Political Notebook: Candidate pledges to wear body camera

People like transparency, so why not extreme transparency?

A candidate for state House in Legislative District 14 is pledging that if he wins, he will wear a body camera while serving in the Legislature.

Democrat Jason Lindstrom said the idea came to him while talking with friends about transparency in politics, but also as a result of his work as a deputy Cochise County attorney. Prosecutors work a lot with police, who are under increasing pressure to wear body cameras for the sake of accountability.

He thought, what better way to ensure he’s accountable to the people who elect him?

“Basically, it’s the only way to truly ensure transparency,” Lindstrom told me Thursday. “It turns your representative into a direct representative, someone who’s carrying you with them at all times.”

Lindstrom is running along with fellow Democrat Mike Holmes and Republicans Becky Nutt and Drew John. The top two vote-getters will represent the district that includes far southeastern Tucson and all of Cochise County.

Lindstrom acknowledged he’s not sure if there are times when he would be legally prevented from wearing the camera. On the other hand, he said, it would be informative for voters to see who wants to avoid being filmed and why.

“If someone tells me I can’t wear it, they’ll be on camera telling me I can’t wear it,” he said.

Lindstrom isn’t sure how he’d make the video available. It could be live streamed, but maybe a more likely scenario is he’d upload the video at the end of every day, perhaps marking its important points.

Sounds like a good idea, of course. More transparency could make our elected officials more representative of voters. But there is a growing school of thought arguing this sort of reform is what got us into today’s problems of political polarization and stalemate.

Political parties, leaders and consultants are a despised group now, but they are what allowed our elected officials to accomplish things, an author named Jonathan Rauch argued in his 2015 book. Its name acknowledges the unpopularity of the argument: “Political Realism: How Hacks, Machines, Big Money, and Back-Room Deals Can Strengthen American Democracy.”

Rauch says our current politics suffer from “chaos syndrome,” which he defines as “a chronic decline in the political system’s capacity for self-organization.”

In an article summarizing his argument, Rauch argues, “As these intermediaries’ influence fades, politicians, activists, and voters all become more individualistic and unaccountable. The system atomizes. Chaos becomes the new normal — both in campaigns and in the government itself.”

When I explained the idea to Lindstrom, he wasn’t buying it.

“The argument that you can’t make deals unless you’re behind closed doors kind of offends me,” he said. “I think good ideas rise to the top.”

Candidate rolls

in dough

One local challenger is raising money like an incumbent.

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In fact, Democrat Daniel Hernandez Jr. has raised more money than any legislative candidate in Southern Arizona. Of that $82,375, some big donations are coming from surprising people.

Michael Bidwill, the president of the Arizona Cardinals and a close ally of Republican Gov. Doug Ducey, donated $2,500.

Jan Brandt, a former AOL executive who lives in Virginia, donated $5,000.

Don Brandt (unrelated), the CEO of Arizona Public Service’s parent company and a Republican supporter, gave $500.

Jonathan Sackler, a Purdue Pharma director and member of the family that made billions on OxyContin, gave $1,500.

Hernandez, of Tucson, is running in Legislative District 2 along with Democratic incumbent Rosanna Gabaldon and Republican incumbent Chris Ackerley.

New TUSD committee

If you’ve been in Tucson, you’ve seen the thousands of yellow signs put up by TUSD Kids First, the group trying to unseat the school board’s three-member majority.

Now there’s a new independent-expenditure group trying to counter that group as much as it can at this late date. It’s led in part by Patty Valera, a TUSD parent who is hoping to defend Kristel Foster and Cam Juarez, the two incumbents up for re-election who are part of that majority.

“What is bothering us is that a handful of well-financed people is bashing TUSD and our children,” Valera said.”They are attacking the schools and consequently harming our students.”

Now, I’m not convinced that the “Change the board” signs really harm the students, but they definitely oppose the status quo. Valera says the status quo is pretty good and improving.

“I really love TUSD,” she said.

The group hasn’t had to file a financial disclosure form yet, and Valera said she didn’t know how much money it has raised, but it won’t come close to the $30,000-plus raised by TUSD Kids First, much of it from business interests in and out of the district. In any case, the new group hopes to put out its own sign to counter the yellow ones, perhaps as early as this weekend.

Prop. 205 up or down?

Two new polls out this week give opposite impressions of how Prop. 205, the marijuana legalization measure, will fare.

The Arizona Republic/Cronkite News/Morrison Institute poll has the measure winning by about 50 percent “yes” votes to 42 percent “no”.

A newer poll by Data Orbital, a political consulting firm, has the measure down by 53 percent to 41 percent.