Brewer clueless on insult to GOP

(PNI) From the political notebook:

Gov. Jan Brewer recently sent out another appeal to Republican Party activists asking them to eschew primary fights over her Medicaid expansion. The letter merely reinforced that the governor still does not understand the magnitude of what she has done.

She did not just force through her Medicaid expansion over the opposition of most legislative Republicans and activists. She shut out three-quarters of Republican lawmakers from any meaningful input into the state budget, the most fundamental of all governing documents. She emasculated the Republican legislative majority in a way that Democratic Gov. Janet Napolitano never did.

Yet this shouldn't be a topic of debate and discussion in Republican primaries? What the hell should be discussed in the 2014 Republican primaries? What kind of NBA draft candidates think the Suns had?

Primaries are where parties sort out internal squabbles about policy, personnel and procedures. Brewer says that the soundness of her policy (Medicaid expansion) and the propriety of her action (orchestrating a temporary coup of both legislative bodies) shouldn't be debated in Republican primaries because that might help Democrats win additional legislative seats in the general election.

In the first place, that's only true in a small number of districts. In several districts in which Brewer co-conspirators face a potential primary challenge, Republicans could stage a bare-knuckle cage fight and still win the general election.

But much more troublesome is the suggestion that primary voters shouldn't be given choices and robust debate.

The problem isn't with the fight. The problem is the late date of Arizona's primary election, which makes it difficult for either political party to recover from a robust primary sufficiently to fairly contest the general election.

Having a primary in Arizona during the dog days of August is nuts. A June primary would better serve the electorate by permitting sharply contested primaries and fully competitive general elections.

Arizona Sen. John McCain has twice exercised uncharacteristic diplomacy to avert the so-called nuclear option in the Senate over filibusters. In 2005, he neutralized an effort by Republicans, then in the majority, by getting a critical number of Democrats to effectively commit not to support a filibuster of the judicial nominees of then President George W. Bush.

Last week, he neutralized a similar effort by Senate Democrats by getting Republicans to stop blocking most of President Barack Obama's executive-branch nominees.

This sounds unkind, but next time, I hope McCain just lets the place go kaboom.

The filibuster is an extra-constitutional measure that thwarts, rather than furthers, the checks and balances the Founders devised. The Constitution states the circumstances in which an extraordinary majority of the Senate is required: approving treaties, amending the Constitution, impeachment. By implication, everything else was intended to be done by a simple majority.

The filibuster, and even worse the practice of a single senator putting a hold on a nominee, gives dissident senators more power than the Founders intended. The "advice and consent" power rests with the body, not individual senators.

Phoenix leaders told voters that, if they approved a bond to expand and improve the convention center, private investors would build a new downtown hotel to support it. That turned out not to be the case, and Phoenix taxpayers had to build the hotel, as well.

When Phoenix leaders conned legislators into picking up half of the cost of the expansion, they promised that it wouldn't actually cost the state anything. Extra revenue generated by the expansion would produce significantly more than the state's share. If not, Phoenix would make up the difference from its state-shared revenue.

Now that the time has come for an accounting, Phoenix wants to renege or renegotiate. The excuse is that it's been a hard economy and the Legislature contributed to the convention center's underperformance by passing SB 1070.

So, in addition to paying for half of the cost, the state has to allowthe convention business to control the state's immigration-enforcement policies?

The state had no business making such a special deal with a single city in the first place. It certainly shouldn't agree to let Phoenix off the hook for its false promises.

Reach Robb at robert.robb@arizonarepublic.com.

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