Pair in GOP committee won't attack on Medicaid

(PNI) Pushing back on Medicaid pushback …It's all the rage now for Republican precinct committeemen to vote to censure Gov. Jan Brewer and the 14 Republicans who voted in favor of Medicaid expansion.

When the issue came up at a District 26 meeting, district resident and gubernatorial candidate Hugh Hallman cast an unpopular "no" vote.

"In the interest of the Republican Party, I don't think it makes sense for Republicans to be attacking members of their own party," Hallman said.

Besides, censure is a legal concept and not within the purview of the committees, he said, showing his lawerly side.

Hallman called Medicaid expansion "a 'Sophie's Choice' of the worst magnitude," but said he comes down in reluctant favor of it because the piper must be paid and it's unfair to foist uncompensated emergency-room care onto hospitals and doctors.

Those costs will ultimately get passed on to the paying customers.

"It's not a Republican principle that we tax people who are paying the medical bills through insurance or private dollars to pay for those who aren't covered," Hallman said.

The other "no" vote at that meeting?

Former state Sen. Jerry Lewis, R-Mesa.

Signs around town… Dozens of campaign signs have sprung up on street corners in central Phoenix and Ahwatukee Foothills in the last week touting unusual messages: "Lobbyists Support Sal DiCiccio" and "Developers Support Sal DiCiccio."

As one might assume, the Phoenix City Council member isn't the one behind the signs.

An independent-expenditure group, Phoenix Truth and Safety, paid for the signs.

The group is funded by public-safety unions.

They hope to oust DiCiccio in the upcoming Aug.27 primary election.

It's the latest jab in a bitter feud between DiCiccio and the police and fire unions.

The two have been at war over DiCiccio's criticism of employee pensions and overall compensation.

"The signs are accurate," said David Leibowitz, a public-relations consultant working with the group. "Campaign-finance reports make that abundantly clear … and yet he holds himself as some paragon of virtue."

DiCiccio said that while he has accepted donations from lobbyists, businesses and developers, his opponent, Karlene Keogh Parks, is accepting contributions from unions.

He said the unions are trying to block his efforts to make reforms.

"I think people see through this," DiCiccio said. "It's all part of the union control of City Hall."

Your policy doesn't cover "Cat Scratch Fever" … Conservative rocker Ted Nugent will reportedly take up the anti-Medicaid-expansion banner at his concert scheduled for tonight at Celebrity Theater in Phoenix.

Frank Antenori, a former state senator from Tucson and an organizer of the petition drive to put the Medicaid-expansion law on the 2014 ballot, said he had dinner with the gun-loving, Obama-hating, 64-year-old "Motor City Madman" a couple of years ago and the two connected over their love of archery hunting.

When Antenori learned Nugent's tour was coming to Phoenix, he put in a call to see if the "tea party" darling would give an on-stage shout-out to the referendum effort and ask fans to sign petitions after the concert.

After last summer's U.S. Supreme Court decision upholding the federal health-care overhaul, Nugent called Chief Justice John Roberts a "traitor" and said he was "beginning to wonder if it would have been best had the South won the Civil War."

The United Republican Alliance of Principled Conservatives, which is leading the referendum drive, hopes to collect 120,000 signatures by the Sept.11 deadline.

Compiled by Republic reporters Mary Jo Pitzl, Dianna M. Náñez, Dustin Gardiner and Mary K. Reinhart. Get the latest at politics.azcentral.com.

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