by admin | Mar 4, 2021 | Elections, News and Updates
More than 100,000 Arizona voters on the Permanent Early Voting List (PEVL) have not voted by early ballot in the past four years.
Think about that for a moment. These are people who asked to be on the PEVL but are choosing not to use the system. Not only does this waste taxpayers like you money by sending out unwanted ballots, but it compromises the integrity of our elections.
If someone isn’t using the system, they shouldn’t continue to receive an early ballot by mail. Thankfully, the Arizona Senate addressed the PEVL on Tuesday by passing SB1485, a bill sponsored by Senator Michelle Ugenti-Rita (R-LD23). And predictably, as the bill heads to the Arizona House, Democrats are losing their minds. While most of them are mischaracterizing this bill as “voter suppression,” others have called it a “full-on assault on Democracy,” and Representative Athena Salman (D-LD26) couldn’t help but label it as “racist.”
But while Arizona Democrats proceeded to hurl unhinged attacks and insults at proponents of the legislation, it’s important to look at what this bill actually does. And it’s not that complicated.
SB1485 simply changes the name of the list from the PEVL to the Early Voting List (EVL). That means voters can continue to vote early and by mail as long as they are on the list. But if an individual doesn’t vote by early ballot in both the primary election and the general election for two consecutive cycles, he or she will receive a notice from their county recorder. Failure to respond to the notice means the voter will be removed from the list.
As you can see, this isn’t some sinister conspiracy like Democrats are making it out to be.
There’s nothing in the bill that prevents a voter from being placed back on the list. And it certainly has no impact on someone’s voter registration status.
However, Democrats would rather cry wolf about “voter suppression” and “racism” instead of recognizing that this is a bill that should be embraced by all parties. Is it because they know they stand to benefit from outdated voter rolls or a deeply flawed mail-in voting system?
More than likely, that’s the case.
The fact is that distrust in this past November’s election remains high. And mail-in voting is more prone to mistake, mishap, and mischief. But that doesn’t mean it should be eliminated. Mail-in voting is popular in Arizona, and SB1485 allows for it to continue. But additional security measures are necessary to protect this method of voting.
Once fraud is in the election system, it is extremely difficult to prove and root out. Cleaning up voter rolls by ensuring the EVL is kept up to date by removing deceased persons, citizens who have moved to another state, duplicate voter files, and anyone who isn’t actively using the system is critically important.
While more steps are needed to improve election integrity through the state, SB1485 is a step in the right direction. Now, it’s up to the House to pass this crucial piece of legislation.
by admin | Mar 2, 2021 | News and Updates
It was one year ago this month when President Trump commented that the cure cannot be worse than the problem. Sitting now at day 351 of 15 days to slow the spread, restaurants are still limited to 50% capacity, bars are closed, gyms are limited to 25% capacity, and thousands of Arizona students haven’t seen the inside of a classroom in months. It is time to recapture a sense of normalcy by protecting businesses, limiting liability exposure, and putting an end to school shutdowns. Several bills at the legislature this session aim to do just that.
Protecting Businesses from Policing Mask Mandates
Over the course of the perpetual lockdown, businesses have been expected to assume the role of the state by policing mask mandates from counties, cities, and towns in fear of shutdowns, fines, or other draconian penalties. In the House, two bills address this issue and protect businesses from emergency orders.
HB2770, introduced by Rep. Chaplik, passed out of the House Commerce committee just a couple weeks ago on a party line vote. The bill is simple in its approach, asserting that businesses are not required to enforce mask mandates from the state, any agency, county, city, or town.
HB2570, introduced by Rep. Hoffman, passed out of the House Government & Elections on February 18 on a party line vote. The bill would protect businesses by prohibiting any agency, county, city, or town from revoking a business’s license for not complying with a state of emergency mandate, unless there is clear and convincing evidence that the business was the actual cause of transmission of the disease addressed in the emergency order.
Protecting Businesses and Other Organizations from Civil Liability
Even if businesses are allowed to open back up and the threat of license revocation is ended, businesses and organizations would still risk civil liability suits from their employees and customers.
After failing to pass civil liability protections at the end of the last legislative session, SB1377, introduced by Sen. Leach, passed the Senate by a vote of 18-12 last week. The bill would protect a provider from civil liability during a public health emergency unless there is clear and convincing evidence that the provider failed to act or acted in a manner that was grossly negligent.
This is a necessary measure to ensure businesses can open with reasonable protections for employees and patrons, without leaving them exposed to frivolous lawsuits.
Putting an End to School Shutdowns
At this time, even the CDC is reporting that COVID transmission is not a concern for in-person learning. Yet thousands of students are still out of the classroom, leading to decreasing performance and growing mental health concerns. And taxpayers are still expected to foot the bill for empty seats.
In his State of the State, Governor Ducey insisted he will not fund empty seats. But just a cursory scroll through the Department of Education dashboard reveals that even today, the share of schools that are in person are far outweighed by not only those that are hybrid, but those that are entirely distanced.
Arizona must continue to reopen businesses and schools. The health of our businesses, economy, and children depends on it.
by admin | Feb 25, 2021 | Free Market, Misc, News and Updates
The COVID-19 pandemic has been with us for a year now, and in that time, there’s been little to get excited about. Many restaurants and small businesses have been decimated. Emergency orders have been abused across the state and country. And we all know the impact it’s had on kids in school.
But amid this great adversity, not all has been lost. Some things have emerged as great values to our society. One of those is telehealth.
Right now is the perfect time to leverage what we’ve learned and remove any barriers to this great service. And so far, it seems that our state is headed that way.
Momentum is building at the legislature for Arizona to once again lead on health care reform, this time by seeking legislation to make permanent Governor Ducey’s emergency executive order that allows Arizona residents to obtain telehealth services from practitioners licensed in any of the 50 states and the District of Columbia.
Preventing telehealth to consumers has been outdated for years, especially given the fact that licensing requirements for medical professionals are nearly identical across all 50 states. Furthermore, as pointed out by Cato Senior Fellow Dr. Jeff Singer, out-of-state providers would still be required to follow all state laws and regulations, meaning the standard for care will be the same for patients whether or not the medical professional resides in the state or not.
And Governor Ducey backs this up in his 2021 Policy Priorities stating, “If it’s safe and it works during a pandemic, we should embrace it when we’re not in an emergency as well.”
Unfortunately, some Democrats are already trying to put up a barrier to telehealth. They want to prevent the people of Arizona from accessing providers out of state.
But there is no good reason to deny someone the ability to use this service. The benefits are far too great.
By simply allowing telehealth services from all 50 states and Washington, D.C., the people of Arizona would gain access to the best available medical professionals across the country. Think about what that could mean for your health care.
Plus, you would save both time and money by not traveling to and from a doctor’s office or waiting for an appointment. That’s right. No more awkwardly paging through a magazine that’s 3 months old while you wait for your lab results. If you don’t need an in-person consultation for your health issue, just sign on your computer, attend your appointment, and get back to doing the things you really love.
In addition to these benefits, providers would be much more motivated to improve the quality of their services. And they would be more likely to look at ways to reduce their costs to make sure they remain competitive.
But perhaps the best part is, it’s your choice. If you don’t want to use telehealth services, you don’t have to. But why deny someone the opportunity to do so if he or she thinks it would be best?
If COVID-19 has taught us anything, it’s that we need more consumer choice in health care. Thankfully, telehealth isn’t anything new. Just ask anyone who’s been using 1-800 Contacts for the last couple decades. But expanding its reach would provide a great benefit to the people of Arizona because telehealth puts patients first, not profits.
Now, Arizona could become the first state in the country to permanently allow licensed medical professionals from other states to provide telehealth services to its residents. We just need to help Governor Ducey convince our legislators.
by admin | Feb 22, 2021 | Misc, News and Updates
It seems that not a day goes by before you hear about another person or group being banned from social media. And it likely won’t shock you to find that the majority of them…are conservative.
Take LifeSiteNews for example. Earlier this month, Google-owned YouTube, which happens to be the largest video-sharing site on the internet, deplatformed the pro-life group without explanation.
And just a couple weeks before that, YouTube demonetized The Epoch Times, an independent news media that doesn’t claim any party affiliation.
But YouTube isn’t alone in its desire to play speech police. Just last week, Facebook deleted actor Kevin Sorbo’s page and didn’t even bother to tell him why. And if you don’t think banning Hercules is bad enough, Twitter went ahead and shut down MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell permanently. Surely it must’ve been because some disgruntled Twitter moderator wasn’t happy with his night’s sleep. But no. It’s because Mr. Lindell is a Trump supporter, who Twitter also banned while he was still the President of the United States.
And then there’s Parler, an actual social media company that, according to its website, “is built upon a foundation of respect for privacy and personal data, free speech, free markets, and ethical, transparent corporate policy.” In January, Google and Apple teamed up to remove the Parler app from their app stores, and Amazon ceased providing Parler with its cloud computing services, completely removing it from the internet.
The big tech giants claimed it was because Parler didn’t do enough to address threats to people’s safety in the wake of the Capitol riots on January 6. But then why didn’t these same companies suspend or ban leftists who endorsed the violent riots that took place across the country last summer?
The hypocrisy is nauseating, but the future is terrifying.
Facebook claims it wants to “reduce the amount of politics” on its site. And the company flaunts a temporary stop to all ads about social issues, elections, or politics in the United States since November 4 (which so far has also prohibited The Club from running any paid ads on the platform over the past few months). But can Facebook really be trusted? After all, whose politics does it plan to reduce? Or is there something more going on?
Since 2019, the Democrats have been trying to pass HR1, which touts itself as the “For the People Act.” But make no mistake, this bill is only for one specific group of people. Among the many items within the resolution, HR1 would require political groups to disclose high-dollar donors and create reporting requirements for online political ads. That’s right. It’s about doxing people. And given the trends we’ve seen on social media since the beginning of the year, who do you think they’re going to dox, punish, and ultimately cancel?
Conservatives can no longer stand for this. Facebook, Twitter, Google, and Apple have all drawn a line in the sand. And now, it’s time to stop this big tech oligopoly from completely destroying the public square.
by admin | Feb 19, 2021 | Elections, News and Updates
We have become well acquainted with the autocratic, unchecked power of Big Tech and their censorship. It was just last month that the President of the United States was deplatformed from every social media platform – once one pulled the trigger, the dominos fell and within hours President Trump was removed from the internet.
Poland is considering bold actions against the unchecked power multi-billion dollar corporations have obtained in deciding what speech is acceptable and what is not, comparing the actions of these platforms to what they experienced during the communist era. Here in America, where freedom of speech is understood as a fundamental, inalienable right of a free people, Big Tech takes advantage of their section 230 protections, while continuing to censor, deplatform, or shadow ban users with whom they disagree, garnering outrage from politicians, but no action.
Beyond their deplatforming, shadow banning and censorship, the 2020 election gave rise to a new influence Big Tech has in our democracy with Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg alone giving hundreds of millions to election offices to influence or change the way local elections offices conducted the election.
The idea that Zuckerberg and Big Tech would give away their millions simply out of the goodness of their heart to protect democracy without trying to exert influence for one candidate or ideology is at the least questionable. And we need not simply theorize about their plan, corporations are outright bragging about their master plan of coordinating the results of the election now that it is over:
“Their work touched every aspect of the election. They got states to change voting systems and laws and helped secure hundreds of millions in public and private funding. They fended off voter-suppression lawsuits, recruited armies of poll workers and got millions of people to vote by mail for the first time.”
One focus of this election influence is the Center for Technology and Civic Life (CTCL) which in 2018 spent a mere $1.4 million, but in 2020 received over $350 million from Zuckerberg and his wife alone. This influence was seen throughout the country – right here in Arizona too.
Capital Research has looked into CTCL and found that it spent $5 million in Arizona, $3 million of which went to Maricopa County led by Democrat County Recorder Adrian Fontes – essentially the electorally decisive county. And what happened in Maricopa County? Though Trump went from 590,465 votes in 2016 to 995,665 in 2020, he lost the county to Biden who somehow doubled Clinton’s 2016 performance, receiving 1,040,774 votes in 2020. This equaled $1.80 from the CTCL per Biden vote in Maricopa County.
But what kind of effect did Big Tech money, and especially Zuckerberg and the CTCL, actually have? It’s just as the Times article brags – “they got states to change voting systems and laws…” In Wisconsin, the Zuckerberg backed grant stipulated the submittal to CTCL and implementation of the “Wisconsin Safe Voting Plan” circumventing the role of the legislature and other elected bodies in the development of elections procedures. In Pennsylvania, the grants aided in the placement of a ballot drop box every four-square miles or for every 4,000 voters in Democrat strongholds compared to one drop box every 1,100 square miles or for every 72,000 voters in Republican strongholds.
This is the new Big Tech censorship. Though not removing someone from their platform, they drown out conservative votes by giving money to elections offices to drive up turnout in select locations while ignoring others. This creates a two-tier election system suppressing the turnout of voters Zuckerberg doesn’t like.
The left has complained about the role of money in elections. The hundreds of millions spent at local elections offices wasn’t philanthropy, it was a strategic investment with an expected return. The best approach to ensuring election integrity is a proactive one, but this election is over and we can’t go back, so it is time that states pass strong legislation prohibiting private, outside funding of election offices. Even the appearance of impropriety in elections is dangerous, so elections should be funded, directed, and guided by state governments not private organizations and especially not Big Tech.
by admin | Feb 16, 2021 | News and Updates, Tax
Arizonans are tired of politicians raising their taxes for transportation. When lawmakers approved the highly unpopular $32 car registration fee, taxpayers were so irate that the legislature eventually repealed the fee altogether. The last two years, lawmakers attempted to increase the gas tax but were met with such hostility from voters that the bills fizzled and died.
Still, lawmakers have not learned their lesson.
SB1650 this year, sponsored by Sen. Livingston, features not one, but six transportation tax increases all in one bill:
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- Increases the gas tax, currently set at $.18 cents a gallon, by a penny each year until 2045.
- Increases the gas tax annually by the rate of inflation, ensuring it constantly increases up and above the one penny each year into perpetuity.
- Increases the use fuel tax (diesel), currently at $0.26, by a penny each year until 2045.
- Increases the diesel tax by the rate of inflation – a never ending, automatic tax increase to which legislators would not have to be held accountable.
- Implements a new $500 tax on electric and $300 tax on hybrid vehicles.
- Increases the Maricopa county transportation tax from a half penny to ¾ of a penny if approved by the voters in 2022.
Despite what the spending lobby at the capitol tells lawmakers, Arizona does not have a transportation funding crisis. Arizona has a transportation wasteful spending crisis.
With transportation revenue coming from gas taxes, registration and title fees, county and city transportation taxes, appropriations from the General Fund, and money from the federal Highway Trust Fund, the solution to our infrastructure needs is not raising taxes. The solution is to stop funding bad projects and better prioritize investments.
State Waste: Every year, lawmakers across the state introduce bills to bring the pork back to their districts. Instead of prioritizing major bridges, highways, and freeways, lawmakers approve millions in projects that can and should be funded by counties or cities. Additionally, Highway User Revenue Funds (HURF) dollars have been swept by the legislature year after year to fund the Department of Public Safety. Instead of finding a way to properly fund DPS, the legislature handed their taxing authority over to the Department of Transportation and Arizonans saw the infamous $32 Highway Safety Fee.
County Waste: In the case of the Maricopa County transportation tax (Prop 400), a third of this revenue is statutorily earmarked for public transit like light rail. The net effect, cities like Phoenix, Mesa and Tempe have cannibalized hundreds of millions of dollars meant to be spent on regional projects in order to build trains to nowhere. Taxpayers have spent billions of dollars for these boondoggles to provide transit to less than 1% of the population.
SB1650 continues the allowance of this waste while simultaneously attempting to deceive voters by making it appear as if this is simply a continuation of the current county tax when it is an increase.
City Waste: Of the transportation sales tax approved in 2015, the City of Phoenix allocated 35% to light rail and 51% to bus service, leaving just 14% to street maintenance despite only 30% of streets in Phoenix being considered in good condition. The latest light rail extension cost $245 million per mile to construct, reduced lanes on already congested roads, needs to be continuously subsidized with tax dollars for operations and siphons resources from critical road maintenance projects.
State county, and local governments should stop funding bad projects like light rail and misusing or poorly prioritizing funds, and instead responsibly budget and prioritize the many revenue streams that already exist.
Bad bills such as SB1650 ignore recent years of state surpluses, turns a blind eye to the massive waste in the system and disregards the myriad of funding mechanisms in place. But perhaps most importantly, SB1650 is completely tone deaf to the angst taxpayers have for any more tax increases.
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