immigration] status information."

And in 2016 Arizona passed a bill which withholds state funds from localities that enact policy that challenges the state's claimed supremacy.

In CELDF's sanction case, the court acknowledges that sanctions can have the effect of "chilling novel legal or factual arguments."

Thomas Linzey, CELDF's director and one of the two attorneys being personally sanctioned, said "that's exactly the point. For years, the oil and gas corporations believed that they could stop the community rights movement by suing municipalities to overturn their local laws; but having failed to do so, they're now coming after the lawyers who are helping those communities to stop drilling. In many ways, the industry's filing for sanctions against us is just proof of how strong the community rights movement is becoming."

In court records, CELDF pointed to Brown v. Board of Education (which overturned "separate but equal" schools for Black and White students, 1954), courts striking down bans on gay marriage, and other novel legal arguments as evidence that sanctions against lawyers who challenge "settled" law could set a dangerous precedent.

"We understand that the real problem isn't the injection well, but the system of law that keeps trying to shut us down," the Grant Township Board of Supervisors said in a statement. "We're not going anywhere."

Reposted with permission from our media associate DeSmogBlog.

RELATED ARTICLES AROUND THE WEB

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http://www.alternet.org/education/devos-and-alecs-plan-american-education-ugly-unpopular

Secretary Betsy DeVos’ speech to the American Legislative Exchange Council met with protests before she’d even arrived in Denver.But teachers and activists aren’t the only ones objecting to the extreme, anti-public education agenda DeVos shares with ALEC. One of the great questions of our time is just how far to the fringe the right wing of the Republican Party can march before the business-minded set steps in and yanks the chain. ALEC’s education platform is providing a real-time test case.

Virtually everything you need to know about ALEC’s education priorities is captured in the group’s most recent Report Card on American Education.Here, “forward-thinking” states likeArizona reign supremethanks to a ranking system that prizes freedom from the education monopoly above all. Arizona’s high school graduation rate may be a full 25 percent lower than my own adopted home state of Massachusetts (languishing at #32 on the ALEC scale), but at least students aren’t choked by burdensome homeschooling regulations. In fact, thanks to far-sighted lawmakers like Arizona ALEC state chair Debbie Lesko (ALEC lawmaker of the year '16), young Arizonans can now eschew school for a buffet of “a la carte learning options,” paid for with pre-loaded edu-debit cards, a vision DeVos regards as a model.

The theme of this year’s state Report Card was the underfunding myth: “exposing the lack of a connection between funding increases and student performance.” (DeVos watchers will recognize this as one of her stock arguments.) It’s a claim based on ideology rather than research, but more importantly, more moderate Republicans no longer seem to be buying it. The revolt against Governor Brownback’s deep tax cuts in Kansas included business leaders who worried that starving the schools threatened the state’s future workforce and imperiled their ability to attract workers to the state. In Arizona, which ranks 48th in the country in education spending, business leaders recently announced that they plan to press for a big boost for the state’s schools, including raising teacher salaries. The state that topped ALEC’s education ranking has a teacher shortage so severe that schools are hiring teachers who lack any qualifications at all, even college degrees.

It’s a sign of the times that the education agenda at ALEC this year was almost exclusively focused on expanding private school choice: vouchers, education savings accounts and tax credit scholarships, a nifty way for big donors who share ALEC’s aversion to public institutions and the taxes that pay for them to undermine the former while avoiding the latter. All of that bipartisan happy talk about sending all kids to college and closing achievement gaps has largely disappeared. Instead, the ALEC agenda, indistinguishable from DeVos’ own, prizes school choice as an end unto itself. They envision a future where parents are freed—from the education monopoly, from regulation, from greedy unions, and most importantly, from schools—to navigate an education marketplace that abounds in choices. It is also replete with money making opportunities, but that is not something that appears on the ALEC press releases.

As for how we’ll know when we’ve reached the future ALEC promises, as bright as the Arizona sunshine, well, that’s a bit vague. Trust families instead of regulators, goes the talking point. Or as DeVos’ spokesperson, Liz Hill, answeredwhen pressed about the lack of transparency in many voucher programs: parents don’t need “more data sets... A child’s progress—or lack thereof—is fully transparent to his or her parents.”

Diminishing Expectations

DeVos wasn’t listed among the ALEC headliners this year, a line-up heavy on conservative has-beens like Newt Gingrich, William J. Bennett and Jim DeMint. But among this crowd she’s regarded as a conquering heroine. That’s because the right-wing in Michigan just realized a decades-long dream and a top priority for the DeVos family: not only did they succeed in making Michigan, the cradle of industrial unionism, a right-to-work state, they also killed teacher pensions. New teachers in the Mitten state, where teacher salaries dropped for the last five years in a row, will now fund their own retirement. ALEC called the move a win for teachers and taxpayers, but didn’t mention the part where taxpayers will have to cough up at least $255 million to “fix” a problem that the anti-public school crowd largely created. Ending teacher pensions, one of the last remaining benefits the state’s once-powerful teachers unions could offer their members, will only hasten the unions’ demise. In the words of the old Mastercard commercial: “priceless."

In a new book that examines the work of ALEC and other corporate lobbies in all fifty states, economist Gordon Lafer argues that the singular fixation upon crushing teachers unions is about much more than mere money. In virtually every community, schools represent the largest employer, providing something that is increasingly underheard of these days: decent wages, good benefits and the prospect of a retirement that doesn’t involve collecting cans. The presence of these large employers—schools, public universities, hospitals—raises the expectations of the public about what’s possible, Lafer argues. “ALEC’s vision of the future is actually really bleak,” Lafer told me recently. “That’s why so much of their legislative focus is on limiting what people are entitled to, especially in education.” The relentless effort to rid the world of teachers pensions, says Lafer, is also about lowering the expectations of everyone else.

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http://www.alternet.org/environment/forest-service-ready-approve-controversial-arizona-copper-mine-threatening-environment

U.S. Forest Service is poised to sign one of the :{two federal permits needed for a :(style="background-color:#ffffff;"):}::{giant, mile-wide open-pit copper mine in Arizona:(style="background-color:#ffff66;"):}:. The announcement for what would be the third-largest copper mine in the county, if approved, was quietly published Monday in the Federal Register.

The developer of the controversial project has been represented in Washington by David Bernhardt, the former lobbyist who has been nominated for the No. 2 spot at the Interior Department. Bernhardt briefly headed the transition team for Trump’s Interior.

HERE’S THE FINAL ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT STATEMENT ON THE ROSEMONT MINE PROJECT

“No rational analysis could lead the stewards of our public lands to conclude that this devastating project is acceptable,” said Randy Serraglio, conservation advocate with the Center for Biological Diversity. “This decision is motivated by politics and corruption.”

Bernhardt lobbied for the proposed Rosemont copper mine in the 1.78-million-acre Coronado National Forest from 2011 through 2015. He remained a consultant for the project. Rosemont Copper Co. paid about $1.8 million in lobbying fees from 2011 to 2016 to a Denver law firm, Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, where Bernhardt is a shareholder.

Rosemont Copper Co. paid Bernhardt more than $5,000 forlegal services, according to his ethics disclosure form. The exact amount was not released. Bernhardt is expected to be questioned by the U.S. Senate about possible conflicts of interest such as Rosemont. The Interior Department doesn’t oversee the Forest Service, which is part of the Department of Agriculture.

The Federal Register announcement said a “Record of Decision” is expected to be signed in early June.

Hudbay Minerals Inc., the Canadian firm behind the project, said that the permit is one of two federal permits needed for the project. The other is a Clean Water Act permit that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers previously recommended be denied. The reviewers said the mine would “cause or contribute to” violations of Arizona water quality standards.

Hudbay CEO Alan Hair told analysts in February that he expected the company would receive the permits “in due course.”

The proposed mine is in the Santa Rita mountains of southern Arizona where the nation’s only wild jaguar lives. Another endangered large cat, the ocelot, has also been photographed nearby.

Hudbay plans to mine up to 90,000 tons of ore a day over the estimated 19-year life of the mine and produce 1.25 billion tons of waste rock and mine tailings. A feasibility study in March said the company has found other ore deposits nearby that it could also mine.

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AZ makes all students eligible, no dems; same day NY sez free college for under 100K$

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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/07/07/arizona-mexican-american-studies_n_7748102.html

...he decision is a blow for the Arizona conservatives who championed the law in order to eliminate a pioneering Mexican-American studies program in Tucson public schools. The curriculum is credited with boosting the graduation rate and improving student achievement on state tests in the majority-Latino district.

Arizona Republicans, led by then-Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne and then-State Sen. John Huppenthal, first passed legislation restricting ethnic studies in 2010. The law banned classes that advocate the overthrow of the U.S. government, urge ethnic solidarity, breed ethnic resentment or treat students as members of a group rather than as individuals.

In 2011, Huppenthal took over from Horne as the superintendent of public instruction and found Tucson out of compliance with the law, dismissing a state-commissioned audit of the courses that came to the opposite conclusion and recommended expanding the classes. Opponents of Tucson’s program argued that the classes, many of which studied race and socioeconomic inequality, bred resentment against whites — a charge that participating teachers and students deny. Facing the loss of 10 percent of the district’s funding — some $14 million per year — the Tucson school board voted in January 2012 to dismantle the courses....

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3x bad bills 2/17

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/02/24/republican-lawmakers-introduce-bills-to-curb-protesting-in-at-least-17-states/

Republican lawmakers introduce bills to curb protesting in at least 17 states

By Christopher Ingraham February 24 at 11:37 AM 

Since the election of President Trump, Republican lawmakers in at least 17 states have introduced or voted on legislation to curb mass protests in what civil liberties experts are calling “an attack on protest rights throughout the states.”

From Virginia to Washington state, legislators have introduced bills that would increase punishments for blocking highways, ban the use of masks during protests, indemnify drivers who strike protesters with their cars and, in at least once case, seize the assets of people involved in protests that later turn violent. The proposals come after a string of mass protest movements in the past few years, covering everything from police shootings of unarmed black men to the Dakota Access Pipeline to the inauguration of Trump.

Some are introducing bills because they say they're necessary to counter the actions of “paid” or “professional” protesters who set out to intimidate or disrupt, a common accusation that experts agree is largely overstated. “You now have a situation where you have full-time, quasi-professional agent-provocateurs that attempt to create public disorder,” said Republican state senator John Kavanagh of Arizona in support of a measure there that would bring racketeering charges against some protesters.

Others, like the sponsors of a bill in Minnesota, say the measures are necessary to protect public safety on highways. Still other bills, in states like Oklahoma and South Dakota, are intended to discourage protesting related to oil pipelines.

Democrats in many of these states are fighting the legislation. They cite existing laws that already make it a crime to block traffic, the possibility of a chilling effect on protests across the political spectrum, and concerns for protesters’ safety in the face of aggressive motorists.

None of the proposed legislation has yet been passed into law, and several bills have already been shelved in committee.

Critics doubt whether many of the laws would pass Constitutional muster. “The Supreme Court has gone out of its way on multiple occasions to point out that streets, sidewalks and public parks are places where [First Amendment] protections are at their most robust,” said Lee Rowland, a senior attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union.

This is by no means the first time in American history that widespread protests have inspired a legislative backlash, says Douglas McAdam, a Stanford sociology professor who studies protest movements. “For instance, southern legislatures — especially in the Deep South — responded to the Montgomery Bus Boycott (and the Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education) with dozens and dozens of new bills outlawing civil rights groups, limiting the rights of assembly, etc. all in an effort to make civil rights organizing more difficult,” he said via email.

“Similarly,” he added, “laws designed to limit or outlaw labor organizing or limit labor rights were common in the late 19th/early 20th century.”

The ACLU’s Rowland says the new bills are not about “creating new rules that are necessary because of some gap in the law.” She points out, for instance, that “every single city and county in the United States” already has laws on the books against obstructing traffic on busy roads.

Rather, Rowland says the laws’ intent is “increasing the penalties for protest-related activity to the point that it results in self-censorship among protesters who have every intention to obey the law.”

Even the accusations of “paid” or “professional” agitators, which Trump has promoted, have been leveled at protesters before.

“This is standard operating procedure for movement opponents,” Stanford’s McAdam said. “Civil rights workers were said to be ‘outside agitators, and the tea party was dismissed as an ‘AstroTurf’ phenomenon — funded from on high by the Koch brothers and others — rather than a legitimate ‘grass roots’ movement. In all these cases, including the present, the charges are generally bogus, with the vast majority of protesters principled individuals motivated by the force of deeply held values and strong emotion.”

But now, social media has made it possible to organize larger protests more rapidly than ever before. “The older laws are becoming less effectual in dealing with these kind of groups,” said Michael Heaney of the University of Michigan, a political sociologist who studies protest movements. On top of that, “the courts have said, ‘Look, the people have a right to protest in this way.’ ” So on some level the new legislation represents an attempt by lawmakers to catch up with new realities of 21st-century protesting.

Here’s a list of laws that have been introduced or voted on since the election.

Arizona

Arizona’s bill, introduced this week, would open up protests to anti-racketeering legislation, targeting protesters with the same laws used to combat organized crime syndicates. It would also allow police to seize the assets of anyone involved in a protest that at some point becomes violent. It recently passed the state Senate on a party-line vote and is now before the House.

Colorado

A bill under consideration in Colorado would strengthen penalties for “tampering” with oil and gas equipment. It’s intended to prevent activists from shutting off pipelines, a tactic that’s been used in other states.

Florida

A bill introduced by Republican George Gainer in the Florida Senate this month would provide criminal penalties for protesters obstructing traffic and exempt drivers from liability if they struck a protester under certain conditions. It was filed this week, and if enacted would take force on July 1.

Iowa

A bill supported by nine Republican sponsors would make protesters who intentionally block highways subject to felony charges and up to five years in prison. The bill’s lead sponsor told the Des Moines Register it was introduced in response to a November incident in which a protest Trump shut down part of Interstate 80 in Iowa.

Indiana

An Indiana Senate committee recently toned down a bill that would have allowed police to shut down highway protests using “any means necessary.” The current version allows police to issue fines for such behavior.

Michigan

A Michigan bill voted on late last year would have increased fines for certain “mass picketing” behavior, and made it easier for courts to shut down such demonstrations.

Minnesota

Bills under consideration in Minnesota would increase fines for protesters blocking highways and airports. A separate measure before the legislature would make it possible for jurisdictions to charge protesters for the costs of policing the protests.

Missouri

A Republican lawmaker has introduced legislation that would make it illegal for protesters to wear masks, robes or other disguises during protests deemed to be illegal.

Mississippi

A bill before the Mississippi legislature would make obstruction of traffic a felony punishable by a $10,000 fine and a five-year prison sentence.

North Carolina

A North Carolina Republican has pledged to introduce legislation making it a crime to “threaten, intimidate or retaliate against” current or former state officials, in response to an incident involving the heckling of Gov. Pat McCrory. The Senator proposing the legislation, Dan Bishop, confirmed via email that he still intends to introduce the legislation, perhaps as early as next week, after consulting with potential co-sponsors.

North Dakota

A number of North Dakota bills have been introduced in response to the long-standing protests there against the Dakota Access Pipeline. The measure that drew the most attention was a bill that would have removed penalties for motorists who strike protesters with their car in some circumstances. That bill failed to make it out of the House, but a number of other measures increasing penalties for certain types of protest action are advancing through the legislature.

Oklahoma

Inspired by pipeline protests in North Dakota, the Oklahoma legislature is considering a bill that would increase penalties for trespassing on certain pieces of “critical infrastructure” like pipelines and railways.

Oregon

A novel piece of legislation in Oregon would require public community colleges and universities to expel any student convicted of participating in a violent riot.

South Dakota

A Senate panel in South Dakota recently approved a bill that would increase penalties for certain acts of trespassing and blocking highways. It’s a response to pipeline protests in North Dakota, and to the potential for similar protests in South Dakota if the Keystone XL pipeline gets built.

Tennessee

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A Tennessee Republican wants drivers to be protected from liability if they inadvertently strike a protester who is blocking a roadway.

Virginia

A Virginia bill that would have increased penalties for people who refused to leave the scene of a riot or unlawful protest died in the state Senate last month. The bill had been requested by law enforcement.

Washington state

Washington lawmakers are considering a bill to increase penalties for people blocking highways and railways, acts that the bill's sponsor has characterized as “economic terrorism.”

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http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/arizona-education/2017/02/08/republicans-fast-track-school-voucher-bill-arizona-legislature/97572798/

Republican lawmakers in the Arizona Legislature are attempting to fast-track a plan to eventually offer vouchers to every public-school student and, in separate legislation, privatize oversight of the public money given to parents to pay private-school tuition and other expenses.

The Legislature is training its sights on the plan to broaden eligibility for Empowerment Scholarship Accounts, a school-choice program created six years ago for disabled children. Under the legislation, all of Arizona's 1.1 million students would be eligible for the program by 2020.

Sen. Debbie Lesko, of Peoria, and Rep. John Allen, of Scottsdale, have introduced identical bills to expand the program in their chambers, a move intended to expedite passage. ESAs allow families to use public-school dollars on private-school tuition and other educational expenses.

ESAs would be offered to four grades in 2017-18 and incrementally to all public-school students by 2020-21.

The first hearing on the expansion bills, on Thursday, ran for hours before the Senate Education Committee passed the measure, 4-3. The vote was along party lines, with the exception of Republican Sen. Kate Brophy McGee, of Phoenix, who opposed the legislation.

Dozens of parents and teachers from across the state showed up in support of the proposal, while public-school teachers and others came out to oppose it. The House Education Committee will hear its expansion legislation at 2 p.m. on Monday.

Senate Republicans have also introduced another bill that would privatize oversight of the program and force the state Department of Education to deposit money into ESA accounts as soon as the parent agrees to the terms of the program.

Backers: DeVos confirmation may boost bill

==rewire

e Arizona Senate on Wednesday passed legislation requiring abortion providers to be trained and equipped to save preterm infants in the rare instances in which a later abortion procedure produces a live birth.

The bill cleared the state senate in an 18-12 vote, with one Democrat, Sen. Catherine Miranda (Phoenix), joining Republicans to support SB 1367, as the Arizona Republic reported.

The measure is likely to become law, as Republicans control both chambers and the governor’s office. The state’s powerful anti-choice lobby, Center for Arizona Policy—an affiliate of the Family Research Council— s backing the bill.

SB 1367 targets hospitals and clinics that perform abortions at 20 weeks’ gestation or beyond, and is essentially a new form of targeted regulation of abortion providers, or TRAP, laws. TRAP provisions in Texas, for example, forced abortion clinics to be outfitted like mini-hospitals. Some of the restrictions, which drove many clinics out of business, were found unconstitutional last year by the U.S. Supreme Court in Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt.

...

https://www.desmogblog.com/2016/11/26/rooftop-solar-threatened-arizona-biggest-public-utility-takes-over-commission-regulates-it

==

==

6/16

This month, an Arizona court ruled that over a decade of two climate scientists’ emails must be turned over to E&E Legal, a :{coal:(style="-webkit-padding-start:0px;font-weight:700"):}:-:{funded:(style="-webkit-padding-start:0px;font-weight:700"):}: group that openly works to discredit climate science.  This is an incredibly dangerous court decision that will force climate scientists to work within a fishbowl, where every email exchange can be picked apart by agenda-driven opponents – inhibiting scientific debate, discouraging collaboration, and chilling academic thought.

:{ ===

http://www.alternet.org/food/county-worst-childhood-hunger-america

...

“You’d think he would be more concerned about getting an Xbox. But he was really excited about oranges. A kid should be excited about learning and playing and growing, not worried about where their next meal is coming from.”}:

When Feeding America issued its annual Map the Hunger Gap, Apache and four other counties atop the northern part of Arizona—stretching the full expanse from the eastern state line to the west—were the darkest shade of green included on the map’s legend. The color indicated that more than 30 percent of kids in those areas are food insecure, meaning they live in households that experience limited or uncertain availability of nutritionally adequate foods. Apache County, a long, narrow strip in the northeast corner of Arizona, includes parts of the Navajo Nation as well as the Zuni and Fort Apache Native American reservations. There, 42 percent of children—9,050 kids—are food insecure, twice the national rate.

There isn’t much out there in Northeast Arizona, Martinez explained. “When I say ‘rural,’ most people think farms and ranches. Arizona rural is very desolate, especially in the northeast part of the state,” he said. “You really don’t get a grasp of how rural these parts are until you see it.” He described a beautiful but sparsely populated landscape with communities clustered in chapter houses, towns, and villages—some of which are thousands of years old. Traveling to a major population center can be a substantial drive—an hour or two, or more—and those destinations may not have a grocery store.

“There’s still very few amenities. There are not very many grocery stores. Running water is very limited,” Martinez said. “It is definitely a different world.” In recent years, some extra federal money coming to schools and antihunger groups have helped to make up some of the difference—but that funding may dry up if Congress makes proposed changes to the federal Child Nutrition Programs.

That world includes schools where 100 percent of the children qualify for subsidized lunches. Martinez, who previously taught middle school, said he could identify hungry children in the classroom by their appearance: brittle hair, sallow skin more apt to bruise and break, weight loss or, conversely, obesity—and behavior that can be, in turns, aggressive, anxious, or distracted.

“They’re wondering where their next meal is coming from instead of being a kid,” he said. Oranges over Xboxes. “And that’s even if the child makes it to school in the first place.”

The United Food Bank, which also provides food aid throughout the state, sends kids home from school on Friday with packs of food to get them through the weekend, but those individual rations end up being split among a family. “This is really the Third World among us,” Ginny Hildebrand, the nonprofit’s CEO, told USA Today.

Nearly half a million children in Arizona meet the income eligibility requirements for the free and reduced lunch program, yet less than 15 percent of them are able to access meals during the summer months when school is not in session. Agencies like St. Mary’s Food Bank Alliance were able to provide more meals to more hungry kids after 2010’s Child Nutrition Reauthorization bill. Five years ago, St. Mary’s served 1,500 daily after-school and summer meals. Now it serves 6,000, Martinez said.

But that progress is now in jeopardy. Congress reviews and reauthorizes federal child nutrition programs every five years, and the passage of the 2015 Child Nutrition Reauthorization is already overdue—and the version written by House GOP leaders threatens, among other things, to undercut the Community Eligibility Provision. One of the most successful components of the bill, that provision allowed high-poverty schools or districts to serve all students free meals, regardless of their eligibility, by demonstrating that at least 40 percent of their students were certified for free meals through other federal programs, such as food stamps. It fed more kids with less paperwork and zero stigma.

The House Child Nutrition Reauthorization bill would jack up the qualifying threshold from 40 percent to 60. Because that 40 percent threshold doesn’t come close to capturing all the needy kids, Politico calculated the change would mean even “schools with between 65 and 96 percent of their students qualifying for nutrition assistance would likely have to drop CEP.”

Matt Herrick, director of communications at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, is highly critical of the proposed change. He issued a statement, published in full by The Lunch Tray, saying the reauthorization plan is, “harmful to children’s health, heaps administrative costs on schools, and plans to bury parents in more bureaucratic red tape, all while subsidizing well-off children at the expense of our less fortunate kids who need help.”

Proposed measures like this make it harder for agencies like St. Mary’s to do their real work, Martinez said. “We’re trying to make it as easy as possible for smaller nonprofits, to remove as much paperwork as possible, so that we’re able to focus less on pushing paper and more on feeding hungry children,” he said.

:{==

}: 

Arizona Speaker of the House Andy Tobin (R-1), who has had a seat on ALEC's anti-worker rights Commerce, Insurance, and Economic Development Task Force, ran for the first U.S. House district seat against Democrat Ann Kirkpatrick, whom Politico called "one of the most endangered Democratic incumbents in the country." Having raised only about a third of what Kirkpatrick did, to the aggravation of GOP strategists, Tobin received millions in support from outside groups -- as did Kirkpatrick. The race was one of the most expensive in the country. At the end of a tight race, and according to unofficial number reported by NPR affiliate KNAU, Kirkpatrick looks to be out in front, although the race has not yet been called.

Also in Arizona, ALEC state Senator Michele Reagan (R-8) ran for Secretary of State against Democrat Terry Goddard. Both Reagan and Goddard ran for the state's top elections post on pledges to expose "dark money." But the last few weeks of the race saw hundreds of thousands spent on ads attacking Democrat Goddard by the Koch-affiliated 60 Plus Association, which does not reveal its donors. Reagan refused to condemn the expenditure, according to the Arizona Republic. Goddard ran with funding from Arizona's public campaign-finance program, which meant he agreed not to fundraise from private sources. The outside spending by the Koch-tied group eclipsed the money to which he had access. Reagan won the election.

- See more at: http://www.prwatch.org/node/12654#sthash.DkN3oZ13.dpuf 

:{

}: 

===

For consumers, this good news may soon get even better. While the cost of carbon­based energy continues to increase, the cost of solar electricity has dropped by an average of 20 percent per year since 2010. Some energy economists, including those who produced an authoritative report this past spring for Bernstein Research, are now predicting energy-price deflation as soon as the next decade.

For those (including me) who are surprised at the speed with which this impending transition has been accelerating, there are precedents that help explain it. Remember the first mobile-telephone handsets? I do; as an inveterate "early adopter" of new technologies, I thought those first huge, clunky cellphones were fun to use and looked cool (they look silly now, of course). In 1980, a few years before I bought one of the early models, AT&T conducted a global market study and came to the conclusion that by the year 2000 there would be a market for 900,000 subscribers. They were not only wrong, they were way wrong: 109 million contracts were active in 2000. Barely a decade and a half later, there are 6.8 billion globally. 
These parallels have certainly caught the attention of the fossil-fuel industry and its investors: Eighteen months ago, the Edison Electric Institute described the floundering state of the once-proud landline-telephone companies as a grim predictor of what may soon be their fate.

The utilities are fighting back, of course, by using their wealth and the entrenched political power they have built up over the past century. In the United States, brothers Charles and David Koch, who run Koch Industries, the second-largest privately owned corporation in the U.S., have secretively donated at least $70 million to a number of opaque political organizations tasked with spreading disinformation about the climate crisis and intimidating political candidates who dare to support renewable energy or the pricing of carbon pollution.

A Call to Arms: An invitation to Demand Action on Climate Change

They regularly repeat shopworn complaints about the inadequate, intermittent and inconsistent subsidies that some governments have used in an effort to speed up the deployment of renewables, while ignoring the fact that global subsidies for carbon-based energy are 25 times larger than global subsidies for renewables.

One of the most effective of the groups financed by the Koch brothers and other carbon polluters is the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, which grooms conservative state legislators throughout the country to act as their agents in introducing legislation written by utilities and carbon-fuel lobbyists in a desperate effort to slow, if not stop, the transition to renewable energy.

The Kochs claim to act on principles of low taxation and minimal regulation, but in their attempts to choke the development of alternative energy, they have induced the recipients of their generous campaign contributions to contradict these supposedly bedrock values, pushing legislative and regulatory measures in 34 states to discourage solar, or encourage carbon energy, or both. The most controversial of their initiatives is focused on persuading state legislatures and public-utility commissions to tax homeowners who install a PV solar cell on their roofs, and to manipulate the byzantine utility laws and regulations to penalize renewable energy in a variety of novel schemes.

The chief battleground in this war between the energy systems of the past and future is our electrical grid. For more than a century, the grid – along with the regulatory and legal framework governing it – has been dominated by electric utilities and their centralized, fossil-fuel-powered­ electricity-generation plants. But the rise of distributed alternate energy sources allows consumers to participate in the production of electricity through a policy called net metering. In 43 states, homeowners who install solar PV to systems on their rooftops are permitted to sell electricity back into the grid when they generate more than they need.

These policies have been crucial to the growth of solar power. But net metering represents an existential threat to the future of electric utilities, the so-called utility death spiral: As more consumers install solar panels on their roofs, utilities will have to raise prices on their remaining customers to recover the lost revenues. Those higher rates will, in turn, drive more consumers to leave the utility system, and so on.

But here is more good news: The Koch brothers are losing rather badly. In Kansas, their home state, a poll by North Star Opinion Research reported that 91 percent of registered voters support solar and wind. Three-quarters supported stronger policy encouragement of renewable energy, even if such policies raised their electricity bills.

In Georgia, the Atlanta Tea Party joined forces with the Sierra Club to form a new organization called – wait for it – the Green Tea Coalition, which promptly defeated a Koch-funded scheme to tax rooftop solar panels.

Meanwhile, inArizona, after the state's largest utility, an ALEC member, asked the public-utility commission for a tax of up to $150 per month for solar households, the opposition was fierce and well-organized. A compromise was worked out – those households would be charged just $5 per month – but Barry Goldwater Jr., the leader of a newly formed organization called TUSK (Tell Utilities Solar won't be Killed), is fighting a new attempt to discourage rooftop solar in Arizona. Characteristically, the Koch brothers and their allies have been using secretive and deceptive funding in Arizona to run television advertisements attacking "greedy" owners of rooftop solar panels – but their effort has thus far backfired, as local journalists have exposed the funding scam.

Even though the Koch-funded forces recently scored a partial (and almost certainly temporary) victory in Ohio, where the legislature voted to put a hold on the state's renewable-portfolio standard and study the issue for two years, it's clear that the attack on solar energy is too little, too late. Last year, the Edison Electric Institute warned the utility industry that it had waited too long to respond to the sharp cost declines and growing popularity of solar: "At the point when utility investors become focused on these new risks and start to witness significant customer- and earnings-erosion trends, they will respond to these challenges. But, by then, it may be too late to repair the utility business model."

The most seductive argument deployed by the Koch brothers and their allies is that those who use rooftop solar electricity and benefit from the net-metering policies are "free riders" – that is, they are allegedly not paying their share of the maintenance costs for the infrastructure of the old utility model, including the grid itself. This deceptive message, especially when coupled with campaign contributions, has persuaded some legislators to support the proposed new taxes on solar panels.

But the argument ignores two important realities facing the electric utilities: First, most of the excess solar electricity is supplied by owners of solar cells during peak-load hours of the day, when the grid's capacity is most stressed – thereby alleviating the pressure to add expensive new coal- or gas-fired generating capacity. But here's the rub: What saves money for their customers cuts into the growth of their profits and depresses their stock prices. As is often the case, the real conflict is between the public interest and the special interest.

The second reality ignored by the Koch brothers is the one they least like to discuss, the one they spend so much money trying to obfuscate with their hired "merchants of doubt." You want to talk about the uncompensated use of infrastructure? What about sewage infrastructure for 98 million tons per day of gaseous, heat-trapping waste that is daily released into our skies, threatening the future of human civilization? Is it acceptable to use the thin shell of atmosphere surrounding our planet as an open sewer? Free of charge? Really?...

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-turning-point-new-hope-for-the-climate-20140618?print=true

===

===

State Representative John Kavanaugh is a committed opponent of marriage equality. He was a driving force behind Arizona's so-called "religious liberty" bill that allowed businesses to relegate LGBT customers to second class citizens. But that's not all! As a staunch supporter of Arizona's anti-immigration law that failed before the Supreme Court, Rep. Kavanaugh even went on to joke about Arizona's terrible recent history with racial profiling. Discrimination is something only a villain would find funny.

==

...

As the use of solar power skyrockets across the U.S., fights have sprung up in several states over how much customers should be compensated for excess power produced by their solar panels and sold back to the grid — a policy known as net metering. Net metering laws have come under fire from the secretive American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a group backed by fossil fuel corporations, utility companies, and the ultra-conservative Koch brothers. Forty-three states and the District of Columbia currently have net metering policies in place and ALEC has set its sights on repealing them, referring to homeowners with their own solar panels as “freeriders on the system.” ALEC presented Gov. Fallin the Thomas Jefferson Freedom award last year for her “record of advancing the fundamental Jeffersonian principles of free markets, limited government, federalism and individual liberty as a nationally recognized leader.”

Oklahoma “could be the first complete defeat for solar advocates in their fight against utility efforts to recover costs lost to DG [distributed generation] use,” writes Utility Dive. Net metering survived attacks in Colorado and Kansas and Vermont recently increased its policy in a bipartisan effort. Last year, Arizonaadded what amounts to a $5 per month surcharge for solar customers, a move that was widely seen as a compromise, particularly after ALEC and other Koch-backed groups got involved.

While any extra charge placed on potential customers is a concern, Gary hopes that like Arizona, Oklahoma’s fee is modest enough to protect her business from serious damage.

Matt Kasper, energy research assistant at the Center for American Progress, contributed to this piece.

==

koch:

Americans for Responsible Leadership

GRANTS TO THIS ORGANIZATION FROM:

Center to Protect Patient Rights$24,650,800

GRANTS FROM THIS ORGANIZATION TO:

Small Business Action Committee$11,000,000
No New Taxes, No on Prop 204$925,000
Save Our Vote Opposing Prop 121$550,000
American Commitment$300,000
Arizona Public Integrity Alliance$7,500

==

Utility commissioners in Arizona will decide the fate of rooftop solar incentives this week, in what has become the biggest fight over renewable energy policy in the country. A two-day hearing on the issue at the Arizona Corporation Commissionbegan Wednesday.

The Arizona Public Service, the state's largest utility, is asking the commission to change the current policy, which allows homes and businesses with their own solar power systems to sell any excess energy they generate back to the grid. That policy, known as net metering, was first put in place in 2009. The utility argues that customers with rooftop solar aren't paying their fair share to maintain the grid, and has proposed policy changes that would increase prices for those with solar systems. But local solar advocates have accused the utility of trying to kill the state's burgeoning solar industry, and have launched a counter-campaign.

As The Huffington Post has previously reported, the fight got interesting when the utility revealed that it had been secretly funding anti-solar ads produced by a national conservative group. After a commissioner asked the company and other groups involved in the net metering debate to disclose how much money they were spending on the issue, APS disclosed that it had spent $3.7 million on PR work. The solar lobby disclosed that it was spending nearly half a million dollars on fighting the proposed changes.

Meanwhile, the Edison Electric Institute, a national group that represents utilities, has jumped in the fight, spending $520,000 on a 10-day television ad campaign in support of APS, the Arizona Republic reported.

Hundreds of solar supporters came to rally outside the hearing on Wednesday, and dozens testified. The commission is expected to decide Thursday whether to change the policy.

Forty-three states and the District of Columbia have some manner of net metering policy in place, which has helped spur the growth of solar across the country. Both solar proponents and utilities elsewhere are watching Arizona as a test case for the issue, as a handful of other states have also considered changes to similar policies this year.

And as this fight has shown, utilities are willing to put big bucks behind efforts to change them.

==

With partisan politics trumping science-based solutions all too often these days, it's especially heartening when people overcome political differences to let solid data point the way toward practical solutions. That's what happened in Georgia last month when state regulators voted to require Georgia Power -- the state's sole investor-owned electricity provider -- to expand the use of solar power in its energy mix.

Regulators on the all-Republican commission voted 3-2 in favor of a plan that requires Atlanta-based Georgia Power Co. to increase its solar power capacity by 525 megawatts by the end of 2016. The decision comes on the heels of the announcement that Georgia Power, a subsidiary of Southern Co., is planning to retire more than 2,000 megawatts worth of coal-fired generating capacity.

The vote in Georgia is notable not just for the commonsense outcome of adding more cost-effective renewable energy in a state ranked fifth in the nation for solar potential but just 21st for installed solar capacity. The real surprise here, after more than a year of often acrimonious debate, is the nearly unprecedented coalition that made the decision possible -- a mixture of not just environmentalists and solar advocates but also conservative lawmakers and Tea Party members.

:{Koch-Sponsored Misinformation

The latter groups in particular had to face down a barrage of misinformation from Americans for Prosperity (AFP), an organization founded and underwritten by the billionaire Koch brothers, whose predecessor organization, Citizens for a Sound Economy,virtually founded the Tea Partyitself. AFP's Georgia chapter mounted a scare campaign against solar power in Georgia that, as usual, supported the Koch's bottom line as fossil fuel magnates even as it played fast and loose with the facts.}:

Virginia Galloway, director of AFP's Georgia chapter, for instance, warnedthe group's 50,000 members that the solar proposal would "reduce the reliability of every appliance and electronics gadget in your home" and could increase Georgia electricity rates by up to 40 percent. As the Associated Press pointed out, neither of these claims bore much resemblance to the truth. In fact, at the hearing before the vote, Kevin Greene, Georgia Power's attorney, said that the utility didn't believe the solar requirement would cause any increase in electricity prices for ratepayers.

All of which underscores the really surprising part: even the Tea Party faithful didn't seem to be buying the AFP line this time around. Despite the mass emails, handouts, and phone calls put out by AFP's Georgia chapter, when the group held a protest during the Public Service Commission deliberations, hardly anyone showed up.

What's more, a separate branch of the Tea Party in Georgia, known as the Tea Party Patriots, came out strongly in favor of more solar power in the state. Debbie Dooley, national coordinator of the Tea Party Patriots told the press: "AFP Georgia is putting out absolutely false data," that doesn't take into account the fact that "solar prices have plummeted" in recent years. Dooley quipped that her group was forming "a Green Tea Coalition" because it saw the proposed solar expansion as a free market issue that "gives consumers more choice."

:{Solar Power is Growing for Good Reason

Michael Jacobs, a senior energy analyst at the Union of Concerned Scientists, says the facts in the energy sector speak for themselves. As Georgia regulators wisely recognized, he says, the price of coal has risen, while prices for solar panels have dropped some 60 percent since 2011.}:

The fact is, solar has been one of the nation's fastest growing industries for the past several years, now supporting more than 100,000 jobs at 5,600 companies operating in every state in the nation. With the rate of utility solar installations more than doubling since 2012, the United States is now on track to add another 4,400 megawatts of photovoltaic power in 2013.

All of which has been noted with considerable alarm by some electric utilities. A recentreport distributed by the Edison Electric Institute, the industry's main trade group, for instance, calls the growth of small-scale solar systems the "largest near-term threat" to the industry and warns of a disruption to the industry similar to the one wrought by cell phones on the landline telephone industry.

:{Next up: Arizona

In a number of states recently, utilities have sought to fight back by charging extra fees to customers with rooftop solar panels. Moves to change so-called net metering arrangements were notably beaten back this spring in both Louisiana and Idaho -- hardly states known for liberal politics or environmental activism.}:

The latest battleground is Arizona, where the state's largest electric utility -- Arizona Public Service Company -- has similarly asked regulators to raise electric rates for residential customers who install solar photovoltaic systems at their homes. And, as in Georgia, the battle lines are forging some surprising alliances. In this case, Barry Goldwater, Jr. the son of the late politician who served five terms in the U.S. Senate and whose name is practically synonymous with conservatism in America, is among those leading the fight for solar power in his state, heading a recently formed organization called TUSK -- "Tell Utilities Solar Won't Be Killed."

Jacobs notes that the populist nature of rooftop solar power seems to be causing a paradigm shift in many people's political perspective. "Instead of being forced to buy power from a monopoly, people now have a real option to go buy rooftop solar panels as they would a television or a refrigerator. There's no question," he says, "that this aspect is particularly appealing to a segment of the population that prefers the free market and doesn't want utilities or government to mandate what they do."

While Koch-funded groups like AFP are unlikely to heed the message anytime soon, there is every indication in the solar energy field that the political terrain is starting to shift dramatically.

Seth Shulman, Senior Staff Writer at the Union of Concerned Scientists, is a veteran science journalist and author of six books whose work has appeared in The Atlantic, Discover, Nature, Technology Review, Parade and many other publications. You can sign up to receive his monthly Got Science? column via email at the Union of Concerned Scientists website: www.ucsusa.org.

===

alec? The first land-transfer efforts began much earlier, in 1929-’30, spurred by anger over grazing fee hikes. Later Sagebrush Rebellion skirmishes, in 1979-’80 and in 1995-’97, forced federal agencies to collaborate more with locals on land management. Now, the Arizona Legislature demands that the feds relinquish some 48,000 square miles, roughly the area of Pennsylvania, by 2014, while Utah asserts ownership of about 47,000 square miles. (At press time, Gov. Jan Brewer had yet to sign or veto the Arizona bill.) InColorado, a bill seeking control of 36,000 square miles recently failed. The bills exclude national parks, Indian reservations, and military bases. A handful of other states are said to be contemplating similar measures for next year. “What we envision,” says state Sen. Al Melvin, R-Tucson, the primary sponsor of Arizona’s bill, “is all of the Western states going before the Supreme Court to force this issue.

===

update: ...

Policy Primer: State Attempts to Gain Control of Federal Land 

By: Ruth Musgrave – Ms. Musgrave is the president of Wildlife Policy Consulting Associates in 

Olympia, Washington. She is the founder and former president of the Center for Wildlife Law at 

the Institute of Public Law at the University of New Mexico School of Law. She advises NCEL 

and our member legislators on issues involving conservation and wildlife in state legislatures. 

Background 

Several Western state legislatures recently have passed or supported bills that demand that the 

federal government turn over federal lands that are within the state’s borders. As far back as 

1929, states have struggled to gain control over federal lands within their borders, mostly 

because of public land grazing fee disputes. The “Sagebrush Rebellion” of the 1970s and 1990s 

caused federal land managers to cooperate more with locals. And recently, the American 

Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) has pushed state legislators to pass laws demanding that 

the federal government give ownership or control of federal lands within their borders to the 

states. Arizona, Utah and Colorado legislators have already either introduced or passed such 

bills, and legislators in other states are considering similar action. 

The State of Utah passed, and in March 2012 Governor Herbert signed, legislation requiring the 

federal government to turnover federal land within the state. Arizona’s legislature passed a 

similar bill, but conservative Governor Brewer vetoed the legislation in May 2012. She stated in 

her veto letter that “The legislation does not identify an enforceable cause of action to force 

federal lands to be transferred to the state,” and that the Arizona State Land Department would 

need “approximately $23 million in additional dollars and an untold increase in staff and 

resources” to manage millions of acres of federal land. She also noted that the legislation is 

likely unconstitutional. A similar bill failed to get out of a House committee in Colorado. 

Undaunted, legislators from Utah and Arizona are visiting with other Western state lawmakers to 

try to present a united front on the issue. Arizona Rep. Melvin (R-Tucson) envisions “all of the 

Western states going before the Supreme Court to force this issue.” Melvin also stated that most 

of the federal land would be sold off to private interests. Utah Governor Herbert invited 10 

Western states to a round table on the subject in 2012, but only two showed up

cmd fusion ctrs: http://www.prwatch.org/node/12122

DBA Press and the Center for Media and Democracy today released the results of a year-long investigation: "Dissent or Terror: How the Nation's Counter Terrorism Apparatus, In Partnership With Corporate America, Turned on Occupy Wall Street.”

The report, a distillation of thousands of pages of records obtained from counter terrorism/law enforcement agencies, details how state/regional "fusion center" personnel monitored the Occupy Wall Street movement over the course of 2011 and 2012. Personnel engaged in this activity at fusion centers include employees of municipal, county and federal counter terrorism/homeland security entities. Such entities include local police departments, the FBI and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (including U.S. DHS components such as the Transportation Security Administration).

The report also examines how fusion centers and other counter terrorism entities that have emerged since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 have worked to benefit numerous corporations engaged in public-private intelligence sharing partnerships.

While the report examines many instances of fusion center monitoring of Occupy Wall Street activists nationwide, the bulk of the report details how counter terrorism personnel engaged in the Arizona Counter Terrorism Information Center (ACTIC, commonly known as the "Arizona fusion center") monitored and otherwise surveilled citizens active in Occupy Phoenix, and how this surveillance benefited a number of corporations and banks that were subjects of Occupy Phoenix protest activity.

While small glimpses into the governmental monitoring of the Occupy Wall Street movement have emerged in the past, there has not been any reporting-- until now-- that details the breadth and depth of the degree to which the nation's post-September 11, 2001 counter terrorism apparatus has been applied to politically engaged citizens exercising their Constitutionally-protected First Amendment rights.

The report reveals for the first time:

The report is authored by Beau Hodai, DBA Press publisher and Center for Media and Democracy contributor.

ACTIC - Arizona Counter Terrorism Information Center, commonly referred to as the “Arizona Fusion Center”

ACTIC CLP - Arizona Counter Terrorism Information Center Community Liaison Program

toc: ALEC in Scottsdale: Police Employed as Private Security Attack and Arrest Protestors, Label Activists as Violent “Anarchists”

in the Media .................................................................................... 46

Bringing Home the Bacon: Other Instances of Cops Paid to Work as Private Security for Koch-Related Enterprises ................................. 53

The ACTIC ALEC “Face Sheet:” ACTIC/PPD Efforts to “Identify andIntercept” Activists on Behalf of ALEC ............................................ 55

The Red ‘A’ With a Circle Around It: The Reality of Anarchist “Violent Tactics” at the New Orleans ALEC Protest ...................................... 60

The Creepy Guy Cometh: Undercover Cop at Large, ACTIC and PPDHDB Work to Gather Intel for ALEC ......................................... 62

Public-Private Partnership at Work: ALEC Gets Its Own Dedicated “Terrorism Liaison Officer” ............................................................. 67

March of the Giant Puppets: ACTIC Works With Corporate Interests to Shield ALEC Member Corporations From Discontented,

Puppet-Wielding Citizenry .............................................................. 70

Where’s Jesse?: Phoenix “Counter Terrorism” Personnel Struggle to Locate Jesse Jackson ..................................................................... 73

Jamie Dimon comes to town

Arizona “fusion center” as corporate eyes and ears

On, or about, October 17, 2011 Phoenix Police Department Homeland Defense Bureau (PPDHDB) and Arizona Counter Terrorism Information Center (ACTIC) Threat Mitigation Unit (TMU) Detective Jennifer O’Neill was contacted by J.P. Morgan Chase Regional Security Manager Dan Grady (Appendix, p. 2).

According to an email sent by O’Neill to several of her PPDHDB superiors and colleagues, Grady had informed her that J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. Chairman and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Jamie Dimon would be visiting Phoenix on October 18 through 19. Dimon, Grady informed O’Neill, would be addressing approximately 2,000 J.P. Morgan Chase employees at a “town hall” event at Chase Field-- home of the Arizona Diamondbacks, located in downtown Phoenix.

As such, Grady and O’Neill expressed concern over recent events involving “Occupy Phoenix,” an offshoot of the nationwide OWS movement which had officially launched only three days prior, though a series of protests and events that took place October 14 and 15. The launch of Occupy Phoenix coincided with the OWS movement’s “Global Day of Action,” October 15, 2011.

OWS had been launched on September 17, 2011-- largely as a result of public outrage over the perceived undue influence of private financial/corporate interests in public government. J.P. Morgan Chase, for one, was something of a poster boy for financial institutions run amok in the eyes of the OWS movement; the financial group had received $94.7 billion in a publicly-funded “bailout” by the U.S. government during the economic collapse of 2008-2009.

[Note: OWS launched on September 17, 2011, largely as a result of calls to protest corporate greed/influence in government issued by U.S. Day of Rage and Adbusters. The Constitution of the United States was signed by delegates to the Constitutional Convention on September 17, 1787.

The use of the term “day of rage” is interesting in that protests leading to regime changes in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, as well as other major protests throughout the Arab world, throughout 2010 and 2011 (a period popularly dubbed the “Arab Spring”) were said to have occurred on “day[s] of rage.” While it is not clear what the origins of the application of this term to major Arab protests are, “Days of Rage” were first conducted as a series of protests against the Vietnam War, organized by the Weathermen faction of Students for Democratic Society, in October of 1969.]

Aside from this bailout, J.P. Morgan Chase’s true sin in the eyes of many involved in OWS was the fact that the financial service corporation was one of the primary contributors to the subprime mortgage/derivatives crisis that precipitated the economic collapse of 2008-2009. During the years leading up to the collapse, J.P. Morgan Chase had funded a number of leading sub-prime lenders, such as Countrywide Financial Corporation (financed by J.P. Morgan Chase) and Ameriquest Mortgage Company (also financed by J.P. Morgan Chase, in that the bank, according to a 2011 federal district court complaint filed against a number of subprime lenders by the Federal Housing Finance Agency, was the lead underwriter of more than $700 million in Ameriquest securities offerings in 2006). As such, while J.P. Morgan Chase was cashing its nearly $100 billion bailout check from the Federal Reserve and U.S. Department of the Treasury, millions...

of Americans were facing foreclosure as a result of sub-prime lending practices perpetrated and J.P. Morgan Chase and other financial groups (such as Bank of America and Citigroup, who also

financed subprime lenders such as Countrywide) which had reaped tremendous profits from the trading of financial instruments derived from

these bunk loans.

In her October 17 PPDHDB email regarding the Dimon visit, O’Neill stated that Grady had given her a detailed itinerary of Dimon’s expected movements during his time in Phoenix (including events at two of the city’s premier luxury hotel/resorts, the Westin Phoenix and The Phoenician). As such, O’Neill stated that both she and then-PPDHDB Critical Infrastructure/Key Resources Security Specialist Geoff Ballentine had examined known online “social networking” outlets utilized by Occupy Phoenix for evidence of planned Occupy Phoenix protests related to the Dimon visit. As stated by O’Neill, “we have not seen anything on social networking that leads us to believe protestors are aware of this event.”

By October 17, 2011, O’Neill was very familiar with her role of aiding corporate interests in the gathering of intelligence. In addition to her work as a PPDHDB/ACTIC TMU detective, O’Neill also serves as the ACTIC Community Liaison Program (CLP) coordinator. As such, as is evidenced by records obtained by DBA/CMD, O’Neill often shared ACTIC intelligence with security personnel employed by ACTIC CLP member corporations/banks.

Before we examine ACTIC CLP, and other public-private intelligence sharing partnerships, let’s take a moment to discuss the genesis and mechanics of fusion centers.

ACTIC, commonly known as the “Arizona fusion center,” was established jointly by then-Arizona Governor (and current U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary) Janet Napolitano and the Arizona Department of Public Safety (AZDPS) in October of 2004 . ACTIC is best described as a “counter-terrorism”/”all-hazards” resources and information sharing center, consisting of personnel from more than 25 Arizona law enforcement/”public safety” entities and 16 federal agencies. Largely, local law enforcement personnel active in ACTIC (or other state/regional fusion centers) are employed in such “homeland defense”/”homeland security,” “counter terrorism,” or “intelligence” units of their respective agencies. These units, by and large, were created as “counter terrorism” entities in response to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Such local entities active in ACTIC include the AZDPS Intelligence Bureau, PPDHDB, the Tempe Police Department Homeland Defense Unit, the Mesa Police Department Intelligence and Counter Terrorism Unit, and the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office. These local entities are joined throughACTIC with federal “counter terrorism” entities, which include the FBI Phoenix Joint Terrorism Task Force (Phoenix JTTF, of which PPDHDB is also a part), the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (U.S. DHS) offices of Infrastructure Protection and Intelligence and Analysis, as well as U.S. DHS component agencies such as the Transportation Security Administration, the U.S. Secret Service and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

While many agencies take part in ACTIC, the “fusion center” is managed primarily by the AZDPS Intelligence Bureau, the Arizona Department of Homeland Security (AZDOHS, the state agency that, through five Arizona “regional advisory councils,” essentially acts as a bursar for U.S. DHS Arizona grant awards and that implements state “homeland security” initiatives promulgated by U.S. DHS) and the FBI (primarily involved in ACTIC through Phoenix JTTF. Such task forces are the primary vehicle for FBI involvement in “fusion centers” nationwide).

Initially intended to combat “terrorism,” ACTIC, while still retaining its “counter terrorism” appellation, has shifted to an “all hazards/all crimes” mission. This shift in the focus of fusion centers from “terrorism” to “all hazards/all crimes” (which does include “terrorism,” along with any and every other activity that could be deemed a “hazard”) occurred nationwide as the result of both legislative action and presidential directives. ACTIC pursues this “all hazards” detection, disruption and investigation model through the use of several programs/units-- including the ACTIC Intelligence Analyst Unit, the ACTIC Computer Forensics Unit and the ACTIC Facial Recognition Unit.

Perhaps the most widely utilized feature of ACTIC is the Terrorism Liaison Officer (TLO) Program. The function of ACTIC TLOs is to disseminate ACTIC intelligence and “critical infrastructure/key resources” “threat and vulnerability assessments” within their respective law enforcement agencies, and to feed intelligence gathered by these agencies back into ACTIC, for the use of other ACTIC-engaged entities (both in the public and private sectors).

There are roughly 800 active TLOs active in Arizona through ACTIC member agencies.

Take a moment to consider this number. The total population of Arizona is roughly 6.5 million people-- nearly 4 million of whom reside in Maricopa County (primarily comprised of Phoenix and its suburbs). Another million reside in Pima County (primarily concentrated in Tucson and outlying municipalities). That leaves a remainder of roughly 1.5 million people, scattered throughout the state’s remaining 13 rural counties. As such, there is one “terrorism liaison officer” for every 8,125 residents of Arizona, most of whom live in, or around, either of the state’s two major cities-- neither of which has ever been the site of any substantial act of “terrorism.”

Just as the vast majority of Arizona “Terrorism Liaison Officers” serve Maricopa County and the Phoenix metropolitan area, federal “homeland security” funding to the area far outstrips the rest of the state. According to AZDOHS records, Phoenix was the sole Arizona city to receive U.S. DHS Urban Area Security Initiative (UASI) grant funding during fiscal 2012-- receiving $4,018,455 in UASI funding for the fiscal 2012 grant cycle. [Note: both UASI and U.S. DHS State Homeland Security Grant Program (SHSGP) funding is supposed to be awarded on a 24-month grant cycle, but, according to AZDOHS Assistant Director of Planning and Preparedness Lisa Hansen, AZDOHS anticipates further UASI and SHSGP funding in fiscal 2013.]

By comparison, the entire state of Arizona received $3,310,348 in U.S. DHS SHSGP funding for fiscal year 2012. Of this amount, the AZDOHS Central Region (supervised by the AZDOHS Central Regional Advisory Council, which is comprised largely of Phoenix-area/Maricopa County law enforcement/”public safety” personnel) received $1,064,131-- the largest share of SHSGP funding allocated to any the five AZDOHS regions in fiscal 2012.

As compared to the combined $5,082,586 in UASI and SHSGP funding received by Phoenix/Maricopa County, AZDOHS Southern Region (containing Tucson and outlaying municipalities in Pima County) received a relatively scant $701,028 in SHSGP funding for fiscal 2012, and no UASI funding (Tucson lost its status as a U.S. DHS “Urban Area Security Initiative community” and all UASI funding on October 1, 2011). The remaining $883,120 in U.S. DHS SHSGP funding for fiscal 2012 was divided up between the state’s three remaining, very rural, AZDOHS regions.

Given the picture these numbers portray, it is accurate to say that the “Arizona Counter Terrorism Information Center,” along with the web of surveillance capabilities thrown over the state by this fusion center, is intended to serve the Phoenix metropolitan area-- a portion of the state that has little in common with the rest of Arizona.

The creation of ACTIC (one of the nation’s first fusion centers), and the more than 70 “fusion centers” currently in operation across the nation, was spurred by the implementation of the “homeland security” “information sharing environment” (ISE) between law enforcement/”counter terrorism” and intelligence agencies-- as well as private sector actors-- established through a series of federal legislative actions and presidential orders in the wake of the 2001 terrorist attacks...

While the roots of “fusion centers” and ISE were anchored in concepts of terrorism prevention and terrorism-related “critical infrastructure/key resources” protection, the role of these information sharing cooperatives quickly shifted to an “all hazards/all crimes” approach through a series of presidential executive orders/homeland security presidential directives issued by former President W. Bush (the issuance of many of these executive directives was called for through either the “Homeland Security Act of 2002” or IRTPA). “All hazards/all crimes” is essentially an umbrella term used to describe virtually anything (including “terrorism”) that may be deemed a “hazard” to the public, or to certain private sector interests.

Furthermore, as has been mandated through a series of federal legislative actions and presidential executive orders, “fusion centers” (and the “counter terrorism” entities that they are comprised of) work-- in ever closer proximity-- with private corporations, with the stated aim of protecting items deemed to be “critical infrastructure/key resources” from “all hazards/all crimes.”

On December 17, 2003, then-President W. Bush issued Homeland Security Presidential Directive 7 (HSPD-7), calling for “critical infrastructure identification, prioritization and protection.” HSPD-7 reinforced two previously introduced directives: the protection of “critical infrastructure” through public-private partnerships (as called for through a section of the “U.S.A. Patriot Act of 2001” entitled “Critical Infrastructure Act of 2001”), and the assessment and protection of “key resources” by U.S. DHS (as called for through the “Homeland Security Act of 2002”).

As defined by the “U.S.A. Patriot Act of 2001,” items of “critical infrastructure” are defined as: “systems and assets, whether physical or virtual, so vital to the United States that the incapacity or destruction of such sys8

tems and assets would have a debilitating impact on security, national economic security, national public health or safety, or any combination of those matters.”

As defined by the “Homeland Security Act of 2002,” “key resources” are defined as: “publicly or privately controlled resources essential to the minimal operations of the economy and government.”

As stated in HSPD-7, it is a matter of national policy to protect the nation’s critical infrastructure and key resources from “terrorist acts” that could-- in addition to causing general disruption of services, national governmental/economic collapse and loss of life-- “undermine the public’s morale and confidence in our national economic and political institutions.” As such, Bush mandated that U.S. DHS, and other federal agencies, would work closely with members of the private sector, along with state and local governments, in an array of initiatives intended to identify and prioritize the protection of “critical infrastructure and key resources.” An example of such prioritization resultant from HSPD-7 is the National Infrastructure Protection Plan (NIPP), a plan issued by U.S. DHS that relies heavily on public-private intelligence sharing partnerships. NIPP is also used as a metric in determining amounts of U.S. DHS funding to certain public-private intelligence sharing partnerships active in “fusion centers” nationwide.

As a result of HSPD-7 and other presidential directives (including those issued by President Barack Obama), the stated purpose of protecting “critical infrastructure/key resources” (CI/KR) has come to serve as the single largest avenue for corporate involvement in the “homeland security” apparatus.

There are two primary domestic public-private intelligence sharing partnerships at work at the federal level: Infragard and the Domestic Security Alliance Council (DSAC).

Infragard is a public-private intelligence sharing partnership managed by the FBI Cyber Division Public/Private Alliance Unit (PPAU). As described by the FBI, Infragard is an “association of businesses, academic institutions, state and local law enforcement agencies and other participants dedicated to sharing information and intelligence to prevent hostile acts against the United States.” There are 86 Infragard chapters nationwide. These Infragard chapters serve as representatives of private sector “stakeholders” in the many of the nation’s “fusion centers.”

...?

TMU has been responsible for “bringing in excess of $80 million in [federal] grant funding to the citizens of Phoenix and the state of Arizona.” Furthermore, according to a federal grant application for funds to be used in an ACTIC “public outreach campaign” (for which PPDHDB was awarded $30,000 in U.S. DHS UASI funding for use in 2012), the Phoenix Police Department expends more than $500,000 in federal grant funding annually. As such, for a city with a population of less than 1.5 million people (not to be confused with the conglomeration of towns and cities that constitute the Phoenix metropolitan area, which is home to nearly 4 million residents), the business

10

of protecting citizens-- especially corporate citizens-- from “terrorism,” and/or “all hazards,” has become a big business in its own right.

As previously mentioned, ACTIC (through PPDHDB) received $30,000 U.S. DHS UASI funding for use in a “public outreach”/”advertising” campaign throughout 2012. As indicated by records obtained by DBA/CMD, this campaign appears to have been conducted by O’Neill, intended largely for the expansion of ACTIC CLP private sector membership. Records returned to DBA/CMD by PPD pursuant to a public records request seeking all records relating to ACTIC CLP in possession of O’Neill and other PPD personnel employed at ACTIC, consisted solely of records relating to this $30,000 “public outreach”/”advertising” campaign grant and three Powerpoint presentations. These presentations were created by O’Neill and appear to be the bulk of the work product produced by O’Neill with the $30,000 U.S. DHS UASI grant ($28,000 of which, according to records, was earmarked for campaign

“planning”). Since O’Neill is the ACTIC CLP coordinator-- and as two of the three presentations are explicitly dedicated to promotion of ACTIC CLP (and as the third dwells largely on ACTIC CLP)-- these Powerpoint presentations clearly served to promote private sector involvement in ACTIC CLP.

Perhaps the most interesting feature of O’Neill’s promotional Powerpoint presentations is the fact that, in a section of one of these ACTIC CLP presentations devoted to discussion of threats addressed by ACTIC, discussion is dedicated to Occupy Phoenix.

Two of Arizona's most powerful officials ran into some trouble this week, though one seems to be in far bigger trouble than the other.

Arizona Secretary of State Ken Bennett (R), for example, is perhaps best known for flirting with the "birther" conspiracy theory and publicly questioning whether President Obama would be on the state ballot in 2012. This week, however, Bennett faced a different kind of controversy, when we learned the Arizona Secretary of State is bankrolled by the Tea Party group Freedomworks, to the tune of $2,000 a month.

But as it turns out, that's the less interesting story out of the Grand Canyon State this week.

On Wednesday in Phoenix Municipal Court, while all eyes were on the Jodi Arias murder trial, Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne pleaded no contest to leaving the scene of an accident, a misdemeanor, and agreed to pay a several hundred dollar fine. [...]

Horne on Wednesday issued a statement announcing that the case had been settled. "Today I paid a $300 fine to settle a traffic misdemeanor arising from not leaving a note after a traffic incident in a parking lot, which at most left a paint scratch and no dent," Horne said in the statement.

And why is a minor traffic accident interesting? As it turns out, when Arizona's attorney generalhit another car and drove away without leaving a note, he very likely would have gotten away with it, except, unbeknownst to him, Horne was being followed by FBI agents who saw the incident and reported what happened.

And why were FBI agents following the state attorney general? Because federal law enforcement suspects Horne may be guilty of breaking federal campaign finance laws, illegally coordinating with an outside political group.

What's more, making this just a little more entertaining, the Arizona Republican drove away after hitting that other car in part because his passenger is one of his subordinates, with whom Horne has had an extra-marital affair.

Incidentally, Horne, ostensibly Arizona's top law-enforcement official, initially lied about hitting the other car and declined to cooperate in the police investigation.

http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/05/10/18170756-crazy-from-the-heat

http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/287-124/15900-arizona-is-a-qkookocracyq

Arizona Is a "Kookocracy"

By William Prochnau, Laura Parker, Vanity Fair

06 February 13

From Governor Jan Brewer to Sheriff Joe Arpaio to a Tea Party–dominated state legislature, no state deserves the tag “Kookocracy” as much as Arizona, and in Arizona there’s no bigger issue than immigration and border security. As immigration reform takes center stage in Washington, one man in Arizona is caught in the middle.

==

woman beats tea party in Az http://grist.org/politics/stacey-champion-took-on-the-tea-party-and-won/

The bill’s sponsor, Republican Sen. Judy Burges, had used a special “strike everything” amendment to sneak the bill through the state Senate and into the House. (Strike everything is the legislative equivalent of a body snatcher, allowing a lawmaker to substitute a totally different bill into the text of an existing, unrelated one — the original bill, in this case, was called “unemployment insurance; technical correction.”) It was on its way to a final vote in the House, and looked like it might pass.

http://whyihatecca.blogspot.com/2012/01/private-prisons-dont-save-money-in.html

PIC

Last year, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) attracted attention when reporters revealed Arizona's SB1070 anti-immigration law was pre-approved by ALEC corporations that stood to benefit from its passage. As ALEC's legislative and corporate members descend upon Arizona for meetings this week, a new report (pdf) shows that ALEC's influence in Arizona goes beyond SB1070 to include bills that suppress voting, attack worker's rights, privatize public education, and limit environmental protections.

"Working side-by-side with elected officials, ALEC uses its resources to shepherd legislation from the corporate boardroom to the governor's desk," said Marge Baker, Executive Vice President at the People for the American Way (PFAW) Foundation, which produced the report. Several times each year, ALEC brings corporate lobbyists together with state legislators to rub shoulders and push model legislation that tends to benefit the bottom line of member corporations, or advance the right-wing agenda. ALEC boasts that corporations have "a voice and a vote" in approving ALEC model bills, hundreds of which become law each year.

"There's no way ordinary citizens can match the level of access and influence that ALEC provides to these corporations," Baker said. "So Arizonans are subjected to laws that serve the interests of the rich and powerful instead of everyday people."

Carbon-Copies in the Copper State

PFAW analyzed (pdf) around 20 pieces of Arizona legislation that they say are "remarkably similar -- if not identical" to ALEC "model" bills, and demonstrate the likeness with side-by-side comparisons.

The best-known Arizona ALEC bill, SB1070, is almost a carbon-copy version of the ALEC "No Sanctuary Cities for Illegal Immigrants Act," and was approved by an ALEC task force whose members included the Corrections Corporation of America and American Bail Coalition, both of which stood to benefit from immigrant detention. The role of the private prison industry in the bill (which became law in 2010) was documented by Beau Hodai at In These Times and Laura Sullivan at NPR. Not previously reported is that one year earlier, in 2009, a similar anti-immigrant bill approved by the same ALEC task force was introduced in the Arizona legislature, but failed to pass. SB1159 is a verbatim copy of ALEC's "Immigration Law Enforcement Act," and like SB1070 was sponsored by recently-recalled Arizona Senator Russell Pearce. Pearce also sponsored ALEC bills in the Arizona legislature that would circumvent the Naturalization Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and mandate the use of the E-Verify system for Arizona employers.

Arizona state flagOther ALEC legislators introduced ALEC-inspired bills to privatize the state prison system, oppose public financing for political campaigns, create new barriers to voting, and thwart federal efforts to implement environmental regulations that might exceed weak state environmental laws, according to the report(pdf).

Like many states, Arizona's ALEC legislators have also introduced bills that undermine public sector unions by privatizing public services through the ALEC "Council on Efficient Government Act" or limiting union funding with the "Prohibition on Compensation Deduction Act." ALEC bills have also been introduced in the state to implement school voucher programs and online, "virtual" public schools.

The text of ALEC model bills have historically been kept from the public, with legislators introducing ALEC bills in their own name and almost never disclosing the fact that corporations crafted and voted on them. Thanks to a whistleblower, in July 2011, the Center for Media and Democracy was able to post over 800 model bills on a new website, ALECexposed.org. PFAW used that resource to track ALEC's influence in Arizona.

"This side-by-side analysis of bills is a stunning look at the vast amount of influence that corporations are having in Arizona public policy," said Bob Edgar, former Pennsylvania Congressman and president of the good government organization Common Cause. "These companies are putting their muscle behind legislation in Phoenix and investing millions of dollars to elect and re-elect lawmakers who support it."

According to the PFAW report, the 22 corporations on the ALEC Private Enterprise Board spent $16 million on Arizona state political campaigns over the past ten years. Arizona also has one of the highest concentrations of ALEC legislators of any state in the United States.

Report Released as ALEC Members Convene in Arizona

Westin Kierland Resort & SpaThe report comes as state legislators and corporate lobbyists assemble at the ALEC "States and Nation Policy Summit," starting Wednesday at the Westin Kierland Resort & Spa in Scottsdale.

State and national advocacy organizations (including PFAW and the Center for Media and Democracy) are planning events to illustrate ALEC's influence on Arizona's political landscape and the daily lives of state residents. The groups held a panel discussion and forum on Tuesday evening, and plan a press conference at 11am MT (noon CT / 1pm ET) Wednesday. The press conference will be live-streamed here.

Other organizations, including Occupy Phoenix, reportedly plan protests outside the ALEC meeting later this week.

2010 wrap:

http://campaignmoney.org/blog/2010s-top-10-money-and-politics-stories

9. Two “Clean Elections” Governors Elected

This might have been the year of outside special interests and outsized campaign fundraising at the federal level, but Arizona and Connecticut showed that there is another way. Arizona Governor Jan Brewer (R) and Connecticut Governor-elect Dan Malloy (D) became the second and third governors elected under Fair Elections-style public financing systems. Gov. Brewer, who used the system in previous runs for statewide office, replaced another Clean Elections governor in 2009, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. Gov.-elect Malloy, who beat the wealthy self-funding Republican Tom Foley, is the first Fair Elections-funded governor elected in Connecticut. Brewer and Malloy are just two of the hundreds of Clean Elections candidates elected in states across the country in 2010.

10. Advocates Beat Back Repeal of Arizona Clean Elections

For years, the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry has worked with its allies in the state legislature on efforts to repeal the voter-approved Clean Elections system. With the Courts throwing the stability of the system into question last year (see honorable mention below), repeal looked imminent, but state advocates like the Arizona Advocacy Network and national partners like Public Campaign led an all out assault on Clean Elections foes and staved off repeal—a big win for everyday Arizonans in a year where big money special interests seemed to get all the victories.

immigration law written by prison corps