AZ SCHOOLS SEEK SPENDING CAP EXTENSIONS

posted by Michael Chihak

Arizona public schools have faced hundreds of millions in budgets cuts in the last three years, including $170 million for the school year that's been under way for two months.

To bolster their spending, many districts have for years exceeded their state-imposed spending caps by getting voter approval. These budget overrides, along with the higher property taxes to support the spending, have become common in some districts.

Now many of those overrides are expiring, and more than two dozen districts in the Phoenix and Tucson metropolitan areas are asking voters to extend them.

Without extensions, school officials say, they will have to make more cuts to a wide range of programs and increase class sizes.

In the Tucson area, Sunnyside, Marana, Vail, Continental, Flowing Wells and Tanque Verde districts are seeking overrides to be effective starting in the 2012-13 school year.

In the Phoenix area, 20 school districts, including Glendale Union, Kyrene, Agua Fria, Tolleson, Paradise Valley and Phoenix Union districts are seeking the overrides.

On Friday's Arizona Week, we plan a look at the issues associated with these overrides and at prospects for passage.

WHAT ARE RAMIFICATIONS OF PEARCE RECALL?

posted by Michael Chihak

Some have called Russell Pearce the most powerful person in Arizona state government.

Hearing that statement, Pearce likely would demur, pointing to fellow Republican Gov. Jan Brewer who in fact vetoed a number of bills that Pearce and other Republicans backed in the last legislative session.

All right, then, make that the most powerful man in state government.

What happens if that most powerful man is knocked out of his seat in the recall election scheduled in two weeks? First, there clearly are others in the Republican Senate leadership ready to step in, with the No. 1 candidate likely t be Majority Leader Andy Biggs.

Second, his removal won't deter him from seeking the seat again in the 2012 election, he has said.

The issues around the Pearce recall, Pearce's approach to immigration and other issues he is involved in as Senate president will be the focus of Friday's Arizona Week broadcast, with this caveat: that we get an interview with Pearce.

PAYING THE PRICE FOR FREE SPEECH

posted by Michael Chihak

In politics, money talks. Just ask the U.S. Supreme Court, which has ruled that people and corporations, which the court says are people, are exercising their right to free speech when they donate money to political campaigns.

So in politics, that’s how money talks. And these days, money is having a lot to say. Or more accurately, those with money are having a lot to say. Even scarier, politicians are listening, more than ever before.

Quarterly reports on campaign financing are coming out this week, and we’re hearing big figures for campaign cash, although we’re still a year away from the next national election.

What we’re hearing, though, is only a small part of the story. The biggest dollars are being raised without being reported and without any transparency. And they’ll be spent pretty much without disclosure of who’s behind them.

The spending, big spending, will manifest itself in your mailbox and on your TV screen. And, by the account of one political analyst, Norman Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute, it won’t be pretty.

" ... outside groups are going to come in and buy up all the television time, and the candidates are going to have an increasingly difficult time having their own voices heard directly because they won't be able to buy the prime-time spots," Ornstein said in an interview for Arizona Week.

"So brace yourselves. For the commercial statios, it's going to be a great year ... For the rest of us, it's going to be awful;."

Behind those TV spots will be organizations and individuals lurking in the shadows of politics, hiding their identities but wanting their points of view and influence to prevail.

They come from all along the political spectrum, and they are driven by the desire to keep the status quo. They, and their money, are speaking loudly, and anonymously.

And while according to the Supreme Court, it’s free speech, there’s little prospect of freedom in it.

Caveat civis – let the citizen beware.

More from Norman Ornstein on Arizona Week, 8:30 p.m. MST on PBS-HD-6 or at azweek.com.

PEARCE RECALL LOOMS, WITH NATIONAL ATTENTION

posted by Lucy Valencia

An election that might otherwise escape much attention is the object of intense national interest and is splitting Arizona along racial and political lines.

The election will decide on the recall of Arizona Senate President Russell Pearce, the author of the anti-illegal immigration law known as SB1070. Pearce is opposed by fellow Republican Jerry Lewis, considered a moderate.

A driving force behind immigration reform, Pearce is one of Arizona’s most powerful politicians.

Supporters describe him as a principled lawmaker, trying to protect his state. His critics shun the health and education budget cuts he has passed, but set out to recall him based on his immigration stance.

As the election draws closer, Pearce has doubled-down and isn't apologizing for anything.

On Nov. 8, voters in west Mesa’s Legislative District 18 will decide between Pearce and Lewis, who is a political newcomer.

Pearce is making U.S. history as the first sitting state senate president and the first sitting state lawmaker in Arizona to face a recall.

He was reelected last November with 57 percent of the vote, but activists began asking for a recall three weeks after the legislative session started.

At the start of the recall, Pearce faced two opponents: Lewis and Olivia Cortes.

But soon, Cortes’ candidacy was challenged. People speculated she was a sham, recruited by Pearce’s supporters to snag Latino votes from Lewis.

In court, Cortes said she did not know who paid for her signature gatherers or designed her Website, according to the Arizona Republic. She actually had not done much of her own campaigning.

A judge then agreed Pearce’s supporters had drafted Cortes in hopes of splitting votes, but that since she had done nothing wrong, Cortes could stay on the ballot.

Pearce opponents felt this was all they proof they needed to link Cortes to Pearce’s campaign, and immediately pushed the judge for a second hearing.

But before that, Cortes dropped out of the race due to “constant intimidation and harassment,” the Republic reported.

It is too late to take Cortes' name off the ballot, and some people feel this could still allow her to peel away votes from Lewis, thereby helping Pearce win.

Tune in to Arizona Week next week to hear more about the issue.

AZ SENATE RACE ALREADY GETTING EXPENSIVE

posted by Michael Chihak

Campaign financing reports for U.S. Senate in Arizona show more than $3.7 million in hand for three candidates. And that's just the beginning, a political and campaign analyst predicts.

The Arizona Capitol Times reports that Republican Jeff Flake, now a member of Congress, had the most in hand as of the end of September, $2.3 million.

The Capitol Times also reports that Republican Wil Cardon had $1.1 million, including $770,000 of his own money, and Democrat Don Bivens had $325,000.

Flake brought in the most in the third quarter, $556,000. Cardon and Bivens also raised significant sums. Cardon brought in $402,000. Bivens raised $325,000 in six weeks following his candidacy announcement.

Norman J. Ornstein, a research scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and an expert on campaign financing, predicts in an interview for Friday's Arizona Week that the campaign will get much more expensive, driven perhaps by groups not directly affiliated with the candidates.

"We're going to see millions poured into advertising," Ornstein says. " ... So brace yourselves. For the commercial television stations, it's going to be a great year, because they're going to get full-priced or even premiums paid for advertising. For the rest of us, it's going to be awful."

Watch the full interview with Ornstein Friday at 8:30 p.m. MST on PBS-HD-6.

MONEY WILL MAKE 2012 CAMPAIGN UNLIKE ANY OTHER

posted by Michael Chihak

The 2012 election campaign will be like the "wild West," says political analyst and research scholar Norman J. Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute, in Washington, D.C.

Ornstein is in Tucson this week to speak to law students at the University of Arizona about the dysfunction in American politics.

The man who wrote the book The Permanent Campaign and Its Future in 2000, accurately predicting the decade-long and ongoing trends in U.S. politics, also will appear on Arizona Week Friday evening to discuss campaign financing.

Ornstein worked with Arizona Sen. John McCain to help author the 2002 Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform Act, more popularly known as the McCain-Feingold law. He says most of that law has been usurped by court rulings, leaving the average voter out of the loop of influence in political campaigns.

Next year's race for an open U.S. Senate seat in Arizona likely will bring "millions upon millions" of dollars in campaign contributions pouring into the state, Ornstein says. He says the balance of the Senate could ride on it, and thus both parties and their supporters will be keenly interested.