Sending bills to committee to die is not unusual, but what’s happened in Arizona is.
Trump culters in the state legislature filed a bill to allow the legislature to reject election results. Among other things, Rep. John Fillmore’s (R-Apache Junction) House Bill 2596 would (Arizona Daily Star):
Repeal laws allowing anyone to get an early ballot, saying only those with an excuse, like being hospitalized, would get that right.
Bar all other forms of early voting, requiring that ballots be cast only on Election Day.
Prohibit the use of Election Day voting centers available to anyone within a county, restricting people to casting ballots only in their home precinct.
“We need to get back to 1958-style voting,’’ Fillmore said.
When many non-White people couldn’t vote, he means.
Be careful, what you ask for, Fillmore. Would that include banning families from owning more than a single black-and-white television carrying only three national networks for news, or more than one automobile to get to the polls?
The bill also provided for the legislature to call a special session after every primary and general election to review and accept or reject the results. If rejected, “any qualified elector” could file suit in superior court to request a new election. That on top of requiring the ballots be hand-counted with results announced within 24 hours.
Speaker Rusty Bowers, a fellow Republican, was not having it.
“We gave the authority to the people,’’ the Mesa Republican said.
“For somebody to say we have plenary authority to overthrow a vote of the people for something we think may have happened, where is it (the evidence)?’’ Bowers said of the unproven and unverified claims made by those seeking a new 2020 vote.
Bowers killed the bill, not by refusing to send it to committee, but by sending it to all twelve of them.
“The point is, when we gave a fundamental right to the people, I don’t care if I win or lose, that right was theirs,’’ Bowers said. “And I’m not going to go back and kick them in the teeth.’’
Bowers can expect backlash from the cultists.
Still, Laurie Roberts opines in the Arizona Republic:
There’s a message in there from Bowers to Rep. John Fillmore, the Apache Junction Republican who dreamed up this abomination. And to his 15 far-right fellow legislators who co-sponsored the bill, including none other than Rep. Mark Fiinchem, who is hoping to be Arizona’s next secretary of state.
As a longtime Capitol reporter, Arizona Mirror’s Jeremy Duda, put it:
“I’ve never seen a speaker or Senate president kneecap a bill as aggressively as this,” he tweeted. “Triple-assignments? Sure. Been there. But this is Bowers killing the bill, chopping it up, setting the pieces on fire, then digging up the ashes and throwing them into the ocean.”
I’m not holding my breath that Republicans with vestiges of conscience are reasserting themselves against Trump-cult-madness. But we’d all sleep better at night.
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