AZ District 1 News & Reviews: police

I have written before that the inexpensive handheld video camera is perhaps the most important innovation in police accountability in my lifetime. So of course, the police want them banned.

At an emergency meeting Wednesday, the Arizona Citizens Clean Elections Commission declared that taxpayer-funded candidates who have accepted campaign subsidies cannot withdraw from the Clean Elections system and run with private fundraising. But the Commission is wrong, according to the lead attorney who convinced the U.S. Supreme Court to block the use of matching funds at this point.
“There is nothing in the law that prohibits withdrawal from the Clean Elections system – provided taxpayer-funded candidates return their government subsidies and run with private financing,” said Nick Dranias, the Goldwater Institute’s director of constitutional studies. “No provision in the Citizens Clean Elections Act addresses the issue of voluntary withdrawal from the system. And no rule prohibits the Commission from allowing candidates to withdraw from the system if they return their subsidies.”

Mills' attorney told the commission that it should reject a request from Gov. Jan Brewer's campaign to invoke an emergency clause and release publicly funded candidates to raise private dollars. It's needed, Brewer's crew argued, because of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that bars the distribution of matching funds to publicly funded candidates.

Paying off that debt will strain state budgets for years to come. For the fiscal year that starts July 1, the state must make a $232 million debt payment out of its general fund.

Abramoff Released From Prison; close ties to Hayworth linger in the minds of voters

This cannot be a good week for Team Hayworth, with reports his campaign is losing steam and this ugly little reminder of just how low some people will go. You would think after the whole Abramoff “thing”, taking a closer look at folks would have been a good idea. But, then…I guess some people never learn.

Cities will no longer be able to give lucrative property tax breaks lasting a half century or more to hand-picked developers because of a new law signed Tuesday by Gov. Jan Brewer....The reforms will roughly double the payments that designated builders provide instead of property taxes and will cut in half the normal length of leases with cities, which have already taken developments valued at more than $2 billion throughout Arizona off the property tax rolls.
Critics have pushed since 2008 to scale back or scrap the law, arguing a better approach than doling out tax breaks to a few large developers is to lower everyone’s property taxes. However, opposition from cities and developers with GPLET properties had stalled reform talks.

In Arizona, police can seize your property, sell it, and keep the money to fund their own budgets without so much as charging you with a crime. Under civil forfeiture laws, police and prosecutors can even seize your property after you've been found not guilty of a crime.

“Plata o plomo” (which literally means “silver or lead” and refers to how officials are either corrupted or killed by drug lords) has long been a common feature of the drug war in Latin America. It is not surprising that multi-billion dollar cartels corrupt the officials who are supposed to fight them. What is surprising is some people in Washington still believe that this is a winnable war.

Federal authorities say they have rescued three Salvadoran children who were being held hostage by suspected human smugglers in the Phoenix metropolitan area.

“I’ve been on the record saying that there is no way that we’re going to ask the people of the state of Arizona to vote for a temporary tax, and then come back and do business tax cuts,” Brewer said.

AZ District 1 News & Reviews