Three Wacky Ideas From the Arizona Senate
Keep your eyes on this state government: after putting themselves on the map last year after passing the anti-immigration bill SB 1070, Arizona's senate continues to traffic a fair amount of outspoken--and some would say outrageous--legislation. Josh Brodesky at the Arizona Daily Star notes the stranger details of some the 1,300 hundred bills looked at in the legislation this year: a plan to charge electric vehicles one cent for every mile driven the highway, the 'Freedom to Breathe' laws trying to keep Arizona safe from the federal Clean Air Act, another bill that would require federal workers to register with sheriffs who could potentially charge them fees, a bill that would make it illegal for local governments to require fire sprinklers in homes, and the list goes on. The last few days have been no different. Here's a quick look at some proposals that floated in the Arizona state senate this week:
Giving Arizona a State Firearm The Arizona Senate appropriations committee voted 9-4 this morning on a bill to create a state firearm: the Colt single-action Army revolver, according to the Associated Press. No other state has an official gun, and Utah is the only other state considering such legislation, says James King at the Phoenix New Times. He notes that more than 40 state legislators have signed on the bill. "With no other state in the country having an official state gun, and Arizona recently suffering through one of the most tragic mass shootings in American history, perhaps--for image sake--the gun nuts in the Arizona state Legislature could have held off on proposing such a thoughtless piece of legislation that serves literally no purpose," he wonders.
Keeping Illegal Immigrants From Cars and Their Kids From Schools On Monday, Arizona state Senate President Russell Pearce, the man behind SB 1070, proposed a bill that would deny the children of undocumented immigrants the right to attend public schools in the state, K-12, the Huffington Post reports. SB 1611, as the bill is called, was debated in the Senate appropriations committee yesterday and would also make it a crime for an illegal immigrants to drive. The committee also looked at a bill (SB-1309) denying the children born in the United States to illegal immigrants citizen status, as well as another (SB-1405) that would require hospitals to check on the immigration status of patients.
Seizing Federal Land The state senate is scheduled to take up legislation that would give the state authority to seize federal land on the basis of eminent domain, according to the Arizona Daily Star. jrstandring, a commentor, pointed out that "if the AZ Leg passes and the Gov signs such a bill, AZ taxpayer dollars will be spent for pure politics and nothing else. Such a law will never have force: (1) U.S. Constitution's supremacy clause; and (2) U.S. Supreme Court precedent apart from the supremacy clause." While we're hardly legal experts, and this is just the point of an anonymous commenter, the bill certainly does seem suspect.
And this was only since Monday. Suffice it to say we're staying tuned.
