-- Arizona partisan politics has produced a peculiar habit: state legislators are allowed to gut a bill, called "strike everything", and substitute another bill into the framework, thus ending up with a completely different bill with the same number. So when independent Congressional candidate
Annie Loyd went to testify yesterday on a bill that the state Senate passed legislation by a 27-0 margin that would allow independents to vote in the contests, apparently
the state House frankly didn't give a damn. By the time Annie got there, the House had struck everything from this bill. No soup for you!
Here are 2 more examples of this practice:
- Add teeth, or pull bill aimed at self-promotion (East Valley Tribune Editorial) That plan couldn’t get even a committee hearing in the state Senate. So Waring used a “strike-everything” amendment to put his proposal on another bill that already had reached the House.
- It's back: Marriage proposal resurrected (Arizona Capitol Times)
2 comments:
This Arizona legislative measure, like the Florida proposal, is/was unconstitutional under the US Supreme Court's ruling in Tashjian v. Republican Party of Connecticut (1986), which gave parties the right to invite independents to vote in their primaries. This choice is up to each party: the state has no say-so in the matter.
Both Arizona parties have obviously decided that they want only registered party members helping to choose their delegates to the national conventions. A voter who truly wants to participate in this process should register with the party of his or her choice.
You must be right about the legalities, but let's face it -- when Democrats and Republicans sit in office year after year, decade after decade, generation after generation, they're the one's making the laws. It's time for some ordinary people to be heard!
Post a Comment