Rogue Columnist

Constructive actions

I've always been skeptical of "media" attempts to offer solutions. Most of our pressing issues, especially where what Soleri aptly termed the Arizona Problem, can't be solved. But they can be made better. Steve Jobs aptly said that today's axis isn't between left or right, but rather between destructive and constructive.

With that in mind, here are some constructive measures I'd love to see happen in my home state and city.

Maintain and plant more shade trees, hedges, grass, and other cooling elements in central Phoenix and some suburbs. The beautiful view above is of the Encanto-Palmcroft Historic District. People come from out of town and throw down the output of the Arizona Rock Products Association, ripping out "turf" and shade trees, crowing, "We live in a desert!"

Actually, we live in a natural oasis in the actual Salt River Valley — much of what is termed "the Valley" is on basins. That oasis, thanks to the dams and water system created starting in the early 20th century, supported an agricultural empire. Investments in water for the cooling efforts I mention is far better than using it for more sprawl far out on the metropolitan Phoenix fringes.

Monster

Carl Muecke illustration.

Rogue readers have been imploring me to write again. So I will put my shoulder to the wheel, even though much of this will be repetitive, whether dealing with what Soleri aptly called the Arizona Problem or our national existential crisis.

I hesitate to use the T word, because he and his cult feed on media attention. Whether voters are paying attention is another matter. Many Democrats are panicked by President Biden's debate performance this past week — even though he became much more impressive as the night continued. However, by that time too many viewers had tuned out.

When I was growing up, Arizona was a low-population state with only three congressmen. It didn't matter much in national elections. Now, with an unsustainable population of more than seven million people, Arizona has become a swing state with dangerous possibilities in November. When the totally unqualified former news-reader for the local Fox affiliate comes within a few thousand votes of becoming governor, you know we're in trouble.

Three topics for your week

Much is being made of finally returning Amtrak to Phoenix. Alas, it's a long shot. A reminder: Phoenix, the nation's fifth most populous city, is the largest city in North America without intercity passenger trains. Okay, a second reminder: Once multiple trains served Union Station on the Southern Pacific and Santa Fe railroads for decades, then Amtrak until 1994.

The reason Amtrak stopped service to Phoenix was because the state — the Republican-controlled Legislature and later disgraced GOP Gov. Fife Symington — refused to help the Southern Pacific bring the western portion of the Northern Main Line (from Arlington to Wellton) up to trackage standards to accommodate Amtrak trains.

The present situation is aspirational at best. It consists of a $500,000 grant, as the Arizona Republic reported, "to begin planning for a passenger rail corridor that links Amtrak’s existing line, which runs through Tucson, to the Phoenix metro area." 

Snake removal

If you follow the online Regional Dispatch Center maintained by the Phoenix Fire Department, you'll frequently see calls labeled "snake removal," especially in north Scottsdale. As I understand it, firefighters respond to the tony manses Slightly North of Bell (SNOB) to pull rattlesnakes out of pools, away from doors, or their expensively xeriscaped  properties.

The Regional Dispatch Center isn't as inclusive at Seattle's Real Time 911, and it usually consists of calls to automobile collisions (962s) — often involving pedestrians, bicycles, and motorcycles — as well as mountain rescues of idiots hiking up mountains in mid-day high summer. But the call for snake removal seems especially apt for our moment.

As the wealthy Anglo subdivisions have pushed ever deeper into the desert, they've destroyed and disrupted the habitat of the creatures that live there. It's no surprise, then, that  a diamondback — not a baseball player — suns himself on a championship golf course or gives a new meaning to the "water hazard."

When I was growing up in what's now the Willo Historic Neighborhood north of downtown Phoenix, we never saw snakes. Believe me, we looked! As a teenager, friends and I would hike around Arizona with a varmint gun at the ready, but never saw a rattler, much less a deadly coral snake or Gila monster. For one thing, I knew to walk with a heavy tread so the snake could feel me coming. DDT had killed off the scorpions and black widow spiders. They've made a big comeback, especially on the ever-expanding fringes. And snakes? Call the fire department.

 

The scam...again

The headline in the New York Times read, "Arizona Limits Construction Around Phoenix as Its Water Supply Dwindles." Then the story began:

Arizona has determined that there is not enough groundwater for all of the housing construction that has already been approved in the Phoenix area, and will stop developers from building some new subdivisions, a sign of looming trouble in the West and other places where overuse, drought and climate change are straining water supplies.

The decision by state officials very likely means the beginning of the end to the explosive development that has made the Phoenix area the fastest growing metropolitan region in the country.

But the devil is in the details. The state won't revoke building permits that have already been issued. Instead, it's hoping "new water conservation measures and alternative sources (will) produce the water necessary for housing developments that have already been approved."

GOP vs. WBIYB

Cars, 138-year-old technology.

A reader writes:

WBIYB, very true.

However..........AZ republicans are behaving like fanatical religious groups found in the middle east, whose only goal is to end public transit, if not in their lifetime maybe the life time of their great grandchildren.

What in the hell drives these nut jobs nutty about public transportation???

I will attempt to explain, although for regular readers this is familiar ground. In 2004, Maricopa County voters approved Proposition 400. It assessed a half-cent sales tax for 20 years to build new freeways, widen existing ones, expand highways and arterial streets, and fund transit. Of the total, 33.5% was intended for transit. Headlines in the Arizona Republic often use shorthand calling it "a transit tax," when it's really a transportation tax.

Legislative Republicans would have preferred to use the highly regressive sales tax exclusively for cars. But voters felt otherwise. The real hot button for Republicans was light rail, a modern technology and concept that was little understood by most in metropolitan Phoenix.

The road ahead

Pinned post (for newer columns see below):

I want to write about the future of Rogue Columnist. When I began the blog in 2008, my primary mission was to write about the issues and news with perspective and context that no one else provided. Also, I wanted to write about Phoenix history that wasn't easily available elsewhere. This was strictly pro bono — no charge to readers and no ads on the site itself.

The geriatric state

One of the many lies the boosters tell is that Arizona is a youthful state. Yet according to the U.S. Census Bureau, 18.3% of the state's residents are 65 years or older. That compares with 16.8% nationally and — among peer Western states, 15% for Colorado, 16% for Washington, yet surprisingly 18% for Oregon (home of Portland, "where young people go to retire").

Either way you slice the baloney, Arizona is a state with a sizable cohort of older people. It's not surprising. Since 1960, when Del Webb built his pioneering Sun City development west of the Santa Fe Railway tracks and Grand Avenue northwest of Phoenix, Arizona has marketed itself to retirees.

One of our long-lost commenters — I believe it was Concern Troll — made the point that a huge piece of the state economy is dependent on retirees, including their Social Security and pension checks, and the vast system of hospitals, medical workers, and caregivers who serve them.

According to the Social Security Administration, nearly $1 billion was dispersed in Arizona in 2021, the latest data available (Thanks, Rich Weinroth for the catch). The average monthly check is modest: 574.76. And not all this goes to seniors. Still...

Magical thinking and Bolles

Two topics this week:

• Above is a water desalination plant at Eilat, Israel, which turns Red Sea salt water into fresh water. Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates make up the biggest users of desalination, with 21,000 plants worldwide, even in Australia.

Now an Israeli company, IDE Technologies, proposes to bring such an operation to Arizona, from the Sea of Cortez at Rocky Point through the Mexican state of Sonora.

At a cost of $5 billion, it would deliver 1 million acre feet annually to Arizona. Or so is the plan. By comparison, the Central Arizona Project carries 1.4 million acre feet from the Colorado River. The CAP cost approximately $4 billion, with only $1.5 billion repaid to the federal government. 

In 2016, Scientific American proclaimed "Israel proves the desalination era is here," as one of the driest countries on earth makes more fresh water than it needs using this technology. 

February thoughts

February was always my favorite month in Phoenix. I can't say exactly why. Winter was passing and the hot days hadn't yet arrived. Although the weather has changed because of ripping out citrus groves, shade trees, and grass ("turf") and replacing it with gravel and pavement, somehow this February remains magical. Above is a rainstorm over Park Central.

I'm here for the rest of the month, although between keeping up my day job as a columnist for the Seattle Times and seeing friends, I've been less attentive to the blog. Thanks for keeping things going on the previous open thread. Some thoughts:

• The Super Bowl came and went. Although it was played in the taxpayer-funded, developer subsidizing stadium in a former cotton field in west Glendale, almost all the festivities centered on downtown Phoenix and the deck park. (Regular readers know I refuse to call it Hance Park because of its namesake's destruction of the center city when she was mayor; name the mountain preserve for her, which she richly deserves).

Anyway, this was a triumph for central Phoenix, which has reasserted itself as the center of this sprawling metroplex of lookalike super-suburbs. Light-rail trains (WBIYB) were packed with visitors. Restaurants and hotels did a great business. Scottsdale was irrelevant except for the corporate jets at the Airpark (more than 200 private jets departed local airports after the big game). An Urber from Scottsdale to the cotton field was said to cost $500 on game day.

The omen

The international news that Rio Verde Foothills has seen its water cut off by the city of Scottsdale is a drama in miniature for how the Arizona Ponzi scheme is going to play out on a larger stage in the coming years.

From the BBC and New York Times, to the Washington Post and local media, Rio Verde Foothills is invariably described as a "town," "suburb," or using typical sales language, "community." The Times even gave "Rio Verde" its own dateline.

In fact, it is a subdivision in the desert of about 2,000 houses ("homes" is sales language) north of Scottsdale. It's a wildcat subdivision, built by several developers who never had to comply with the Groundwater Act, with a "100 year guarantee" of water (itself an elaborate hoax).

As I've warned you for years, the developers are gone to more hospitable climes, leaving the foolhardy owners of these houses holding the bag.

Sinema vérité

I suppose readers expect me to comment on Sen. Krysten Sinema's switch from the Democratic Party to independent. Entire digital forests have already been felled examining it, as shown on the Phoenix and Arizona links over the past several days.

She was obviously afraid of losing a primary to someone such as Rep. Ruben Gallego. This allows her a chance to split the vote among her, the Democratic challenger, and the Republican Senate candidate — and maybe come out on top. Arizona Democrats are furious with her for tag-teaming with Sen. Joe Manchin, D-Coal, to undermine President Biden's agenda, and will do everything to ensure her defeat.

But don't be so sure. Behind the sophisti-cute nerd girl eyeglasses and abundant looks privilege is an ambitious brain. Her hole card is that although she's a Jack Mormon, she earned her bachelor's degree from Brigham Young University and the LDS never give up on their own. The Mormons remain a formidable voting bloc in Arizona.

Minds made up

Carl Muecke illustration.

When was the last time you changed your mind? Be honest.

I can think of a few times in my recent life. I was skeptical about human-caused climate change until I read Elizabeth Kolbert's seminal reporting on the subject in 2001. I changed my mind. When I was business editor of the Charlotte Observer, where we covered the major bank consolidations of the 1990s, I had misgivings. About the repeal of Glass-Steagall. But I was convinced the system was secure. When it nearly melted down in the Panic of 2008, I changed my mind. Being raised a Goldwater Republican in Arizona, I adamantly changed my mind in the coming years.

"When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?" to use a quote attributed to John Maynard Keynes.

But the evidence on the ground indicated that fewer Americans are willing to change their minds about anything.

Not quite blue

I watched tensely on Monday night as NBC News, CNN, and finally the Associated Press called the Arizona governor's race, with Katie Hobbs winning over Kari Lake. She will become the first Democratic governor here since Janet Napolitano.

But it was a close run thing, as the Duke of Wellington said of his triumph over Napoleon at Waterloo. Hobbs won by a mere 18,551 votes.

How could this be? Hobbs was Secretary of State, former state representative and state senator, a Phoenix native, very well qualified to be governor. Kari Lake was a former newsreader for the local Fox television station. She has no government or executive experience at all, was Trump anointed, an election denier, spreader of COVID disinformation, claiming President Biden had "a demonic agenda," and one-time Democrat. She called for putting Hobbs and journalists in jail (sound familiar?). Yet nearly 1.23 million voters were willing to go with her.

The answer lies in Arizona still being a hotspot of the Trump cult — the party of Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Barry Goldwater, Ronald Reagan, and John McCain is dead. Props to McCain for choosing Sarah Palin, a proto-Lake, as his running mate in 2008.

Vote like your life depends on it

Carl Muecke illustration.

Because of Typepad problems I am late in posting this urgent plea.

Vote like your life depends on it. Don't believe the polls. Some are fake. All risk dampening Democratic turnout.

Vote like your life depends on it. If Republicans win one or both Houses of Congress next week, you won't recognize this country next year.

Vote like your life depends on it because today’s GOP is a radical nihilistic cult worshipping Donald Trump. Its the party of Ginni Thomas, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Ron DeSantis, Herschel Walker...of election deniers, those who would dismantle the safety net, privatize Social Security, switch Medicare to inadequate vouchers, and abandon Ukraine.

Vote like your life depends on it because there are no moderate Republicans.

Living with drought

My new Gene Hammons Novel (a mystery due out in the next year or two) is set in 1936. In my research, I found that much of the Midwest and South suffered from a terrible drought, which claimed thousands of lives (separate from the Dust Bowl). But Arizona had plenty of rain that year — temperatures were also lower than today — and Phoenix was protected by the dams and reservoirs on the Salt River. And therein lies a tale.

 The population of Arizona was around 443,000 — fewer than live in today's Mesa. Phoenix clocked in at 55,000 or do, double that for the metropolitan area (remember, the city then was only around 17 square miles). Had today's mega-drought hit then, Phoenix would have been fine. Even with climate change.

But population growth has long been the primary driver of Phoenix's leadership. On the flag of the Arizona Republic in 1936 was a bug headlined "How Phoenix Grows!" listing population increases and building permits (The "flag" is the name of the paper atop the front page; the "masthead" lists the newspapers leadership, typically on the editorial page). So as of 2020, Arizona's population is 7.2 million, with Phoenix the nation's fifth most populous city — though far from No. 5 in other measures of quality and influence.

What did I miss?

Carl Muecke illustration

Thanks for your patience. The novel is now completed and will be soon sent to the publisher. A few quick thoughts:

• It's astounding that the former local Fox newsreader Kari "Trump in a Dress" Lake stands a good chance of becoming Arizona's next governor. Or not. I've been skeptical of Arizona becoming a purple, much less blue state. For one thing, the GOP-controlled Legislature passed voter suppression laws, as I warned. And Hispanics are not a monolithic voting bloc. They don't want police defunded. Many are suspicious of woke Democratic virtue posturing.

• It's astounding that Republicans — the Party that Broke America with the Iraq war, Great Recession, and Trump — remain not only relevant but favored to win control of one or both houses of Congress. Trump could win the presidency again, in our last election. When Herbert Hoover and the GOP were blamed for the Great Depression (where I've been living writing the second Gene Hammons novel), the Republicans didn't win the White House for 20 years, and then under the moderate Ike. Not now.

• Similar astounding that Trump and his enablers have faced no consequences for the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol. Lake is an election denier.

Read on about this blog and its future:

 

Death and life of Sunbelt cities

 

By Soleri

Guest Columnist

 

I hadn't been to Phoenix in several years, so my trip a couple of weeks ago was animated as much by curiosity as it was the desire to see old friends. I did know the city had more than recovered from the previous housing crash. Indeed, it was booming again. A dozen years ago, I predicted Phoenix would never recover from the crash. I don't like eating crow but if it's the sole item on the menu, so be it.

 

Much of what I did see made that crow taste better. Phoenix looked much healthier than when I moved to Portland in 2013.  The downtown had filled in with new high-rise apartment buildings and crowded clubs. The activity at night, in particular, was heartening to see.

 

What I didn't see were the thousands of "unhoused" mentally ill drug addicts who have turned much of Portland into a dystopian hellscape. Yes, street people were on the sidewalks of downtown Phoenix, but without the trash, tents, and drug paraphernalia that have so deeply damaged Portland. Phoenix is relatively litter-free and unmarred by graffiti.

 

Maybe it's the weather, or maybe it's because its political center of gravity is simply not in far-left field.

A Christmas letter

Illustrations by Carl Muecke

Here we are, hurtling toward a Democratic shellacking in 2022. And based on the voter suppression laws being passed by Republican-controlled legislatures around the country, they may never be in power again. For example, the Arizona Legislature has stripped the Secretary of State of the ability to certify elections. Now the Legislature itself will decide electors — here comes Trump in 2024.

Electoral success depends on quick results by the Democrats, not only on infrastructure (which Trump never delivered) but also rebuilding the social-safety net and addressing climate change. Instead, the monstrous Sen. Joe Manchin has torpedoed much of President Biden's agenda. West Virginia is among the poorest states in the nation. It one of the biggest beneficiaries of Biden's Build Back Better programs, but no. Manchin revels in being essentially shadow president. The razor-thin Senate Democratic majority that leaves so much power in the hands of Manchin and Arizona's Sen. Kyrsten Sinema. Both should be Republicans for the damage they did. They are anything but centrists. But let's not forget the Democrat's self-inflicted wounds.

These are nicely encapsulated on Andrew Sullivan's Substack column. (It's well worth a subscription). Here's some of the salient points Sullivan makes:

Grant Woods, an appreciation

The spontaneous outpouring of grief on news of Grant Woods' death at 67, too too young, is a measure of the man. We'll never see the same for Doug Ducey or Kyrsten Sinema or almost any Arizona pol you can name. Something similar might happen for Janet Napolitano or Terry Goddard, but this is an elite club.

Woods and I became friends when I returned to Phoenix in 2000 as a columnist for the Arizona Republic. A graduate of Mesa's Westwood High, we had long-running jokes because I had graduated from rival Coronado High in Scottsdale. He was a valuable off-the-record source and I knew the score. He'd already been ridden out of the Republican Party as a RINO. The state party had been radicalized since he was Attorney General from 1990 to 1999.

He was an outlier from the start, forcing the eccentric Bob Corbin from the primary and emphasizing civil rights, including a Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. Gov. Evan Mecham had repealed his predecessor, Bruce Babbitt's holiday proclamation in 1987. The holiday didn't become state law until 1992.

How to read the news

Penelope Abernathy at the University of North Carolina has been tracking the expansion of "news deserts" in the United States — counties with no local newspapers at all, and those with only one. Even the survivors are hanging on.

U.S. newspapers lost 48 percent of their journalists between 2008 and 2018, and the losses are now accelerated by the pandemic. More than 1,800 newspapers have closed since 2004. Arizona newspaper circulation dropped by 37% between 2004 and 2019. The Arizona Republic's circulation fell from nearly half a million at the turn of the century — 10th largest daily in the country — to 68,000 daily as of 2023. The Seattle Times is now the second-largest newspaper on the West Coast — larger than San Diego or San Francisco's newspapers.

Much of this this is because of the collapse of the old business model because of Craig's List and self-inflicted wounds. The trends reach further back. Circulation of all dailies peaked at more than 63 million in 1989. It was down to 46 million by 2009, then 26 million by 2020.

Many newspapers are now being sucked dry by hedge-fund owners. As a result, the most experienced journalists are being pushed out. What's left are cub reporters while institutional knowledge is lost. The alternative is television news/entertainment, which is typically a shooting, an auto collision, and Heather-with-the-weather. (An honorable exception is Brahm Resnik at 12 News, a newspaper-trained newsman).

Meanwhile, a gray area of news also exists. In Phoenix, this includes Cronkite News out of ASU, KJZZ, and AZ Big Media. Flagstaff and Tucson are served by Arizona Public Media. Each of these have plusses and minuses.

This situation has profound implications for a self-governing society. Only real journalism exposes corruption, shines a light on self-serving politicians, explains complicated issues, and knits together civil society. Let's look at how to read the news — I've been a reporter, editor, and columnist for nearly four decades.

Ground zero II

Carl Muecke illustration

In Phoenix this past weekend, Trump said, "If I lost the election, I could handle it pretty easily. But when they steal it from you and rig it, that’s not easy, and we have to fight!"

The location and big-lie language are no random coincidence. For the past several months the Republican-controlled state Senate has been conducting an "audit" of Maricopa County ballots. The goal is to show the presidential election was stolen here from Trump (When Fox "News" called Arizona for Biden, something approved by Rupert Murdoch himself, Trump exploded).

The "stolen election" and the January 6th insurrection to prevent the results from being certified by Congress, is a national Republican narrative. But, as with climate change, Arizona is ground zero.

The deeper consequence of the "audit" is to kneecap Arizona from turning purple or blue. It sets a blueprint by which any future election that goes Democratic can be challenged and even reversed. No wonder Republicans from other states have been watching closely and trying to install their own "audits."

It's not the only way Republicans are working to ensure they maintain power, whatever the changing demographics and politics of the nation.

Ground zero

Have you noticed how many stories are generated out of Phoenix and Arizona by big national news organizations, including the New York Times, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times? This is a big change from the days when we operated in relative obscurity. It is also no coincidence.

For one thing, the state is so different from the one I grew up in: 1.3 million population in 1960 vs. 7.2 million in 2020. Arizona was the 35th most populous state in the union in 1960. Now No. 14 — the third largest in the West — and Phoenix is the fifth most populous city. With size comes scrutiny.

But more important is that many of the crises of the future are being played out here. Climate change. Border pressures. Demographic shifts. The crisis of political legitimacy and our experiment in self-government. We have a front-row seat and are players. Yes, I'm happy for the Suns (and that the arena contract requires the team to keep the city name) and for the center-city infill. Happy for light rail (WBIYB).

But all is not well. Indeed, it's shocking how dark the future looks — and Arizona is ground zero.

The state of the state

Carl Muecke illustration

For all the talk about Arizona being flipped from red to blue, or at least purple, the reality on the ground is far different. That's because the most powerful branch of government, the Legislature, remains under Republican control — as it has for decades. The same situation is at work in the governor's office, where Doug Ducey is in his (term-limited) final stretch.

The most obvious result has been the "audit" of Maricopa County ballots, ordered by the Republican-run state Senate. Even if it eventually "validates" the election of Joe Biden as president, it has become a template for Republicans around the country and for any future elections they lose. It's hard to overstate the menace this presents to our experiment in self-government.

At the same time, the Legislature pressed two dozen voter suppression bills, intended to ensure that they continue to rule — widespread voting is the enemy of Republicans. One crafty measure will automatically purge by-mail voters who do not vote every two years. This happened even with mail voting widely popular in the state. Ducey took only a few hours before signing it into law.

Meanwhile, the body blows keep coming with such ferocity that it's difficult to keep up (see the daily headline links under "Phoenix and Arizona" to the left. The challenge is compounded by the hollowing out of local newspapers.

Arizona putsch

Carl Muecke illustration

If you've been following the daily links here on Phoenix and Arizona news (left), you know the GOP-controlled state Senate is conducting an "audit" of Maricopa County's 2020 presidential votes. It was here that President Biden pulled out his narrow victory.

As the Washington Post reported, the review "has been undertaken using an opaque, often inscrutable process, outside of the close view of objective third parties and with the assistance of obviously motivated actors, such as a former legislator who was at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6." Republicans now say 40,000 ballots were flown in, including from Asia written on bamboo. I am not making this up.

The most obvious insular lesson is that Arizona's status as a blue or purple state is unsettled as long as the Republicans control the Legislature, the most powerful branch of state government.

But what's happening here has profound national implications, too. Amid a push in Georgia, Florida, Texas, and other states to suppress voting, Arizona is taking it a step further. If an election's outcome is not what the GOP apparatchiks desire, the Legislature will intervene post facto. The goal is to overturn the result or, failing that, sow doubt about the election's legitimacy. Never mind that this was the election that put these lawmakers in office, too. Meanwhile, the GOP raises money and keeps the base ginned up for the critical 2022 mid-terms.

We can't have a functioning experiment in self-governance if the losing side refuses to accept the results of elections. John Adams was angry over the 1800 election but he peacefully transferred power to his bitter rival (and former and later dear friend) Thomas Jefferson. This path leads to civil war. Discuss.

 

 

Degrading by degrees

When the Republican-controlled Legislature isn't busy with voter suppression laws or bills to further the National Rifle Association wish list, it can still make time for brilliance such as this: Allowing community colleges to award four-year degrees.

Legislation to make this possible has passed the state House, the furthest it's gotten in years of being repeatedly introduced. It might pass the Senate. Moving the proposal this far required compromises with the Board of Regents. As Howard Fischer of the Capitol Media Service reported:

The colleges can’t just get into the business. Instead, it requires studies to determine if the colleges, supported largely with local tax dollars, can hire the necessary faculty and sustain the programs. There also has to be a determination that the degrees offered will meet needed fields and whether they would “unnecessarily duplicate” programs already offered elsewhere. And there’s no authority for new property taxes.

There’s an extra hurdle in HB 2523 for the colleges in Pima and Maricopa counties. They could initially offer only a limited number of four-year degrees, defined as no more than 10% of total degrees offered for the first four years and 15% for years five and beyond.

The new pintos

I operate the Arizona History Shop for journalists, amateur historians, and curious civilians — free and an email or phone call away. It's sometimes shocking how little Arizona's millions know about their (mostly adopted) state. The situation is even more startling with the East Coast media.

Today's exhibit is a story in the New Republic. Headline: "Arizona’s Democratic Senators Are Already Angering the Left." Subhed: "The activists who sent Mark Kelly and Kyrsten Sinema to Washington aren’t happy with their early moves in office." Kelly and Sinema voted for an amendment that would prohibit undocumented immigrants from receiving pandemic stimulus checks. TNR reports:

Latino advocates aren’t happy about it. “We are extremely disappointed by the vote that they have taken to strip stimulus funds from immigrants in the Covid stimulus bill,” Hector Sanchez Barba, executive director of the Phoenix-based group Mi Familia Vota says. “So we are sending a clear message, early in the game with a new administration, that this is unacceptable. We immediately mobilized our people on the ground, we immediately reached out, but we’re going to use all the political capital that we have. We’re going to use everything that we’ve been building in terms of political power to keep all the politicians accountable.”

Color Arizona

Joe Biden won Arizona. But, as the Duke of Wellington said of the Battle of Waterloo, "it was the nearest run thing you ever saw in your life." Biden prevailed with about 11,000 votes, or 0.3 percentage points, over the most criminal and dangerous president in American history.

Mark Kelly's victory in the Senate race was easier to foresee. Kelly is a former combat pilot and NASA astronaut, as well as husband of former Rep. Gabby Giffords, who was the victim of an assassination attempt.

Martha McSally, his opponent, had already lost a Senate race to Kyrsten Sinema and was appointed Senator by Gov. Doug Ducey in a cynical partisan attempt to give her the advantage. Didn't work, Doug. For the first time since 1952, Arizona has two Democratic U.S. Senators. Otherwise, of the nine congressional districts in the state Democratic incumbents won five.

So does Arizona become a "magenta state," as the New York Times put it? Not quite.

Despite heavy Democratic turnout and Latino activism, Republicans maintained control over the Legislature. More about this later.

Amtrak's returning to Phoenix

Or so go some headlines and social-media posts I've read. In today's denuded newspaper environment, with thousands of reporters laid off and spreading news deserts, in-depth reporting is hard to find. Anyway, this salutary news was reported by KJZZ, KPHO/KTVK, and other outlets.

As it turns out, Amtrak isn't returning anytime soon. The origin of the stories was a presentation in September to the Rail Passengers Association by an Amtrak official. It proposed establishing new corridors for intercity rail that would potentially reach Phoenix in ... 2035. If that's not bad enough, the plan is mostly aspirational. No funding is available for the expansion. That might change under President "Amtrak Joe." But 2035. Really? Another plan in 2010 went nowhere.

As late as the 1960s, Phoenix Union Station was served by multiple passenger trains of the Southern Pacific and Santa Fe railroads. They gradually died off, the casualty of decades of national transportation policies that subsidized automobiles and airliners while strangling railroads with regulations and high taxes. When the Postal Service ended mail contracts in September 1967, it left Phoenix with only an every-other-day Sunset on the SP Northern Main Line. This continued when Amtrak took over national passenger trains May 1st, 1971 (killing almost 200 trains that still ran).

Deliverance *

Whatever else, we had to defeat Donald Trump this year or it was curtains for the republic. And Joe Biden is now President-elect of the United States and Kamala Harris is Vice President-elect. As with climate change and the science of the pandemic, reality doesn't care what Trump and his cult "believe." A Supreme Court trick or other attempt to reverse the results would bring Civil War 2.0. But I don't think that will happen. At least not yet. Come January 20th, our long national nightmare will be over and America will trend back toward normality.

It was closer than it should have been, considering Trump's corruption, tens of thousands of lies, damage to the rule of law, antagonizing allies, and breaking norms. This wasn't Biden vs. Jerry Ford or even George W. Bush. But that was a different Republican Party. The Party of Lincoln is now the Cult of Trump.

The close election was partly the result of the "woke" extreme left. Every night of violence, looting, and arson in blue cities such as Seattle and Portland scared low-information voters in the Midwest and South into voting for Trump as the lesser of two evils. In their minds, a Biden victory would mean defunding the police! Reparations! Open borders! D.C. and Puerto Rico statehood! An immediate end to fossil fuels and confiscation of guns! Implementation of policies to favor BIPOC and LGBTQ-plus instead of equality and fairness and viewing people as individuals. And the drumbeat of America's "systemic racism," ignoring the huge leaps we've made or that every multiracial nation faces these challenges.

Judgment days

Carl Muecke illustration

We are heading into an election like no other. So rather than writing an essay on another topic — which few would read because of the voting — or putting up a history gallery...here's a revolving open thread. Older but still relevant links will fall below the jump.

I'll be putting up election stories and links, while you can have the comments section to weigh in. The Front Page will have links to non-election stories. You can follow my Twitter comments @jontalton

Now we're at Friday and it appears "all over but the shouting" — and lawsuits, recounts, and damage Trump might do until January. Biden is President-elect. It's fitting that Philadelphia, especially, propelled Biden over the top. The city where the Constitution was born is where it was saved. Four years ago, I could not have imagined Joe Biden as a world historical figure. But here we are. And I am satisfied. Next week, I'll examine this nail-biter in more detail.

The New York Times: A Traditionalist Who Ran As Himself: "In many ways, he ran as the politician he has always been. And for one extraordinary election, that was enough."

The Washington Post: Kamala Harris, daughter of Jamaican and Indian parents, elected nation's first female vice president: "Black women helped propel Harris and president-elect Joe Biden to victory by elevating turnout in places like Detroit, Milwaukee and Philadelphia. Those women will finally see themselves represented in the White House as Biden and Harris replace President Trump, who started his political career by perpetuating a racist birther lie about President Barack Obama and has a long track record of making misogynistic comments."

The Washington Post: Five Takeaways of the Election: Winners and losers.

The Atlantic: America Won: "If, in 2016, Americans rewarded anger and extremism, in 2020 they handed victory to a man of moderation, one who stands up for progressive ideals without looking down on conservatives, and who believes that it is possible both to be honest about the country’s flaws and to take pride in its strengths. Biden won because he recognized that most Americans have far less appetite for political extremism than the country’s cable-news hosts and social-media celebrities seem to think."

Arizona in play

Hope springs eternal. Every election cycle since Bill Clinton carried Arizona in 1996, the narrative has gone like this: The state will change politically as newcomers bring their (more liberal) values. And thanks to Hispanics Arizona is on the cusp (always!) of becoming a purple or even deep blue electorate. The 2016 map above shows how that worked out in the most recent presidential race.

Might it finally happen this year?

Before getting there, a little history. Arizona was a solidly Democratic state until Harry Rosenzweig persuaded Barry Goldwater to run against incumbent Sen. Ernest McFarland in 1952. Political fixer Steve Shadegg switched parties to run Goldwater's campaign — and Barry stunned Mac, the Senate Majority Leader and father of the GI Bill, in a close race.

Shadegg was a talented campaign manager and had a good product: Handsome, authentic, charismatic, sexy, ran with a fast crowd (the real Barry was nothing like he was depicted by the national press). But Mac was dragged down by more than this, more even than changing demographics. The Korean War was still dragging on as a stalemate. Americans who had won World War II were angry over a "police action" that didn't yield victory. Whatever glow Harry Truman attained in recent decades, he was deeply unpopular in 1952 and this hurt Democrats.

Still, it wasn't a sea change. Mac came back to Arizona and became highly successful as governor. And for the next three-plus decades Arizona was a competitive state for both parties. Our longest serving Senator was a Democrat, Carl Hayden.

Clickbait, climate, and more

It's no coincidence that I've lately taken refuge in historical photo galleries. This is a dangerous time to write. Yes, my pen is still warmed up in hell, but fearless commentary is risky, as illustrated by the resignation of Bari Weiss from the New York Times and Andrew Sullivan being nudged out by New York Magazine. We're in a time of hysteria and thoughtcrime, made worse by social media.

So, a few nuggets that stay within the guardrails (I have a day job to protect).

• Clickbait news releases fill my mailboxes every day. I don't use most because they're based on questionable premises and shoddy data. Unfortunately, too much struggling media do. Hence, the recent story ranking Phoenix as "the best city in the U.S. for working remotely." It was carried unquestioningly by KTAR and the Phoenix Business Journal, among other local outlets.

The tiny thread of this press release came from an outfit called HighSpeedInternet, claiming to rank cities or metro areas. "We looked at things like internet connectivity, cost of living, and commute time savings. We also looked at cities with access to coffee shops, libraries, and coworking space, which gives remote workers a chance to work from different locations – when a pandemic isn’t occurring." Phoenix was No. 1, followed by Atlanta, Kansas City, Raleigh, and Toledo.

Here's why the "survey" doesn't pass the smell test. If you don't have an economy geared to remote work (e.g. Seattle with tens of thousands of highly skilled Amazon, Microsoft, Apple, Google, and Facebook workers), you couldn't possibly get that rank. Res ipsa loquitur.

Arizona ends and odds

• The Arizona Republic continues to tiptoe around the water issue. Most recent is a story about the uneven water availability for cities in metropolitan Phoenix. A day before, the paper ran a piece headlined "Buckeye is the nation's fastest growing city. But it doesn't have the water to keep it up."

Where to begin? First, Buckeye is not a city except on legalistic paper. It is a far-flung collection of real-estate ventures ("master-planned communities") connected by wide highways. Buckeye has an astounding 393 square miles of area for 74,000 people. As James Howard Kunstler puts it, "the matrix of single-family home subdivisions, arterial highways and freeways, chain stores, junk food dispensaries, and the ubiquitous wilderness of free parking — the last of these implying just one insidious side-effect of this template for living: mandatory motoring."

By contrast, the city of Phoenix consists of 519 square miles and 1.7 million people — that's a city. Buckeye, once tiny stop on the Southern Pacific Railroad was never meant to be a "city."

But the big enchilada is that Arizona doesn't have the water to continue unlimited sprawl. Who will tell the people? Who will stop the Real-Estate Industrial Complex?

• Phoenix opened the "Grand Canalscape" trail along 12 miles of the Grand Canal from Interstate 17 to Tempe. Mayor Kate Gallego said, “People are surprised when I tell them that Phoenix has more canal miles than Venice or Amsterdam. Today we are integrating the canals into our communities to improve neighborhood access, add new public art spaces and contribute to a healthier Phoenix by introducing them as a recreational amenity."

The Grand Canal, one of the original legacies of the Hohokam, once looked like the photo above. The new "safe, convenient route for bicyclists and pedestrians" is a sun-blasted emptiness. Phoenicians don't even know what they lost. Aside from road-widening, the ministrations of the Salt River Project is the biggest killer of Phoenix's once-abundant canopy of shade trees. And more sprawl is not worth the destruction of even one of those trees, much less tens of thousands. In the meantime, enjoy your skin cancer and heat exhaustion. It's heartbreaking to imagine a shaded canal, even in stretches. But, no.

The road ahead

Oh, the temptation to put up another photo gallery of old Phoenix and let the traffic soar. But duty obliges me to put my shoulder to the task of commenting on our moment.

Forget a Democratic frontrunner. It's too early. I also know that some of you fervently want Bernie Sanders to win the nomination. Were the stakes for the republic and the planet not so enormous, I'd like to see it. When he got creamed, you would still believe — "He is the one!" — and make bitter excuses. But at least the zombie lies about how he wuz robbed in 2016 and would have triumphed if not for the eeevil DNC could finally expire.

America is not Seattle. Sanders can't win a general election. The angry shtick he honed on the Thom Hartmann radio program won't win a single swing-state vote that Hillary Clinton didn't carry and will alienate many that she did. He's not even a member of the Democratic Party and elides over the need for commanding Democratic majorities in the House and Senate to enact his sweeping agenda.

I generally agree with Sanders on many points. But he's not capable of winning. The American electorate is not me.

HRC lost the Electoral College in 2016 because of fewer than 80,000 votes in three Midwestern states. She won the popular vote by 3 million. And all this was in spite of Kremlin meddling, journalistic malpractice, vote suppression, Jill Stein, the Susan Sarandon cohort, and tepid support toward the end of the contest by Sanders. So few votes sealed our fate.

Phoenix in the 'teens'

In 2010, Phoenix and Arizona were stuck in the worst (by most measures) bust since the Great Depression. Unemployment peaked at 10.9% in January statewide and 10.2% in metro Phoenix. Single-family housing starts in the metro area plunged from a monthly peak of 6,000 in 2004 to 854. Construction jobs fell from 183,000 in June 2006 to 81,000 in the summer of 2010. Phoenix was a national epicenter of the housing crash.

It was an eerie time. Freeways that had been clogged with tradesmen's pickup trucks were noticeably empty.

Now, nearly a decade later, the economy has recovered. Metro Phoenix joblessness was 4.1% in October, higher than the 3.6% nationally but still a marked improvement. Building permits clawed out of the 2009 trough but are still at levels of the early 1990s.

Population — the holy of holies worshipped by the local-yokel boosters — bounced back. After falling from 2008 to 2010, it rose by 653,000 by 2018 in the metro area. A much ballyhooed snapshot had the city itself the fastest-growing in the United States from 2017 to 2018. But the percentage rate of change looks to be slower this decade than the 2000s or the record 1990s.

True, the decade doesn't officially end until a year from now. But the "twenties" begin in the popular imagination this New Year's. So let's take stock of the "teens":

'Solutions' annotated

From the Arizona Republic on Nov. 17th. My annotations are in black.

Headline: ‘We need to act fast’: Statewide forum focuses on climate solutions for Arizona. Journalists are pushed to seek solutions to largely insoluble problems. Steve Jobs was more on the mark when he critiqued Fox News to Rupert Murdoch: "The axis today is not liberal and conservative, the axis is constructive-destructive, and you’ve cast your lot with the destructive people. Fox has become an incredibly destructive force in our society."

Lede: With climate change cranking up the heat and intensifying droughts, more than 400 people from across Arizona gathered Friday and Saturday to brainstorm solutions for reducing planet-warming pollution and preparing for a hotter, drier future. What people? Doug Ducey? Developers? Republicans who have held control over the Legislature for decades? Elliott Pollack? Grady Gammage. No...

Second graf: Among them were young activists who see climate change as the defining issue for their generation. The time to act is now, they said. You bet. But what power do they have? Do they vote? Did they drive to the conference, adding to climate-causing emissions (rhetorical question)?

Next grafs: “This is rapid change and we should do something about it before it’s too late,” said Alicia Rose Clouser, a 13-year-old eighth-grade student from Sinagua Middle School in Flagstaff and a member of the Navajo Nation.

“My people will be suffering for generations on if we don’t do something,” she said. Mandatory inclusion of a woman and "marginalized person" but otherwise empty information calories.

Next: The two-day conference at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff brought together the students and teenage activists along with academics, health officials, tribal representatives, environmentalists, representatives of farming businesses, urban planners and city officials, and people from the community who said they wanted to be part of the discussion. Now we finally get the "who" — none of whom have the power to enact policies that would address climate change.

The plot against light rail

This is the reality of Phoenix's light-rail system: nearly 16 million passengers carried in the most recent fiscal year; expansion of the original 20-mile starter line to 26 miles; an essential link between ASU's Tempe and downtown campuses; 30 percent of riders use the train for work; large numbers use it to reach sporting events; $11 billion in private and public investment has occurred along the line since 2008.

Light rail has also proved essential in giving Phoenix, Tempe, and Mesa a fighting chance in an era where talented young people and high-quality companies want to be in city cores served by rail transit.

None — not one — of the hysterical predictions of opponents to light rail came true.

No wonder that voters backed light rail in three elections, in 2000, 2004, and 2015. We built it.

But destructive forces never sleep, never stop. Backed by dark money — including the Koch brothers and their nationwide war on transit — here comes Proposition 105 in the Aug. 27th special election. As is often the case, it's presented as an affirmative to deliberately confuse voters. "Vote yes!" hoping some will think they are supporting rail transit by marking that line. Signs say, "Yes on 105. Fix our roads" — but this has nothing to do with fixing roads; that's a different budget and roads are being fixed.

Don't fall for it. Vote no on Prop. 105 and its devilish companion, Prop. 106.

Mayor Gallego

Kate Gallego is the first mayor of Phoenix in 20 years who I don't know personally. That has disadvantages and advantages. The downside: I haven't spent hours over coffee or in city hall getting tips, sharing gossip, and taking the individual's measure. On the other hand, she's pretty much a blank slate to me, which allows me to see her totally from the perspective of an outsider.

All I know is what I read in the newspapers, and from Phoenix insiders, to paraphrase Will Rogers. She's not the first woman mayor of Phoenix — that distinction goes to Margaret Hance (and Thelda Williams was interim mayor). She's young — 37. She's smart, because she went to Harvard and everyone who's been touched by crimson is smart, or so we're told. On the Council, she supported transit but, wrongly to my mind, opposed upgrades to keep the Phoenix Suns downtown. Gallago is a relative newcomer. Otherwise, she's an unknown commodity.

The last time Phoenix had such a young mayor was the four years of Paul Johnson, who was in his early thirties when he took office in 1990. It was an unhappy tenure. Phoenix was hit with its worst recession since the 1930s and most projects from a big bond issue, which had been passed in the Goddard years, had to be postponed or downsized (one being a new City Hall). How much of this had to do with Johnson's youth is debatable — he was dealt a bad hand and to many did the best he could — but his relative lack of experience hurt him. To be extra fair, Terry Goddard was an impossible act to follow.

November impressions

As I write, Kyrsten Sinema has pulled ahead of Martha McSally in the Senate race. Republicans are suing to stop counting of ballots that have already been cast. Similar shameful gambits are underway in Georgia and Florida. The Party of Lincoln Trump will do anything to hold power. This is authoritarianism, dear readers.

If Sinema holds on, and the rule of law survives the Ducey appointed state Supreme Court, it would be an astonishing accomplishment. Sinema would have an insurmountable lead of not for the wasted votes of the Greens. As long as the Nader-Jill Stein-Bernie Bro faction insists on its purity, the Republicans will keep winning. No revolution will come from the left. It's already come from the right and is succeeding quite nicely.

Before Democrats take control of the U.S. House in January, Trump and the Republicans are capable of anything. Make sure your seats are in their full upright position and your seatbelts fastened. The survival of the republic is at stake.

Other notes:

• November feels like late September and early October in old Phoenix. This is on track to be the hottest year in recorded Arizona history, yet the booster magical thinking continues about what climate change means for Arizona.

• As much as I'm happy about the infill of the Central Corridor, I'm sad to lose the special view from Third Street looking south to the mountains. This was especially enchanting passing through Alvarado, where much of the lush old oasis still prevails.

• I am baffled by "shade structures," which are little more than ribs of steel or other designs that provide little shade at all. Not smart in the skin-cancer capital of America. Old Phoenix was covered with shade trees, as well as businesses that had awnings and overhangs to protect from the sun.

• We are at the centennial of the Armistice than ended the Great War. Our world was made by that conflict and its aftermath. Phoenix, too: Demand for cotton caused farmers to switch wholesale to the crop, reducing the diversity of agriculture in the Salt River Valley. After the war, cotton prices crashed, with hard times here.

Now I'll leave the comments section as an election open thread.

 

 

 

 

 

The next Phoenix mayor

I know that I should have a firm conviction about the mayoral election, but I don't. We can ignore the Republican and Libertarian candidates — their dogmas are totally unsuited to the needs of the nation's fifth-largest city. That leaves Kate Gallego and Daniel Valenzuela.

Both are supported by people I respect. According to the Arizona Republic, Gallego's backers include former U.S. representatives Harry Mitchell, Sam Coppersmith, Ron Barber and Anne Kirkpatrick, as well as former state Attorney General and Phoenix Mayor Terry Goddard. Valenzuela's big names include retired U.S. Rep. Ed Pastor, former Phoenix mayors Paul Johnson, Skip Rimsza and Phil Gordon, councilwomen Laura Pastor and Debra Stark, and business leaders Jerry Colangelo and Sharon Harper.

That makes a choice tough. Gallego may get a tilt in her favor because she represented central Phoenix on City Council. But I'd be interested in what commenters say.

Neither Gallego nor Valenzuela were on the transformative City Council of the 2000s that helped land T-Gen and supported light rail (WBIYB), the downtown ASU campus, Phoenix Convention Center, Sheraton and other civic goods that led to today's downtown revival. 

Carolyn Warner, an appreciation

I still subscribe unfashionably to the Great Man and Great Woman school of history. But history also carries cruel contingencies. Carolyn Warner, who passed away Monday night at 88 was a towering figure who might have saved Arizona from the Kookocracy, saved Arizona from itself.

Instead, Democrats split the gubernatorial vote in 1986, giving us Evan Mecham, then Fife Symington, and, with the Big Sort bringing ever more right-wingers and the old stewards passing, the die was cast.

Along with her ex-husband Ron, Warner ran the furniture and interior design store that bore their name at 28th Street and Osborn. It was for years the fanciest furniture store in town. A native of Ardmore, Okla., she came to Arizona in 1953.

As Superintendent of Public Instruction for 12 years, Warner oversaw the last period of great public schools in Arizona, long before the shameful charter-school racket. Although a Democrat, she worked well with pragmatic Republicans such as Burton Barr, in an era of both bipartisan compromise and competition. 

Brains, trains, and automobiles

The biggest local story of the week is the unanimous (!) decision by the Rump City Council to raid funding intended for light-rail extension to Paradise Valley Mall and use it for street maintenance. As disheartening is that, as far as I know, neither major candidate for mayor has spoken out against it.

This comes soon after the Council (6-2) bucked an aggressive astroturf campaign by the Koch interests to kill that south Phoenix light-rail line (yes, the Wichita billionaires are deeply involved in destroying local transit). One step up and one step back. What's going on? A few observations:

The Council has changed from the consensus of the 2000s that brought some of the most constructive measures in decades. These include light rail (WBIYB), the downtown ASU campus, T-Gen and the downtown biomedical campus, and the new convention center. In recent years, the Council is less visionary and more divided — a situation made more difficult by the departure of Mayor Greg Stanton, and mayoral candidates Kate Gallego and Daniel Valenzuela.

Phoenix's size and means are wildly unbalanced. The Arizona Republic reported that city staff estimated that "4,085 of the city's 4,863 miles of streets will fall below a ‘good’ quality level in the next five years and require maintenance. Currently, 3,227 miles are already in fair, poor, or very poor condition. Bringing all of the streets up to a 'good' level in five years would cost $1.6 billion that the city does not have." 

Ten years after

Newspapers are full of retrospectives on the Panic of 2008, the financial crisis that led to the Great Recession. Phoenix and Arizona were one of the ground zeros of the housing crash, the result being the worst recession here since the Great Depression.

True, its effects were buffered by the safety net of the hated Franklin Roosevelt, including the copious amounts of Social Security checks that kept coming from the hated federal government. Still, unemployment shot up to nearly 11 percent statewide by 2010, slightly less in Phoenix and Tucson. The main industry, housebuilding, had been shot in the head. Prices fell 50 percent in many cases. Recovery was much slower than peer metros.

A decade later, single-family building permits are back at early 1990s levels. Construction employment is not only not recovered from the 2000s bacchanal but far below historic trend. This would be good news for conservationists but for the fact that much of existing and planned construction involves suburban pods in bladed desert, farmland, or forest.

So let others discuss Lehman Brothers, the Federal Reserve, how close we came to a second Great Depression, the good and bad of the response and recovery. What's so striking in Phoenix is how little was changed by this tectonic event. 

McCain, an assessment

A man who made “straight talk” one of his trademarks would surely not be satisfied with the flood of worshipful accolades enshrining him as a unique hero, statesman, and patriot for the ages. My aim is to remedy that.

I put my shoulder to this necessary task knowing that he was admired and even loved by people I respect. They range from Grant Woods to Alfredo Gutierrez and Neil Giuliano. I never much cared for John McCain, both because he did so little to use his prestige and power to help his adopted state, and because his conservatism helped set the table for today’s emergency.

More about that later.

McCain suffered terribly as a prisoner of war and heroically refused an early release as the son of the admiral in charge of Pacific forces. This denied a propaganda coup to the communists.

Still, hundreds of American soldiers, Marines, airmen, and naval aviators suffered at the hands of Hanoi as well.

In World War II, the treatment of Allied POWs by the Japanese was barbaric. After they were liberated, Gen. Jonathan Wainwright who surrendered the Philippines and British Gen. Arthur Percival who surrendered Singapore were positioned beside Douglas MacArthur on the deck of the U.S.S. Missouri for the Japanese surrender. Nearly walking skeletons in uniform, their presence was powerful. No one remembers them today.

McCain served 31 years in the Senate. But his legislative record was minimal. This is certainly so compared with giants such as Edward Kennedy, Hubert Humphrey, Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, Robert Taft, Robert La Follette Sr., Arthur Vandenberg, or Arizona’s Ernest McFarland.

Mac, who served as Senate Majority leader, was the father of the GI Bill. Along with Carl Hayden, another towering figure from Arizona, he worked tirelessly for the Central Arizona Project. So did Sen. Barry Goldwater and Reps. Stewart Udall, Mo Udall, and John J. Rhodes. 

Kooks and Kochs try to derail south Phoenix light rail

It appears that the six mile light-rail line to south Phoenix is on life support. I say "appears" because much of the reporting on the issue has been inaccurate. The Arizona Republic's Jessica Boehm reported the immediate news correctly, but plenty still needs to be filled in.

If I understand correctly, the City Council — with transit-backers Mayor Greg Stanton gone and Councilmembers Kate Gallego and Daniel Valenzuela set to resign in August to run for the seat — voted to "redesign" the south line along Central Avenue. This is to address a "grassroots" opposition complaining that Central would lose two of four lanes for automobile traffic.

Redesign may well mean death and loss of federal funding, especially with the rump Council after August. Skillful/shameful maneuvering by Councilman Sal DiCiccio, an ardent light-rail opponent, even took hostage City Manager Ed Zuercher, threatening his job and the city budget. This is the shorthand to a very complex moving drama.

It's no secret that the Koch brothers and other dark money groups are working to kill transit projects around the country. The anti-rail fetish on the right has always puzzled me. The "You Bastards" part of WBIYB is intended for them and their thuggish opposition to the starter line. And it's always possible to find a few discontents for a "grassroots" front group. But south Phoenix voters approved this line by 70 percent. If the likes of Better Call Sal prevail, this would be a blunder of historic proportions. For the facts and context, please read on. 

The stand

I'm the beneficiary of Arizona public schools. At Kenilworth in the 1960s, we never suffered textbooks falling apart or holes in the ceiling. No, this elementary school whose alumni included Barry Goldwater, Paul Fannin, and Margaret Hance, which was integrated and taught everyone from poor kids to the scions of the Palmcroft elite, had superb teachers. It had a library and a verdant playing fields — the monstrous freeway only a line on a planning map — presided over by a magnificent, inspiring building.

At Coronado High School in middle-class Scottsdale, the story was much the same. Some of the finest teachers anywhere, one of the top fine-arts departments in the country, and Ralph Haver's inspired mid-century architecture. None of my teachers at either school were forced to buy supplies. Neither school was surrounded by a prison-like fence — and the '60s and '70s were hardly peaceful decades. There was even a brief teachers' strike in Scottsdale in 1971.

Now a statewide walkout is occurring. It is about much more than some of the lowest teacher pay in the nation. More even than gutting a billion dollars from public schools while dolling out tax cuts to the wealthy and politically connected. More than teachers seeing through Gov. Doug Ducey's cynical promise to raise wages 20 percent — something that wouldn't even bring their pay to the national average, and would require the Legislature to take money from other critical needs. Because...tax cuts. Taxes must always be cut.

Teachers have finally made a stand.

I have no idea whether it will be successful. I doubt it can change Arizona's trajectory. But the stand needs to be made. 

If Alabama...Arizona?

The Deep South has not elected a Democratic Senator since 1992, but the state apparently drew the line at "If She's Old Enough to Pee, She's Old Enough for Me" on Tuesday. Doug Jones, who prosecuted two KKK perpetrators of the 1963 church bombing that killed four African-American girls, beat Roy Moore, who was wildly unqualified even before allegations of stalking adolescent girls emerged.

The natural question for readers here is, If this can happen in Alabama, why not in Arizona?

I'll take my victories where I can get them, to paraphrase Soleri. But this race had special circumstances. Republican turnout was lower than normal, depressed by the prospect of the odious Moore. And African-Americans overcame vote suppression to turn out in large numbers and put Jones in office — if only for three years.

Arizona lacks these advantages. The people who actually vote are overwhelmingly old, Anglo, and right-wing. This is why Democrats don't hold a single state-wide office. It's why the Republicans have controlled the Legislature for decades and never paid a price for the ongoing failure of "conservative" policies. These are the voters who reelected Joe Arpaio again and again, despite his lethal brand of "law enforcement."

The Hispanic vote, the holy grail of hopes to turn Arizona purple, even blue, has never materialized. Hispanic turnout is always shockingly low, even in city of Phoenix elections. It was not nudged by the attack of SB 1070. Arizona lacks the infrastructure of powerful political organizations and unions that bring large numbers of Latinos to the polls in, say, California. Most Hispanics are poor, and poor people vote in far fewer numbers than other income groups. And it can't be assumed that Hispanics are a lock for Democrats anyway. I heard from a number of Mexican-Americans who quietly supported SB 1070.

'Smart city'

I see that the local-yokel boosters bamboozled Popular Mechanics into doing a story claiming that Bill Gates wants to build a "smart city" in the Phoenix exurbs. This lacks any corroborating evidence, any skeptical journalism. It is, as the old newsroom joke goes, a story too good to check. What we do know is that Gates' investment arm plinked down $80 million for a stake in the speculative "master planned community" called Belmont. The promoters want to built 80,000 tract houses, along with industrial, office, and retail space.

The whole thing strikes me as dodgy. Water availability, especially in the long-term, is one of the two biggest issues facing Phoenix. A game of musical chairs is being played thanks to the complexity and opaqueness of Arizona's water law and enforcement. But the outlook is not good. The metro area and state are past population overshoot, especially for the one-trick-pony of building single-family detached tract houses in an ever-widening footprint of sprawl. The other unpleasant reality is climate change, which bodes very ill for the state. More sprawl destroys the unique, lovely Sonoran Desert.

The ghost of Ned Warren is looking on the spectacle of taking $80 million in Bill Gates' chump change with envy. As I wrote in a Seattle Times column, being one of the world's cleverest men in one field — bringing enormous riches — does not make you smart in everything else. Maybe he'll make a quick buck if the project is ever built. The suckers left holding the bag won't be so fortunate.

Similar sad hilarity came from a New York Times Magazine piece about Doug Ducey making Arizona the capital of self-driving cars. No regulations, come on down! The problem is that the companies will neither have their well-paid design and engineering jobs nor make the vehicles here. They will merely use our abundant freeways and wide streets to experiment. What could go wrong? 

Flake out

Amid all the orgasms about the "heroism" of Jeff Flake's speech on the floor of the Senate is this fact: He stuck around to vote with the Republican majority to deprive customers of the right to sue the banksters.

The soon-to-be-former junior Senator from Arizona is a right-wing Republican. He has a lifetime rating of 93.07 from the American Conservative Union, one of the highest in the Senate (wealthy Republican John Sidney McCain III scored 81.62. This gold-standard score rates members on their votes for "conservative causes." He's higher than Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

While he said some laudable things, what's he's actually done is quite different. He voted for the repeal of the Affordable Care Act, which would have deprived between 23 million and 26 million of his fellow Americans of health insurance. He voted for every one of Trump's deplorably unqualified and corrupt cabinet members. He opposed sanctions on Russia.