Arizona's Own Espresso Pundit

Burns Won't Seek Re-election

While it has been an extreme honor to serve in the Arizona House of Representatives, I am announcing that I will not run for re-election in 2008.  I sincerely thank my constituents for giving me this opportunity to work with them to give Arizona a brighter future. Together, we have made a difference and I look forward to future opportunities to continue serving the people of Arizona.

Hypocrisy flows Downhill

Governor Napolitano has written an Op Ed piece in the Wall Street Journal blasting the Bush administration for increasing the burden on State governments. 

Before anyone in Washington seriously contemplates a second "stimulus package" aimed at reviving the economy, I would offer two succinct pieces of advice: First, take a Hippocratic Oath to do no harm to state budgets. Second, ensure that Washington "pays its bills," just as we require of everyone else.

Hmm, before you take Napolitano's criticism seriously, consider one of her proposals to balance the Arizona budget.

One of Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano's proposals for reducing a state budget shortfall would put a financial hit on counties already facing lean financial times.

The idea is to shift the costs for incarcerating some prisoners from the state to the counties.

The move was intended to save the state a projected $60.8 million as it tries to erase a projected revenue shortfall that the governor pegs at $1.2 billion.

So she's blasting Bush for increasing the burden on the states while simultaneously proposing to shift the burden to the counties.  It takes a fine legal mind to argue both sides of an issue simultaneously. 

She finishes her Wall Street Journal piece with this admonition. 

The federal government should accept its responsibility, do no harm and pay its bills. Once it does, we can work together to improve the quality of life for those we are privileged to represent.

Great advice indeed Governor. 

WSJ on Napolitano's Tax Increase

Governor Napolitano's veto of the bill that would have repealed a currently suspended property tax is getting national attention. 

The Wall Street Journal is all over the tax revolt that's brewing in Arizona.  Here's Stephen Moore explaining that when voters are afraid of loosing their homes, it's not a good idea to, like, you know, raise their taxes. 

Texas Fold'em--updated

UPDATE:  I'm getting some comments from the Keven Willey fans.  Have I made too much of a leap here?  I don't think so. 

Morning News readers expressed widespread outrage at the decision to name the Illegal Immigrant "Texan of the Year."  Willey acknowledged that subscribers were calling to cancel their subscriptions, but she claimed that the cancellations weren't "material."  Now we learn that DMN circulation dropped nearly 11% in the last 6 months.  That's the largest drop in the nation and about 2.5 times the fall off  that the Republic experienced over the same period. 

My main point is stated in the third sentence of the post and I don't think it can be effectively rebutted.  "Obviously there are many factors in play here, but I think you can safely lay a significant portion of the blame at the feet of former Republic wunderkind Keven Ann Willey."

Here's the original post. 

The Audit Bureau on Circulations report came out today and it confirms something that I predicted months ago.  Circulation at the Dallas Morning News plummeted a stunning 10.6%.  Obviously there are many factors in play here, but I think you can safely lay a significant portion of the blame at the feet of former Republic wunderkind Keven Ann Willey. 

Let me explain.  A friend of mine moved to Texas and her co-workers asked her how she liked Texas.  She responded that it is a great place and that she's very happy to be a Texan.  She was met with dead silence.  After an awkward moment, someone said..."you're not a Texan."

Texans are very proud of their state and are very quick to point out that you don't become a Texan by simply moving to Texas.  Your Grandchildren may end up being Texans, but you aren't.

Enter Keven Ann Willey who left the Republic to be the editorial page editor and a vice president at the Dallas Morning News.  Texas readers would probably have forgiven her for not being from Texas--after all, no one is perfect.  Then she committed an unforgivable faux pas.

The Editorial Board of the Dallas Morning News declared that the Texan of the year was...the Illegal Immigrant.  Seriously, you can read about it here.  It never seemed to enter her mind that Texans--who question the credentials of people who have lived in Texas for nearly their entire lives--would be offended when she calls people who just swam across the border Texans.  Much less that she would name them "Texan of the Year".

Keven downplayed the fact that subscribers were canceling in droves. 

The newspaper would not say how many readers actually canceled their subscriptions as a result of the editorial.

"Against our customer base, it's just not a material number," said Keven Ann Willey, vice president and editorial page editor.

Well, my guess is that 10.6% is getting pretty close to "material."

Republic Circulation Falls...Yadda Yadda Yadda.

I mentioned in the previous post that the circulation numbers are out again.  Every six months the Audit Bureau of Circulations publishes its report and every six months I point out that the Republic's circulation has fallen another 3 or 4 percent.   Whatever.  I actually try to make Espresso Pundit reasonably interesting and reprinting the exact same story every six months is so...so...print media. 

There were however, a couple of interesting nuggets in today's story.  First, the Republic's circulation was down 4.7 percent, which is a little higher than I would expect considering that Arizona is the fastest growing state in the nation. 

However the real news was reported on one of the blogs that covers Gannett.  Gannett Blog serves the dual purpose of giving Gannett insiders a place to vent and giving Gannett watchers a place to learn.  Here's a comment that was posted earlier today.

"News flash -- don't believe anything you are told from Corporate about the Go4 websites. I can tell you we are hemorrhaging pageviews. There will be a lot of money going back to advertisers because pageviews are not delivering the impressions to advertisers."

I've often mentioned that the web will never replace the advertising dollars that are being lost due to reduced circulation.  That's because  advertisers are only willing to pay about 1/100 as much for a dedicated web reader as compared to an actual subscriber.  But I had at least assumed that traffic at the major media websites would continue to grow. 

Now we hear that web traffic is falling--possibly even faster than print circulation.  Golly, if you work at the paper that must, you know, really suck.

This Will Not Look Good on a Resume.

While the local legacy media remain predictable members of Governor Napolitano's Amen Chorus, the Wall Street Journal is pointing out that six years into the Napolitano administration, the state is in terrible fiscal shape and the Governor is raising your property taxes.

Arizona has been hit hard hit by the real-estate bust, with the average home value down 17% in a year and a record number of foreclosures. So Democratic Governor Janet Napolitano has devised a clever way to revive the housing market: Raise property taxes.

Higher property taxes impose a double whammy on those at risk of losing their homes. First, they act as a tax surcharge on homeownership. And second, when the tax hikes aren't tied to better public services, they reduce housing values, thus reducing owner equity.

Meanwhile, the Governor is tapping every accounting gimmick available in an effort to push the day of fiscal reckoning past the end of her term.  The next Governor will be saddled with a multi-billion dollar deficit, an empty rainy day fund and all other available funds "swept" and spent.  New revenue for the foreseeable future will be allocated to paying back accounting tricks like the school roll over and paying extra interest on the state's debt. 

Now that's what I call leadership.

Crazy Aunt Karen

OK, Stop laughing. 

This picture of Karen Johnson and me  was taken at the Capitol during Sine Die week in 1994.  I know it was 1994 because it was taken at the kick off of David Schweikert's first campaign for Congress.  I know it was taken during Sine Die week because we both look so awful.   I have valued Karen's friendship for many years.

Senator Johnson is a favorite punching bag for the local media.  She speaks her mind, carries a gun and gets re-elected year after year--all things that make the media nervous.  She has been in the news quite a bit lately because she cast the deciding vote that killed the bill to redesign Arizona's 9/11 memorial. 

Well, actually, she's not in the news because she cast the deciding vote to kill the bill...it's why she voted to kill the bill.  Johnson doubts that the official version of 9/11 is accurate...those buildings sure look like fell with the assistance of thermite explosives. 

Lobbyists have learned that if you want to talk to Senator Johnson about a bill, don't mention 9/11...or for that matter, the United Nations, or come to think of it vaccinations...or fluoride, NAFTA, One World Government, amalgam dental fillings or the North American Union.

When Montini wrote about Johnson's vote, he described her as "ultraconservative."    Most reporters are liberal, but they think of themselves as moderate, so they view anyone to the right of Olympia Snowe or Carolyn Allen as ultraconservative.  I'm usually all over them for showing their bias, but in Karen's case...well.  OK, maybe just this once. 

While many of Johnson's views may out of the mainstream, they are well within the overall flow of political thought.  Her ideas about, say, the Iraq war, 9/11, Corporate Power and the Federal Reserve board would get a welcome reception at both Republican and Democratic district meetings. 

The Senate needs members like Karen Johnson just like the house needs members like Kyrsten Sinema--with her "People's History of the United States" proudly displayed on her desk. 

Unfortunately the Republic Editorial board took things a bit far on Thursday. 

Johnson reportedly will not seek re-election this fall. After hearing her 9/11 fantasies, we heartily approve.

Naturally, the legacy media prefer to have their elected officials fit neatly into predictable little boxes--easy to categorize and manipulate.  They don't like legislators like Karen Johnson.  Fortunately, the voters disagree. 

I would say that the mainstream media want their candidates Pasteurized...but don't mention Pasteurization around Karen Johnson. 

L'Etat C'est Moi

Governor Napolitano's first official act was to establish her "Copper Card" by Executive Order.  She's made it clear since then that she views the legislature as an inconvenience instead of a separate branch of government and a check on her authority. 

Now she's decided she doesn't need the legislature at all.  The Governor has decided she can establish a Climate Control initiative by rule.  In order to justify her position, she provides this stunning quote.

Napolitano defended enacting restrictions by rule, saying it's equivalent to actually putting a bill through the Legislature.

Both of them involve stakeholders; both of them involve public comment, public review and all the rest," she said. And Napolitano said both processes are "very transparent."

My gosh, could she really be that arrogant?  It sounds so...French, or perhaps it's British.

The Governor has forgotten that there's one other thing that the legislature provides...elected representation.  Any king can hold stakeholder meetings and public comment sessions then establish processes that are "very transparent." 

Golly, if King George III had held a series of workshops the colonists wouldn't have thrown all that tea in the harbor.  That's why the slogan for the Revolutionary War resonates so powerfully.

"Taxation without stakeholder meetings, public comment and transparency is tyranny." 

There's a really good Separation of Powers course at ASU Law School.  It covers wide variety of topics--including the Unitary Executive Theory.  The course is really well taught and I think she would learn a lot about the structure of Government. 

It's too bad that I can't actually sign this blog entry.  If I could sign it, I would sign it really big so that The Governor could read it without her spectacles.

Never Mind...

I think it's funny when reporters spend a lot of time working on a story that doesn't pan out, but they have so much time invested... that they print the story anyway.  So then we are treated to a breathless story that boils down to "Our extensive investigation has revealed that no laws were broken."

The Star's Daniel Scarpinato treats us to a great example in his shocking story.

Nothing links Bee, school districts' ad

State Senate President Tim Bee and his congressional campaign did not collaborate in writing with the school districts that used tax dollars to fund a TV ad for him, according to a Star review of months worth of e-mails.

Scarpinato actually treats us to a double Never Mind in this article.  In fact, his investigation was doomed from the start because he's using the wrong law in his investigation.   

The Supreme Court has ruled that you can spend as much of your money as you want on a political ad for a candidate as long as you don't coordinate with that candidate.  If it's an independent expenditure then it's not subject to limitations. 

When Scarpinato conducted his extensive investigation to determine if there was any coordination between Bee and the folks who produced the ad, he obviously thought the ad was using the independent expenditure exception.  But that's not the case here.

The Supreme Court set a new standard in Wisconsin Right to Life.

a court should find that an ad is the functional equivalent of express advocacy only if the ad is susceptible of no reasonable interpretation other than as an appeal to vote for or against a specific candidate.

Now that conservatives have a voice on the court, the First Amendment actually means something. 

The ad for Bee is to thank him for his vote in the Senate.  The Senate is still in session and the election is a quite a ways off.  The Bee ad is not a campaign at at all.  It doesn't matter who spent money on it.  It doesn't matter if they coordinated with the Bee campaign.  Bee could have written the ad and used corporate money to fund it....just like the Democrats are doing with the Project for Arizona's Future. 

Not only did Scarpinato's investigation fail to yield any coordination...it wouldn't have mattered if he had found it.  We have the rare combination of the double never mind.

Emily Litella would be so proud.

I hope we are a better team.

Marc Spitzer--the former Arizona Corporation Commissioner turned big time FERC Commissioner--was in town last night to speak at a utility investors conference.  He and I have been friends since the early 1990s when we served in the legislature together so he invited me to attend last night's dinner. 

Every time that we were introduced as Spitzer and Patterson, someone would laugh and I had to admit that I didn't get it. 

Marc later reminded me that it was primarily a New York crowd, so they have been seeing subway posters like this one for the last couple years. 

I don't cover New York politics, but as I recall, the other Spitzer/Paterson team didn't turn out so hot.