Lawmakers ignore people they work for
How is it that a state legislature, voted in by the people, can ignore the very people it is sworn to work for? How can it shun the will of the electorate and then turn right around and put that very electorate in a position such as we have with Proposition 123?
This is not a governing body put in place to help the Arizona people, but instead, a body of supposed governing entities whose sole purpose is to keep the power of the Arizona people from those very people.
Arizonans want and demand better for our children’s education, yet this body of legislators wants to deny us that most precious dream of having our children live, and lead, better lives than we, their parents, have.
I say the Arizona legislators need to be removed from office, going right to the top, and be replaced with those who truly want what we, the voters, want.
Rick Phanton
East side
Wage hike to $9.50 by 2020 is worth little
Re: the April 25 article “State wage hike may be best for AZ, Ducey says.”
How about what is best for the workers? Gov. Doug Ducey supports mandating that companies pay $9.50 an hour by 2020.
He is so out of touch in that, in four years, this amount will make the workers no better off than they now are. Workers need to get this amount or more now and then phase in wage increases that will grow to $15 an hour by 2020.
States such as Oregon, California and New York are phasing in this type of minimum-wage increases.
These wages will go right back into the economy, and this will be best for the workers and the state.
Herman Klap
Sahuarita
If court is to expand, let Dems pick 1 member
The move to add two more justices to the state Supreme Court is driven solely by the desire of our governor to pack the court with additional Republican appointees.
If there was any other reason to add two justices, then the “fair” (a word that is not used by businessmen who become politicians) way to do it would be to let state Senate Democrats select one of the new justices, whom the governor would appoint along with the other new justice he chooses.
George Libman
East side
Prop. 123 is clever, but it still stinks
The Arizona Legislature has a win, win, win proposal in Prop 123.
Win #1: The courts have ruled against it for not fulfilling education funding voted into law by the people in 2000. Prop. 123 makes the lawsuits go away.
Win #2: This Republican brand follows the lead of Grover Norquist. He’s famous for wanting to shrink government to fit into a bathtub, where he could “drown it.” Prop. 123 shrinks the Arizona education Land Trust.
Win #3: The Arizona Legislature, after continually starving Arizona education of funding, is now going to pressure the people into shrinking government and changing the law through Prop. 123.
Holding my nose and voting for ill-gotten funding is wrong. There is an ongoing political fight here, and public education is getting hurt.
This is no time to yield to heavy-handed pressure. My mail-in ballot is marked “no” on Prop. 123.
Tony DeJonghe
East side
Who’d have thought lions would kill sheep?
When are we going to learn to leave Mother Nature to attend to her job? When humans intervene, we invariably screw things up.
When bighorn sheep were reintroduced to the Catalinas in an area where mountain lions reside, what did they expect the lions to do? Change their diet to vegetarian?
Of course the lions will kill the sheep — they kill to eat. So now, in the infinite wisdom of some department, we are now killing mountain lions for doing what they do, survive.
This same scenario happened with the spotted owl in southern Oregon.
The lumber industry literally shut down the timber business to save the habitat for the spotted owl. When the owls began to flourish, barn owls invaded the area, and once again the idiots made a decision to shoot the barn owls.
It’s so sad it’s funny.
Bill Dowdall
Foothills
