Arizona Strike-Everything guts open primary bill

-- 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)

TODAY'S NEWS HEADLINES for INDEPENDENT VOTERS

• Those who don't usually vote can make a big difference in 2008 (Fond du Lac Reporter)


• The Swing Voters Who Count First (CBS News - reprinted from CSM yesterday)


• A third-party candidate still a wild card? (Ashville Citizen Times)


• Independent voters give Obama hope in 2008 race (Reuters)


• Wonder why the Dems aren't getting us out of Iraq? Six of the top 10 senators in defense campaign contributions in the 2006 election cycle were Democrats (Seattle Post Intelligencer)


• FEC OKs Naming Candidate Names in Pre-Election Issue Ads (CQ Politics)


• The Buzz: More Iowans also say “new direction and new ideas” are more important to them than “strength and experience.” (Kansas City Star blog)


• Arizona: 3rd District independent Annie Loyd [Photo above] says “From the two-party system, the political spin has been independents don’t care, that they’re not active, that they’re not affiliated because they don’t want to make a commitment. That’s not what they’re saying at all. They’re saying, ‘Neither party represents fully what I believe.’” (East Valley Tribune Phoenix)


• Florida: Former Orange County Undersheriff Malone Stewart will seek to replace independent Beary in election for sheriff - Beary left the Republican Party last fall, saying he was tired of partisan politics.(Orlando Sentinel)


• Barnum & Bailey & CNN (Los Angeles Times)