Somebody, Please, Teach Jim Weiers How To Count

We're in the middle of the budget doldrums here in AZ; everybody could go home if the House just got to vote on the Senate budget, but the GOP House leadership wants to keep whipping their ideological hobbyhorses in hopes that maybe THIS time, the sawdust really will transform into horse flesh. We'd all be safer and happier if the legislators just went home because while they're sitting around waiting for the budget to appear again, those idle hands have increased opportunities for performing the devil's work. It's a supply-and-demand kind of thing.

This YouTube parody is worth 60 seconds of your time.

MATH MADE SIMPLE FOR THE HOUSE GOP
East Valley Tribune, May 20, 2007

The Speaker of the state House of Representatives absolutely needs only one skill: the ability to count to 31. So Speaker Jim Weiers, R-Phoenix, really shouldn't have confirmed his lack of arithmetic skills last week.

The House GOP leadership rolled out their Republicans-only budget for a vote. Usually in a legislative body, leadership won't call a vote unless they know the result. Otherwise, they tell everybody in advance that the vote is uncertain for one of two possible reasons: the issue is purely a matter of individual legislators' consciences, or really doesn't matter.

But with big issues like the budget, the majority calls the vote only with a solid idea of the result. That's the whole point of having a whip organization and those leadership posts. Sometimes you proceed when you're a vote or two shy, hoping that momentum will bring a recalcitrant representative along. But good leaders never just roll the dice -- especially for the last big votes of the session.

Both lobbyists and legislators figured Weiers called the vote because he had the 31. "I assumed they were going to the floor because they had the votes," said Rep. Jennifer Burns, R-Tucson, one of the GOP moderate opposing the budget for failing to fund child care, health care, and Child Protective Services.

But doing his homework is apparently not Weiers's style. "You never know what's going to come up there," he said after six Republicans (3 from each end of the GOP ideological spectrum) joined all Democrats in defeating the leadership budget, 27-31. Maybe Weiers never knows, but most competent legislative leaders wouldn't be caught on the wrong side of a vote they called.

While Weiers has announced that the House GOP leadership will try again this week, all he did was confirm the opposition's strength. Meanwhile, in the Senate, as unlikely a political odd couple as you'll ever find, GOP leader Thayer Verschoor of Gilbert and Democratic leader Marsha Arzberger of Willcox, worked together on a bipartisan budget supported by strong majorities in both parties, fending off amendments by legislators of both parties to get the package approved.

That bipartisan cooperation contrasts with the Weiers approach in the House, where only Republican were allowed to participate in budget deliberations -- until earlier this month, when two Democrats on the Appropriations Committee, Pete Rios, D-Hayden and Linda Lopez, D-Tucson, voted for the budget in committee. Rios and Lopez claimed that they supported the bill because of their amendment to give state employees a bigger pay raise. However, the GOP offset the pay hike by cutting employee benefits by more. Thus, Rios and Lopez cut a deal to get less for state employees. With such negotiating savvy, I hope I can buy my next car from them.

With two possible Democratic votes, Weiers thought he might squeak by, but Rios and Lopez realized just how bad the deal was, and when the floor vote came, stood with all other House Democrats to vote no. Somehow, Democratic leader Phil Lopes of Tucson kept his caucus together, something Weiers couldn't do, proving that you can make fun of, but shouldn't underestimate, anyone who can tie a bow tie.

The Senate budget would pass the House in a flash, should Weiers allow it to reach the floor for a vote, and everybody could go home. But Weiers wants to keep trying, despite his failure last week. It's not clear there's a substantive reason at stake here; the difference between the Senate and House budgets is all of 0.03 percent. Weiers must want to try yet again to score political points off Gov. Napolitano, because it's not like there's an actual principle at stake here.

So here's your math question for the week: Which budget would you support: the bipartisan Senate plan, which Gov. Napolitano already has said she'd sign, or a budget pushed by somebody who can't count to 31? No need to show your work on this problem.

"Private Property Rights" Means I Don't Have To Fulfill My Agreements

I said I loved writing about homeowner associations, people are so wonderfully dispassionate and analytical. Who knew that real property law could push so many buttons? It's like when the plot in Body Heat turned on [a mistaken interpretation of] the rule against perpetuities.

Next time you meet a libertarian, ask him (it's almost always a him) how that whole private-contracts-eliminating-the-need-for-government thing worked out in their friendly neighborhood HOA. My suggested headline was "Living in a Libertarian Paradise" but I got the bigger slot on the op-ed page so I needed a bigger headline.

SB 1330 passed the legislature last week, and goes to the governor. HOA managers (and people who actually do pay their assessments) are lobbying her to veto it, but this looks like a huge political loser, where the people who care really, really care a lot, despite being wrong on the merits, and the general public interest couldn't care less. But at least this debate lays bare what most people mean by "private property rights" is (1) I get to do what I want with my property and (2) you also get to do what I want (and nothing more) with your property.

DON'T COMPLAIN -- HOAs ARE A LIBERTARIAN WONDERLAND
East Valley Tribune, May 13, 2007

Nothing gets Tribune readers going like homeowner associations. A fairly sterile debate about lien priorities and homestead exemptions gets people all riled up.

It’s not as if Senate Bill 1330 will have much practical effect. Even if the statute changes, HOAs will make future buyers waive the exemption. And nobody seems concerned about the issue raised by the Twin Rivers case, whether HOAs can limit political speech; no, in Arizona, we only care whether HOAs can recover assessments and fines on sale of a property. It’s not the principle of the thing, it’s the money.

It’s also amazing that people who detest HOAs choose to live in communities with associations. My family has lived in three different houses in Arizona; one was a rental and we’ve owned two. None had a HOA. We wanted a short commute and a neighborhood that had actual trees instead of just being named after trees. There’s also the side benefit of not raising our children to think that in America, your neighbors must approve your choice of paint color for your house.

Our choice, however, is apparently merely a market niche, and the planned community lifestyle predominates here. But it’s not mandatory to live the HOA life, and isn’t it more than a touch ironic to watch all these libertarians screaming for government intervention to protect them from their freely-made economic decisions? Suddenly, people who want to leave health care entirely to the tender mercies of the market sing a radically different tune regarding HOA fines and assessments.

But the most amazing thing is how HOAs put the lie to two of the American public’s most cherished myths -- of the pointless inefficiency of government and of the great wisdom, insight, and goodness of the American people.

People complain that politicians are too partisan, that they refuse to put aside their ideology and party labels, and that if you just empowered some ordinary Americans, they’d just do what they thought was right and solve the nation’s problems. People also complain that government is nothing but rules and bureaucracy that get in the way of actually accomplishing things.

HOAs suffer from neither problem; they’re not partisan or ideological, and they don’t suffer from a surfeit of laws, rules, and bureaucracy. That was supposed to be a good thing. It’s the modern version of the old story of the local yeoman farmers electing one of their number to govern them with humility and homespun wisdom, doing what he (always a he) thinks is right. Who needs lots of rules and hearing requirements and bureaucracy, when you can trust your neighbor to do what he or she thinks is right?

But that’s not how it works in practice, is it? The problem with empowering individuals is that many handle that power about as wisely as, well, they drive. That’s the problem, folks -- you have to design a system that understands that power won’t be given to some idealized exemplar of American virtue, but to the dope driving the car in front of you.

I especially love the folks claiming that the solution to gun violence is for everybody to carry a weapon. You don’t trust your neighbors to impose a $100 fine or to interpret pool use rules fairly -- but trust them to make split-second life-and-death decisions? How nuts is that?

Face it, people: At least some of government’s inefficiency and lack of responsiveness comes from requirements like due process, open meetings, public records, judicial review, rulemaking, nondiscrimination, and public bidding, all of which limit individual initiative and creativity in the name of oversight and fairness. Bureaucracy is designed so that everybody gets treated the same, which you hate when you’re not being treated special -- but if you give people unfettered power to decide things as they think best, you shouldn’t be surprised if they decide, for their own idiosyncratic reasons, that you stink and should suffer accordingly.

HOAs are libertarianism in practice -- private contracts, no government meddling, living with the consequences of your choices. If you don’t like the results, then maybe you should rethink your ideology.

Libertarians Cry Out For Government Action!

I'm going to have to write about homeowner associations again; it's amazing the vehemence that it brings out in people, especially considering how in the 1990's these private institutions were going to end municipal government as we knew it, that local government was a dinosaur that soon would be extinct as the more fleet-footed, mammalian HOAs took over the governance ecosystem. Yes, we decided to empower private individuals to control their own community's destiny--and who could have predicted that the people getting that power would use it as well as, say, they can drive cars? I think next week's column is how we gave the power to homeowners to control their neighborhoods, and look how that's turned out; now we're going to have the very same people carry guns and we're going to be safer? Can't wait for that.

My suggested title was "HOAs: Threat or Menace?" but the editor didn't get that joke. And for those of you who know my father-in-law, you know that he's a man who really does need no introduction.

WHEN IT COMES TO HOA REGULATIONS, FATHER-IN-LAW KNOWS BEST
East Valley Tribune, May 6, 2007

Extracting the U.S. from Iraq is child’s play compared to a political debate raging in my world. On one side are my editorial overlords at the Tribune, scourge of homeowner associations everywhere. On the other side is a HOA finance committee member who happens to be my father-in-law. It’s not hard to guess where I come out.

Today’s issue involves whether HOA assessments should be limited by the homestead exemption. HOAs get their powers from recorded declarations, the all-powerful Covenants, Conditions and Restrictions incorporated into every deed to property in the subdivision, and which every purchaser is deemed to accept. Nobody has to buy property in an association, but if you do, you’ve agreed to be subject to the HOA. It’s a private arrangement, it's more efficient, government shouldn’t interfere -- all that libertarian right-to-contract stuff.

In 1996, the Arizona Legislature attempted to rein in HOAs by, among other changes, capping annual assessment increases -- but also confirmed that association liens weren’t subject to the homestead exemption, which prohibits the forced sale of a residence valued under $150,000. People can waive the homestead exemption, and many CC&Rs provided for such a waiver; the statute confirmed such waivers’ validity.

Subsequent legislatures restricted HOA lien foreclosures to assessments (plus collection charges and expenses) only; other liens couldn’t be foreclosed and only could get collected when the property got sold. But -- contrary to Tribune senior opinion writer Le Templar’s brief summary in last week’s column -- the series of amendments over the past decade makes clear that the original 1996 amendment wasn’t a broadening of HOA power, but rather just confirming what existed at the time, and the validity of those CC&Rs that people accepted when they purchased.

It’s the latest attempt to curb HOAs where Templar gets crosswise with my father-in-law. Templar believes that HOAs shouldn’t be able to enforce their liens, whether for assessments or otherwise, despite the homestead exemption; HOA liens shouldn’t be treated like taxes or mortgages, but rather like other non-favored creditors, and debtors shouldn’t have to give up their homes to pay delinquent assessments or fines. Templar supports SB1330, which would not just bar foreclosures, but also make any HOA lien unenforceable unless the homeowner’s equity exceeded $150,000 -- even at the sale of the property.

My father-in-law, however, argues that preventing HOAs from collecting on liens unless equity exceeds the homestead exemption shifts the burden for operating the association to those owners who pay their assessments on time. He sees the work the HOA does, paid for by the majority of owners, as creating property value -- value in which the non-payers want to share but not pay, even though they agreed to do it. To prevent what Templar sees as abuse would allow deadbeats to avoid their obligations -- and make those playing by the rules pay for their share and the deadbeats’ too.

Those of you without a relative in HOA leadership may come out differently on this issue, but what’s most interesting is that HOAs were once seen as the wave of the future; Edge City, Joel Garreau’s 1991 book, saw privatized organizations like HOAs inexorably taking over from strapped and increasingly incapable municipalities. But now we see so-called conservatives in Arizona using old-fashioned government to limit HOA powers -- and forcing HOAs to act more like governments, with open meeting and free speech requirements.

The HOA world now awaits the decision of the New Jersey Supreme Court, expected later this year, in the Twin Rivers case. An appellate court held that the state constitution’s free speech protections apply to HOAs, which have "a constitutional obligation not to abridge the individual exercise of such freedoms."

In Twin Rivers, the state ACLU chapter sued to overturn the HOA’s restrictions on political signs. In Arizona, Rep. Eddie Farnsworth (R-Gilbert) is leading this latest charge to restrict HOAs. Fast Eddie and the ACLU, together at last, united by shared distrust of homeowner associations. Is this a great country, or what?

Letters, They Get Letters

Dueling letters to the Jewish News of Greater Phoenix. First, the serve:

Jews should be at forefront of life issues
(April 13, 2007)

Editor:

I am fascinated by the article regarding the recipient of Planned Parenthood's highest honor ("Planned Parenthood lauds Sam Coppersmith," Jewish News, March 30).

Family planning needn't involve the termination of life. There are numerous ways to plan one's family that don't involve killing a growing human fetus. Jews, of all people, should be in the forefront of life issues and the protection of both the innocent unborn and life at the opposite end of the spectrum. As a people, we have suffered at the hands of genocidal maniacs who felt that our lives were worthless and expendable.

Tevye, in "Fiddler on the Roof," said it very well: "To Life! L'Chaim!"

Karen Fischer
Scottsdale

And the return:

Real Judaism vs. Broadway Judaism

(May 4, 2007)

Editor:

If my mother had read the letter to the editor "Jews should be at forefront of life issues" (Jewish News, April 13), she'd have gone into full Jewish mother outrage that her kvelling over my Peggy Goldwater Award from Planned Parenthood was interrupted by some buttinski from Scottsdale. The nerve!

Well, my mom's long gone, so instead I'm outraged on Planned Parenthood’s behalf.

Claiming Planned Parenthood is only about abortion makes as much sense as claiming that all you need to know about Judaism is a song from a Broadway musical. Planned Parenthood is the largest sexual health and family planning organization in Arizona, serving more than 55,000 patients annually, and reaching thousands more through educational programming and advocacy work.

Planned Parenthood provides over $2.5 million in uncompensated health care in our state, with one out of four patients receiving free care. No organization does more than Planned Parenthood to prevent unintended pregnancies, through access to affordable or no-cost birth control and education programs that convey accurate information.

With all those extremists who claim that "family planning should be more than abortion," ever notice how they never actually do anything for family planning? Their real agenda is to prevent individual women from making their own moral decisions -- something real (as opposed to "Broadway") Judaism would find abhorrent.

Sam Coppersmith

Phoenix

It Was All Hidden In Plain Sight

In DC, they're making a movie about Rick Renzi. It's called "Dead Man Walking." My suggested headline was "Big News From Arizona (as reported elsewhere)" but the editor went drier and more clinical (and less interesting).

There's nothing we know now (apart from 40 FBI agents raiding the guy's wife's business--but we don't know what they were looking for or what they found) that we didn't know 6 months ago. That wasn't reported 6 months ago. But the powers that be here in AZ just ignored it until it appeared in The Wall Street Journal--then it became real! We can't ignore it anymore! Sheesh.

Last week, after publication of the front-page Journal story, The Republic editorialized:

Partisan Democrats have tied the two Renzi investigations to last fall's firing of the U.S. attorney for Arizona, Paul Charlton. Unlike the paper trails tracking the land deals, however, there is no evidence so far that the demonstrably inept Attorney General Alberto Gonzales fired Charlton to stave off an FBI investigation that was already well under way. Not yet, at least.

Fascinating--it's all the fault of those partisan Democrats. But what, exactly, is the Bush administration explanation for firing Charlton? Have they produced one? After everything that we've learned about Gonzales and the Bush White House, is there anybody who wants to make a bet that the Renzi investigation wasn't the reason?

Jaime Molera and I are doing the two-sides-of-every-issue thing for the "At the Capitol" segment tonight's Horizon program, 7 pm on Channel 8 (and streaming on the KAET website). He likes John McCain, I don't.

NATIONAL MEDIA KEEP TABS ON RENZI
East Valley Tribune, Apr. 29, 2007

Rick Renzi is the latest GOP gift that keeps on giving; almost every morning, another shoe drops. I just hope he doesn't resign before this column runs. If only for continued enjoyment of this scandal, House Democrats better keep William "Doesn't everybody keep cash in their freezer?" Jefferson, D-La., off any committees, too.

For those depending on Arizona media for Arizona news, a brief recap is required. Renzi is a three-term GOP congressman from Flagstaff -- in the sense that a pro athlete is "from" Phoenix, it's where he plays but it's not where he grew up or where his family lives. Renzi is the son of a retired Army general, formerly the commandant at Fort Huachuca in Sierra Vista, who now works for ManTech, one of the base's largest contractors, with some $500 million in contracts. Sierra Vista isn't anywhere near Renzi's congressional district.

Renzi also was reelected last November using a TV ad that Jacob Weisberg of Slate, who usually bends over backwards to blame both sides, called "pure political poison" in which "not a single claim in the ad is actually true." Renzi also is the subject of two separate federal investigations, one reportedly looking into whether he used his official status to benefit his father's employer. In 2003, he sponsored legislation that would have relaxed water restrictions on Fort Huachuca, allowing expansion of the base. Renzi claimed that ManTech couldn't benefit, because the company somehow could transfer its contracts to another base. Neither daily newspaper here found anything noteworthy in Renzi pushing a bill benefiting his father's employer.

It took The Wall Street Journal to report the other investigation, whether Renzi used his office to push the sale of a 480-acre parcel owned by Renzi associate James Sandlin. Renzi first demanded that Resolution Copper purchase the land near Fort Huachuca before he'd support a federal land swap for Resolution's new copper mine. Renzi then told a second group that purchasing Sandlin's parcel was "a matter of national security" and key to Renzi's support for their proposed exchange. After selling to the second group, Sandlin paid a Renzi family business $200,000.

The Journal then reported last Wednesday that the Renzi investigations "faced unexpected obstacles" and those delays "postponed key approvals in the case until after the [2006] election." The Hill newspaper also uncovered that Renzi didn't disclose Sandlin's $200,000 payment as required by House rules. The Washington Post then reported that Renzi's chief of staff, Brian Murray (former executive director of the Arizona Republican Party) called U.S. Attorney Paul Charlton in late 2006 about the Renzi investigations -- which Charlton's office, as required, reported to the Justice Department. However, Justice somehow failed to disclose that call in their "document dump" about the U.S. Attorney firings.

Charlton first appeared on Justice Department lists of "bad" U.S. Attorneys in a Sept. 13, 2006 memo, a late addition. Nobody from the Bush administration has managed to explain why Charlton was let go, so it's getting easier to connect it to the Renzi investigations. There aren't documents, so far, linking Charlton's firing to delaying these investigations -- but the White House keeps stonewalling on those emails on Republican National Committee servers used by Bush administration staffers. You know, the ones that haven't been "lost."

Republicans used to love the FBI when it investigated the Clinton administration. But the FBI isn't pro-Republican; it's anti-incumbent. Oops!

Not only are the Arizona media playing "report-what's-being-reported-elsewhere" on an Arizona story with national implications, but even when reprinting someone else's story, The Arizona Republic puts their own spin on the ball. Last Thursday, the Republic reprinted a Washington Post story, with the headline "Renzi Aide Called U.S. Attorney to Ask About Probe/Chief of Staff Inquired About Land Deal Investigation; Prosecutor Among Eight Who Were Fired." The Republic's version: "Renzi Aide's Call to U.S. Attorney Inflames Dems."

See? You don't need Fox News to learn the GOP talking points. But based on our local media getting scooped on Rick Renzi, you'd better read national papers to know what's happening in Arizona.

Compare and Contrast

I didn't have room in the column to include the ledes, but here's how the Washington Post article on the Renzi chief of staff contact with the U.S. Attorney office got translated into the Arizona Republic version:

First, here's the Post:

Renzi Aide Called U.S. Attorney to Ask About Probe

Chief of Staff Inquired About Land Deal Investigation; Prosecutor Among Eight Who Were Fired

The top aide to Rep. Rick Renzi (R-Ariz.) called the office of Arizona's U.S. attorney about six weeks before the prosecutor was fired, inquiring about a federal probe into the congressman's role in a land deal that benefited a former business partner and political patron.

And here's how it appeared in the Republic:

Renzi aide's call to U.S. attorney inflames Dems

Reports that the top aide to Rep. Rick Renzi, R-Ariz., called the office of Arizona's U.S. attorney about six weeks before the prosecutor was forced to resign further fanned the ire Wednesday of Democrats conducting a sprawling investigation into the ousters.

Nothing to see here, folks; we didn't drop the ball on this story, it's nothing but he-said, she-said politics, no way we could have known about this until we were scooped by The Wall Street Journal in our own backyard. Go click on the links, and you'll see a newspaper that's always looking over its right shoulder, worried that what appears in print won't match the viewpoint of some right-wing cranks more than they worry about getting the real story. And it's not the Post, they've got their own problems but not that one.