State Sen. Jonathan Paton was delighted to hear Monday that Gov. Jan Brewer had signed a bill eliminating partisan elections in the city of Tucson.
“I am very happy because I feel like in 2011, candidates are, for the first time, going to have to appeal to everyone in their wards instead of just a narrow minority,” Paton says.
Paton, a Republican lawmaker, may have succeeded in eliminating one of the barriers that GOP candidates have in winning in the city of Tucson, where Democrats hold a commanding voter-registration advantage.
But Ward 3 City Councilwoman Karin Uhlich, a Democratic who may harbor mayoral ambitions in 2011, says she believes the city should challenge the new law in court if City Attorney Mike Rankin believes there’s a legal foundation.
We’ll have more in this week’s Tucson Weekly!
This article appears in Jul 9-15, 2009.
So what was Fred Ronstadt, Roy Laos, Lew Murphy, Kathleen Dunbar and Bob Walkup then, chopped liver?
Also, Paton’s comment in the morning fishwrap about appealing to a fringe element, what does horse tipping, fireworks, religion in public schools, declaring the earth 6,000 years old, guns in bars, guns in parked cars, too numerous to count measures dealing with abortion while still in session, special regular or otherwise with no budget, no solution for the state’s economic plight count as?
Following up, who did all this at the Arizona Legislature?
The Republicans, so if these people in charge are not appealing to a fringe element, who is?
Perhaps a charter review for the City of Tucson as well as a state constitutional convention maybe in order.
I believe we should follow Senator Paton’s recommendations for Tucson governance with similar rule changes that would require non-partisan elections and procedures for our state legislature.