SB 1070

This afternoon SB 1070, the tougher of the two potential immigration bills before the legislature, was passed in both houses and is on its way to the Governor. This sets up an interesting political challenge for Gov. Brewer: on the one hand she signs it and deals with the political and legal headaches that will ensue from Democrats. Conversely, if she vetoes it, or refuses to sign it, it will be used against her in her primary challenge for re-election.

If I had to guess, and I’m not very good at guessing, I would say she doesn’t sign it. I don’t think she will veto it but I don’t think she will sign it. That way it will still become law but she will have enough wiggle room to express her concerns with the bill.

In the House

This past Tuesday I had the distinction to hang out in a room in the House that few people get to hang out in. Granted, I have no idea what the official name of the room is but it’s the room directly behind the floor of the House. This is the room House members are lobbied and cajoled. It’s basically a lobby (go figure) with some leather couches, comfortable chairs and the plushest carpet you can imagine.

I can’t speak to the specifics as to why I was there or who I was with but suffice to say it was very, very cool to experience.

Movie Industry Tax Credits

The failure of the film industry tax credit bill, SB 1409, yesterday was an interesting display on how quickly votes can change. Though it went down 11-16 in the Senate according to many of our sources this bill was virtually tied as of yesterday.

While I can’t divulge our sources, or the specific Senators that we believe flipped, it was interesting to see the cascade effect once it was known it was going to fail. Instead of being say 14-13, once Senators knew their votes would not be the “deciding” vote they could jump off (or on, depending on your perspective) the bandwagon.

With Senator Nelson’s vote against it he can now hope to have the bill reconsidered, but given the expiring opportunity to have it heard in a Senate committee (let alone a House committee if it left the Senate) it appears this bill is all but dead.

Civic Duty

SB 1404 would require that 8th graders in Arizona pass a United States civics exam in order to move on to the next grade. My first reaction was that it would never pass the Parliament.

Sorry, that was a bad joke. Still this is interesting. The test will be the same one required by immigrants to become American citizens (the questions are listed at the bottom of the article).

I realize that there is a seemingly ongoing debate about testing in schools, whether it’s regarding the effectiveness of tests results vs. being educated or the potential pitfalls of the construct of the tests themselves. Still, if you read these questions I do not believe this is an overly burdensome test of 8th graders.

Busy Week Down at the Capital

State legislatures are attempting to make this upcoming week the last week for committee hearings. The talk around the Capital is that they want to end this session around the 1st of May; I’m sure in part so many of them can start fundraising in earnest.

To that end, the committees have a busy, busy week. The committee agendas for both the House and the Senate are packed (especially Senate Finance). I feel bad for the staffers and interns down at the legislature as this will be a long, long week for all of them.