Good ones today, as a controversial bill to put guns on college campuses in the state has been acknowledged as dead. This might not be possible in Arizona were it not for the independent redistricting commission, which has placed some Republicans in somewhat more competitive seats. The shock, the horror! They might actually be held to account for making unpopular votes! No wonder Republicans have been trying so hard to destroy the AIRC.
So this is state Senator Ron Gould's assessment of why his bill died in committee. Thankfully, it appears that he will not get another chance to re-introduce this legislation due to term limits.
"There were some legislators that were feeling weak-kneed about it," he said. "The universities were putting a full-court press on them because they knew if I could get the bill up to the governor, the governor would probably sign it."
Complicating matters, Gould said, is that lawmakers are all looking at running in newly revised legislative districts. He said many of those new districts are more politically competitive than they were in the past, meaning it would be easier for challengers to paint the incumbents as "radicals."
Republicans tried mightily to bring down the
independent redistricting commission in Arizona. Voted in by the people to take the redistricting job out of more partisan (that is, solely Republican) hands, the GOP has been whingeing about it ever since. I understand this year they're looking to put a vote to
repeal the AIRC on the ballot. It hasn't been enough for the people to have voted for it in the first place, or for
the courts to stop Jan Brewer from trying to subvert the independent process.
Yeah, that was last year, but I remember that power grab, and how the governor got busted for it.
So while the gun bill's sponsor, Sen. Ron Gould, sought to dismiss cost concerns and harp on a somewhat hypothetical danger, his legislation died for the most relevant of reasons: it was unpopular, and thanks to the AIRC, Republicans might actually have been held accountable for it had they made it into law.
"The reason they oppose it is that liberals run the university system," he continued. "Liberals don't like guns. They don't want guns on their playground."
It's easy for Gould to blame this on liberals, but I doubt all the "weak-kneed" Republicans were worried about
just liberals kicking them out of office. That's giving the small contingent of liberals in the state far more influence than we really have. Nor do all liberals dislike guns, for that matter. I'm sure there are some out there that will join in with the Republicans' mournful cries.
Time will tell, though, if the Republicans are more willing to permit guns in government buildings, like where they work. At least on the state level, they can afford to install enough security to protect themselves from their legislation. The rest of the state's government buildings, not so much.