Don't bother staying up late to see the results of the Arizona presidential primary

The Presidential Preference Election in Arizona (what we folks here call our presidential primary) is over.  At least it will be after some stragglers in Maricopa County vote.

(The consistent ineptitude/malice of Maricopa County's chief elections officer, Helen Purcell, can and will be the subject of a separate post in the near future.)

The MSM pundits will soon declare one or the other candidate to be the "winner", even though most of them know full well that pledged Democratic delegates in Arizona are awarded proportionally, with candidates needing to reach 15% of the vote to earn any delegates.

Given that there are two main candidates (Sen. Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton) running fairly evenly (with Clinton ahead) nationwide, both should attain that 15% threshold easily.

Based on that, the "winner" will be expected to earn more than half of Arizona's pledged delegates, but nowhere near all of them.

Except that it's not quite that simple.


The Arizona Democratic Party does, in fact, award its pledged delegates proportionally, and 15% is the minimum vote threshold needed by any candidate to receive some.

Where it gets complicated is in the fact that delegates are awarded based on *Congressional District* and the 15% threshold applies to each district's votes.

From the Delegate Selection Plan crafted by the Arizona Democratic Party -

To sum up, mathematically, a candidate could "lose" statewide, but still end up with more pledged delegates than the "winner" if he or she wins in a couple of districts by a large enough margin to shut out the other candidate while finishing far behind the other candidate in the other districts, but still earning enough of the vote in those places to break the 15% threshold.

Or to sum up the "sum up", don't go to bed thinking you know how the Arizona primary turned out.

It won't be "over" until all of the district level results are tallied.

Arizona Legislature: The coming week

One takeaway from this week's planned agendas at the Capitol:

There's now proof that when a legislator tells you that one of the schemes to take authority away from the federal government is all about their love of "local control", they're lying about that "love".

According to the latest update from State Senator Steve Farley, we should start hearing rumblings about a state budget soon.  He noted that there may be some recalcitrant Republicans who "feel they got rolled last year on the budget and are determined not to make that mistake again."

My prediction:

Though some of the Rs mentioned above may try to gum up the works as they hold out for some earmarks in the budget, it's an even-numbered year (aka - an election year).  They all want to get out of the Capitol and start campaigning for reelection.  Plus, the leaders of each chamber are running for Congress this year (Senate president Andy Biggs: CD5; House speaker David Gowan: CD1).  In other words, there will be a flurry of activity behind the scenes, the budget will be revealed "suddenly", railroaded through the lege in three days with a minimum of public input, and "sine die" will take place shortly thereafter (not much of a prediction there; that's the way the lege has operated for years).

Let this be the first public sine die date prediction:  Thursday, April 14.


We've reached the part of the legislative session where the committee process is over - except for the chambers' respective Appropriations committees.

So far, this week's meeting of House Appropriations looks harmless ("so far" is a big caveat - at the Capitol, things can change quickly), but Senate Appropriations?

Not so much.

Among the measures up for consideration this week:

- A proposed striker to HB2163, overruling any local ordinances regarding pet stores and puppy mills

- HB2501, a scheme to move any and all health-related boards and commissions under the purview of the state Department of Health Services and giving the director of DHS veto power over any regulations proposed by those entities

- A proposed striker to HCR2014, a proposed amendment to the state's constitution to have the voters renounce their vote in 2006 establishing a minimum wage that is higher than the federal minimum wage and further, bar municipalities from establishing local minimum wage levels

- HB2690, a proposal to remove the licensing and oversight of pawnbrokers from county sheriffs and local agencies and give that responsibility to the Arizona Department of Public Safety


The rest -

Notes:

All committees meetings and agendas are subject to change without notice, and frequently do.  If you plan to travel to the Capitol to observe or weigh in on the consideration of a particular measure, check with the lege ahead of time to confirm that the meeting that you are interested in is still on schedule and your item(s) of interest is still on the agenda for that meeting.

Meeting rooms designated "HHR" are in the House of Representatives building. Meeting rooms designated "SHR" are in the Senate building.

All House committee agendas can be found here. All Senate committee agendas can be found here.

Committee schedule (mostly just copied and pasted from the lege's website.  The agenda links work, as of this writing, but may not later in the week if an agenda is modified in some way):

Agenda Date	Committee	Time	Room	HTML Document
03/24/16	Government and Higher Education	9:00 A.M.	HHR 1	Click Here
03/23/16	Appropriations	2:00 P.M.	HHR 1	Click Here
Agenda Date	Committee	Time	Room	HTML Document
03/24/16	Education	9:00 A.M.	SHR 1	Click Here
03/23/16	Finance	9:00 A.M.	SHR 3	Click Here
03/22/16	Appropriations	2:00 P.M.	SHR 109	Click Here

Floor Calendars:
The House has COW (Committee of the Whole) calendars (here and here) scheduled for Monday.

The Senate has a COW calendar posted for Monday.

There will be floor calendars later in the week, but those are generally posted the day before, or even the day of, consideration.

The lege's Capitol Events calendar is here.

It's "Demonize The 'Other' Time" at the Arizona legislature

...Not that it's ever *not* "Demonize The 'Other'' Time" down at the state capitol...

In this week's schedule post, I warned that strikers (strike everything amendments) could pop up at any time.

Turns out, I was being prescient - many committee agendas were updated on Monday...and the week is still young.

What may be the most nativist measure proposed by this bunch (and that's saying something) is a striker now added to Wednesday's agenda for the House Judiciary Committee.

That meeting was already scheduled to start at the painfully early (by legislative standards, anyway; for normal people, it's early, but not outrageously so) of 8 a.m. because of the long and ugly agenda.

And with Monday's changes to the agenda, it is now longer and uglier.

Committee chairman Eddie Farnsworth has agendized a striker proposal to SB1452 -

A proposal to demonize refugees and organizations that aid them.

The text of the proposal -

A.  For five years after RESETTLING a refugee, A refugee resettlement agency is liable for both of the following:

1.  The indemnification of this state or any political subdivision of this state for the cost of prosecuting a refugee received by the refugee resettlement agency for resettlement in this state.

2.  Damages or injuries suffered by a victim that are proximately caused by any criminal act committed by a refugee received by the refugee resettlement agency for resettlement in this state.

B.  This state, a political subdivision of this STATE or a victim of a criminal act committed by a refugee may commence a civil action against a refugee resettlement agency for any damages or injuries that are proximately caused by the refugee's criminal act.

C.  On or before July 1 of each year, a refugee resettlement agency shall report to the department of insurance on a form prescribed by the department its financial capacity to meet any obligations imposed under this section in an amount up to twenty-five million dollars. 

D.  If a refugee resettlement agency fails to make the report prescribed in subsection C of this section, the department of insurance shall impose a civil penalty of not more than one thousand dollars per refugee relocated in this state by the refugee resettlement agency in the previous five years.  Each day after July 1 that a REFUGEE RESETTLEMENT agency fails to comply with subsection C of this section is a separate violation.

E.  For the purposes of this section:

1.  "HIGH-RISK COUNTRY" MEANS ANY COUNTRY OR TERRITORY THAT IS either of the following: 

(a)  DESIGNATED AS A STATE SPONSOR OF TERRORISM BY THE UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF STATE.

(b)  IDENTIFIED AS HIGH RISK BY A UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT AGENCY, INCLUDING THE UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY, THE UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY, THE FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION or THE OFFICE OF THE DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE.

2.  "Refugee" means any person who is a citizen of a high-risk country and who has been granted either of the following:

(a)  refugee status pursuant to 8 United states code section 1157.

(b)  ASYLUM pursuant to 8 United states code section 1158. 

3.  "refugee resettlement agency" means any nongovernmental agency that RECEIVES refugees for resettlement in this state. 

Sec. 2.  Emergency

This act is an emergency measure that is necessary to preserve the public peace, health or safety and is operative immediately as provided by law."

I don't know which is worse - Farnsworth et. al. trying to use their positions to turn their private hatreds into public policy, or their unmitigated gall in adding a declaration that their hatred (and yes, fear) constitutes an emergency.

Oh, and I think that we have the front-runner for the award for most shameless two-step of the legislative session -

In a lege notorious for it anti-federal government sentiments and actions, Farnsworth uses sections of federal law to define which groups of people will be affected by his hate missive.

Arizona Legislature: The coming week

This is the last week when bill proposals can be heard in committee (there are a few ways around that rule, but the ways involve some serious sucking up to legislative leadership and/or the chairs of the respective chambers' Appropriations Committees).

In short, there's a *lot* of ugly on committee agendas this week.

This is also a very good week to pay attention to agenda changes - bills will be added to or removed from agendas with nearly no notice, strikers will be proposed out of nowhere, and meeting times will be changed.

Some examples, meaning that as long as this list may be, it's not even close to being comprehensive:

- A striker to HB2113, seeking to overturn any and all municipal bans on "puppy mills" (Senate Natural Resources, Monday)

- HB2579, barring municipalities from regulating "nonwage compensation", such as requiring sick pay (Senate Commerce and Workforce Development, Monday)

- HB2652, removing any labor protections for people like Uber and Lyft drivers by inserting language into state law that makes them "independent contractors" (Senate Commerce and Workforce Development, Monday)

- HB2445, allowing motor vehicle insurance providers to "non-renew" insurance policies for almost any reason (Senate Transportation, Tuesday)

- HB2300, barring the state or its political subdivisions (counties, municipalities, etc.) from enforcing or assisting with the enforcement of any federal law, rule, policy, etc. that they deem as infringing on the 2nd Amendment

- HCR2043, a proposed amendment to the Arizona Constitution to allow the legislature to override the Voter Protection Act; more on this one from AZBlueMeanie at Blog for Arizona here (Senate Federalism, Mandates, and Fiscal Responsibility, Tuesday)

- HB2517, barring counties, municipalities, etc., from enacting or enforcing rules, regulations, ordinances, policies, etc. that may restrict or inhibit the formation and operation of businesses, except under limited conditions (Senate Government, Wednesday)

- HB2537, Doug Ducey's scheme to pack the Supreme Court with pliable judges (Senate Government, Wednesday)

- HCR2023, another proposed amendment to the Arizona Constitution to allow the legislature to override the Voter Protection Act (Senate Government, Wednesday)

- HCR2035, a proposed amendment to the Arizona Constitution to hamstring the authority of the Citizens Clean Elections Commission (Senate Government, Wednesday)

- HB2043, exempting profits from speculation in gold and silver coins (calling those things "specie legal tender") from taxation, but making financial losses from such speculation tax-deductible (Senate Financial Institutions, Wednesday)

- HB2480, limiting the amount of "additional state aid" for education that the state can appropriate for education (Senate Finance, Wednesday)

- HB2115, attacking public employees by barring them from receiving a pension or severance pay if they are found to have "misappropriated" public funds.  The bill does not require that such an allegation be proven in court before the penalties are imposed (Senate Judiciary, Thursday)

- HB2123, gutting conflict of interest rules applied to members of the Arizona Corporation Commission (aiding their former colleague, Andy Tobin, a former House Speaker and current member of the ACC) (Senate Judiciary, Thursday)

- SB1516,  well, their title for this nugget of ugly is "campaign finance amendments" but it should be titled the "dark money protection act" (House Elections, Monday)

- SB1266, creating penalties for political subdivisions that enact, and for officials that enforce, any law, ordinance, rule, etc. that restricts firearms any more than state law does (House Judiciary, Wednesday)
- SB1474, barring scientific research on fetal tissue or embryos from abortions (House Judiciary, Wednesday)
- SB1485, barring state employees from making donations to Planned Parenthood through payroll deductions (House Judiciary, Wednesday)

- SB1324, imposing restrictions on medication-induced abortions (House Judiciary, Wednesday)

- SB1437, nullifying part of the National Defense Authorization Act (House Federalism and States' Rights, Wednesday)


The rest -

Notes:

All committees meetings and agendas are subject to change without notice, and frequently do.  If you plan to travel to the Capitol to observe or weigh in on the consideration of a particular measure, check with the lege ahead of time to confirm that the meeting that you are interested in is still on schedule and your item(s) of interest is still on the agenda for that meeting.

Meeting rooms designated "HHR" are in the House of Representatives building. Meeting rooms designated "SHR" are in the Senate building.

All House committee agendas can be found here. All Senate committee agendas can be found here.

Committee schedule (mostly just copied and pasted from the lege's website.  The agenda links work, as of this writing, but may not later in the week if an agenda is modified in some way):

Agenda Date	Committee	Time	Room	HTML Document
03/17/16	Agriculture, Water and Lands	10:00 A.M.	HHR 3	Click Here
03/17/16	Government and Higher Education	9:00 A.M.	HHR 1	Click Here
03/17/16	Military Affairs and Public Safety	9:00 A.M.	HHR 5	Click Here
03/16/16	Appropriations	2:00 P.M.	HHR 1	Click Here
03/16/16	Commerce	9:30 A.M. NOTE TIME CHANGE	HHR 1	Click Here
03/16/16	Education	2:00 P.M.	HHR 4	Click Here
03/16/16	Federalism and States' Rights	9:00 A.M.	HHR 5	Click Here
03/16/16	Insurance	10:00 A.M. NOTE TIME CHANGE	HHR 4	Click Here
03/16/16	Judiciary	8:00 A.M. NOTE TIME CHANGE	HHR 3	Click Here
03/15/16	Banking and Financial Services	2:00 P.M.	HHR 3	Click Here
03/15/16	Health	2:00 P.M.	HHR 4	Click Here
03/15/16	Rural and Economic Development	2:00 P.M.	HHR 5	Click Here
03/15/16	Transportation and Infrastructure	2:00 P.M.	HHR 1	Click Here
03/14/16	Children and Family Affairs	2:00 P.M.	HHR 5	Click Here
03/14/16	County and Municipal Affairs	2:00 P.M.	HHR 4	Click Here
03/14/16	Elections	9:30 A.M. NOTE TIME CHANGE	HHR 4	Click Here
03/14/16	Energy, Environment and Natural Resources	2:00 P.M.	HHR 1	Click Here
03/14/16	Rules	1:00 P.M.	HHR 4	Click Here
03/14/16	Ways and Means	2:00 P.M.	HHR 3	Click Here
Agenda Date	Committee	Time	Room	HTML Document
03/17/16	Education	9:00 A.M.	SHR 1	Click Here
03/17/16	Judiciary	9:30 A.M.	SHR 109	Click Here
03/16/16	Finance	9:00 A.M.	SHR 3	Click Here
03/16/16	Financial Institutions	2:00 P.M.	SHR 109	Click Here
03/16/16	Government	2:00 P.M.	SHR 3	Click Here
03/16/16	Health and Human Services	2:00 P.M.	SHR 1	Click Here
03/16/16	Public Safety, Military and Technology	9:00 A.M.	SHR 1	Click Here
03/15/16	Appropriations	2:00 P.M.	SHR 109	Click Here
03/15/16	Federalism, Mandates and Fiscal Responsibility	9:00 A.M.	SHR 3	Click Here
03/15/16	Transportation	2:00 P.M.	SHR 1	Click Here
03/14/16	Commerce and Workforce Development	1:45 P.M. OR UPON ADJ OF FLOOR (NOTE TIME CHANGE)	SHR 1	Click Here
03/14/16	Natural Resources	9:00 A.M.	SHR 109	Click Here
03/14/16	State Debt and Budget Reform	10:00 A.M.	SHR 3	Click Here
03/14/16	Water and Energy	2:00 P.M.	SHR 3	Click Here

Floor Calendars:

The House has a Final Read (approving changes to House bills that were amended in the Senate) calendar scheduled for Monday.

The Senate has a COW (Committee of the Whole) calendar posted for Monday.

There will be floor calendars later in the week, but those are generally posted the day before, or even the day of, consideration.

The lege's Capitol Events calendar is here.

Arizona legislature: The coming week

Lots of baying at the moon on tap this week at the Capitol -

- HB2201, Treason Act 2016 (barring the state and its subdivisions from cooperating with any federal action that is considered to be "commandeering", be it a law, executive order, regulation, court decision, etc.) (Senate Federalism, Mandates, and Fiscal Responsibility, Tuesday)

- HCR2031, a proposed amendment to the state constitution increasing the exemption from taxation on business personal property from $50K to $2.4 million (Senate Finance, Wednesday)

- HB2481, imposing limits on the property taxes that may be levied by counties for use by their school district (Senate Education, Thursday)

- SB1141, making gold and silver acceptable forms of payment for debts, and exempting from taxation profits from speculation involving that (House Federalism and States' Rights, Wednesday)

- SB1282, John Kavanagh's move to limit the public's access to public records by giving legal protection to the denial of access to those records if the keeper of the records deems a request to access those records as "unduly burdensome" or "harassing" (House Government and Higher Education, Thursday)

- SB1266, Barring the state's political subdivisions from enacting any ordinance, rule, policy, etc. that restricts firearms any more than state law already does, and creating heavy fines as penalties for doing so (House Judiciary, Wednesday)

- SB1474, Barring scientific research on fetal tissue or embryos from abortions (House Judiciary, Wednesday)

- SB1485, barring state employees from making donations to Planned Parenthood through payroll deductions (House Judiciary, Wednesday)

- HB2081, barring background checks for private firearms transfers (Senate Commerce and Workforce Development, Monday)


The rest -

Notes:

All committees meetings and agendas are subject to change without notice, and frequently do.  If you plan to travel to the Capitol to observe or weigh in on the consideration of a particular measure, check with the lege ahead of time to confirm that the meeting that you are interested in is still on schedule and your item(s) of interest is still on the agenda for that meeting.

Meeting rooms designated "HHR" are in the House of Representatives building.
Meeting rooms designated "SHR" are in the Senate building.
All House committee agendas can be found here.
All Senate committee agendas can be found here.
Committee schedule (mostly just copied and pasted from the lege's website.  The agenda links work, as of this writing, but may not later in the week if an agenda is modified in some way):

Agenda Date	Committee	Time	Room	Agenda
House side of the Capitol
03/10/16	Agriculture, Water and Lands	10:00 A.M.	HHR 3	Click Here
03/10/16	Government and Higher Education	9:00 A.M.	HHR 1	Click Here
03/10/16	Military Affairs and Public Safety	9:00 A.M.	HHR 5	Click Here
03/09/16	Appropriations	NOT MEETING	HHR 1	Click Here
03/09/16	Commerce	9:30 A.M. NOTE TIME CHANGE	HHR 1	Click Here
03/09/16	Education	2:00 P.M.	HHR 4	Click Here
03/09/16	Federalism and States' Rights	9:00 A.M.	HHR 5	Click Here
03/09/16	Insurance	10:00 A.M.	HHR 4	Click Here
03/09/16	Judiciary	9:00 A.M.	HHR 3	Click Here
03/08/16	Banking and Financial Services	2:00 P.M.	HHR 3	Click Here
03/08/16	Health	2:00 P.M.	HHR 4	Click Here
03/08/16	Rural and Economic Development	2:00 P.M.	HHR 5	Click Here
03/08/16	Transportation and Infrastructure	2:00 P.M.	HHR 1	Click Here
03/07/16	Children and Family Affairs	NOT MEETING	HHR 5	Click Here
03/07/16	County and Municipal Affairs	2:00 P.M.	HHR 4	Click Here
03/07/16	Elections	NOT MEETING	HHR 4	Click Here
03/07/16	Energy, Environment and Natural Resources	2:00 P.M.	HHR 1	Click Here
03/07/16	Rules	1:00 P.M.	HHR 4	Click Here
03/07/16	Ways and Means	2:00 P.M.	HHR 3	Click Here
Senate side of the Capitol
03/10/16	Education	9:00 A.M.	SHR 1	Click Here
03/10/16	Judiciary	9:30 A.M.	SHR 109	Click Here
03/09/16	Finance	9:00 A.M.	SHR 3	Click Here
03/09/16	Financial Institutions	2:00 P.M.	SHR 109	Click Here
03/09/16	Government	2:00 P.M.	SHR 3	Click Here
03/09/16	Health and Human Services	2:00 P.M.	SHR 1	Click Here
03/09/16	Public Safety, Military and Technology	9:00 A.M.	SHR 1	Click Here
03/08/16	Appropriations	2:00 P.M.	SHR 109	Click Here
03/08/16	Federalism, Mandates and Fiscal Responsibility	9:00 A.M.	SHR 3	Click Here
03/08/16	Transportation	2:00 P.M.	SHR 1	Click Here
03/07/16	Commerce and Workforce Development	1:45 P.M. OR UPON ADJ OF FLOOR (NOTE TIME CHANGE)	SHR 1	Click Here
03/07/16	Natural Resources	NOT MEETING*	SHR 109	Click Here
03/07/16	Rules	1:00 P.M.	Caucus Room 1	Click Here
03/07/16	State Debt and Budget Reform	10:00 A.M.	SHR 3	Click Here
03/07/16	Water and Energy	2:00 P.M.	SHR 3	Click Here
03/10/16	Education	9:00 A.M.	SHR 1	Click Here

Floor Calendars:

The House has a COW (Committee of the Whole) calendar scheduled for Monday.

The Senate has both a COW calendar and a Third Read (final approval) calendar posted for Monday.

There will be floor calendars later in the week, but those are generally posted the day before, or even the day of, consideration.
The lege's Capitol Events calendar is here.