Republican Wil Cardon is the second U.S. Senate candidate in Arizona to release a TV advertisement this week, taking the race to the airwaves five months ahead of the primary election.
The open Senate seat, being vacated by Republican Jon Kyl, has drawn interest from both major parties. In the Republican primary, so far Cardon and U.S. Rep. Jeff Flake are competing for the nomination. Democrats Don Bivens, a former state party chairman, and former U.S. Surgeon General Richard Carmona are seeking their party’s nod.
Cardon’s ad is an introduction of him to voters, and says he is “an outsider” who will work to create jobs if elected.
Bivens released his first TV ad yesterday, targeting Flake for his party’s stance on women’s health care issues that have come up in national politics recently.
The Legislative District 29 Democratic Committee has passed a resolution calling for the resignation of Rep. Daniel Patterson. The resolution said, “With criminal charges and an ethics investigation by the House of Representatives pending, the LD29 Democrats call for the resignation of Rep. Daniel Patterson for lack of decorum and professionalism."
The vote from the LD 29 committee comes just hours before Patterson is set to go before the House Ethics Committee. Patterson was charged with four misdemeanor domestic violence charges last week. The ethics complaint stems from domestic violence allegations.
Patterson pleaded not guilty to the charges in a Tucson court. It should be noted that both Patterson and his former girl friend admit they did have a fight.
It's a first in the 50th Legislature, in which Democrats are so outnumbered that their voice has been little more than a squeak.
But House Minority Leader Chad Campbell says he and his colleagues are releasing a spending proposal because of what he calls a "hoarding" plan by Republicans with what is the state's first surplus in several years.
The Dems want to spend money restoring some of the big cuts that were made in the last four years to education, health care and child care.
The Democrats say their plan is more responsible than both the Republican legislative plan and GOP Gov. Jan Brewer's proposal because under the Democratic plan, there would be a smaller deficit come 2015.
That's the year after the state supposedly will fall off a "fiscal cliff," as the Republicans have been consistently describing it.
What are the percentage chance that Democrats will get anywhere with their plan? Let's just say it's a round number, a really round number.
Arizona Republican legislatorsArizona state budgetChad CampbellGov Jan Brewerfiscal cliff,
The Arizona Republic's Laurie Roberts sums up in her column Tuesday the case involving Tucson Democratic Rep. Daniel Patterson and his jurisprudence issues.
Roberts calls the case "an embarrassment, an outrage, a disgrace" and says Patterson is either "the world's most misunderstood man ... or he's a total jerk."
Patterson is charged with four misdemeanor counts of domestic violence in connection with a complaint filed by his girlfriend.
It isn't his first brush with the law, as Roberts points out. She says his ex-wife gained a court order protecting her from him a few years ago.
He gets his day before the House Ethics Committee at the state Capitol today and his day in court in Tucson Thursday. He is claiming legislative immunity. House Speaker Andy Tobin Monday stripped Patterson of his committee assignments.
Patterson is in his second term representing District 29 in central Tucson.
Don Bivens is out with his first TV ad and the spot is already drawing national attention. The Washington Post writes that Bivens is the first democratic candidate in the country to use Rush Limbaugh’s controversial statements about a Georgetown law student in an ad.
The ad targets what it branded as the “GOP War on Women” as well as Republican candidate Jeff Flake. Bivens told Arizona Public Media that he is using the clip of Limbaugh to target the “extreme social agenda” of Jeff Flake and other Republicans in Congress.
Bivens ad targets Flake even though both candidates must make it through their respective party primaries before advancing to the general election.
State Sen. Frank Antenori (R-Vail) is no fan of photo radar or red light cameras. So he proposed SCR 1029 on the ballot which would have asked voters to decide whether or not to make the cameras illegal statewide.
But when the proposal got to the Senate floor it ran into opposition. In fact, the Senate voted the bill down 13-15 seemingly keeping photo radar around.
The proposal did not die in legislative terms though. Even though Sen. Antenori is a sponsor of the proposal, he voted against it. That allowed him through parliamentary moves to revive the bill for another vote on the Senate floor. So far that vote has not been scheduled. That means Antenori, who is the Majority Whip, now must set about changing minds before the proposal comes up again.
