For nearly a decade now, Arizona politics has been defined by the struggle to stop illegal immigration.

For the past few years, the focus has largely been on pushing for strong “internal enforcement” policies that would make it harder for illegal immigrants to continue living in the state.

SB1070 passed almost two years ago, but additional policies that would alter how schools and hospitals deal with illegal immigrants failed to pass through the Legislature last year.

This year appears to be different, with the focus shifting to the Mexican border in a new way.

A set of bills currently moving through the Legislature would aim to put a volunteer militia on the watch near the Mexican border and begin the enormous project of building a new fence on our southern border.

SB1083 is the bill that would fund a volunteer border militia.

A law created last … Read More »

Placing the “I” word in front of Redistricting Commission doesn’t mean it’s really independent.

And the five commissioners — Democrats Linda McNulty and José Herrera, Republicans Richard Stertz and Scott Freeman and independent chairwoman Colleen Mathis — who soon will begin redrawing the state’s legislative and congressional district boundaries, are about to find out that politics, like desert sand in the summer winds, infiltrates everything, no matter what adjective modifies their group.

Politics, of course, is mobilization and persuasion, the handshakes, backslaps and wagging fingers in the opponent’s face. But the seeds of politics are in the unlikeliest of places: on a piece of paper. For it is the mission of the IRC, written in the Arizona Constitution, to satisfy six standards of electoral theory, and two of them are on a collision course: “communities of interest” and “competitive districts.”

Already, Hispanic activists … Read More »