by AZ Free Enterprise Club | Jan 28, 2023 | Opinion
By the Arizona Free Enterprise Club |
This past November’s election in Arizona was a complete disaster. Not only did voting machines fail across Maricopa County, but many voters were suppressed and disenfranchised. Right now, we should be working toward solutions that restore voter confidence and ensure election integrity. But believe it or not, some national groups and liberal billionaires are planning to come to Arizona to run a ballot initiative that would make our elections even more complicated.
It’s called ranked-choice voting, and if you haven’t heard of it, it works a little something like this…
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by Pat Nolan | Jan 27, 2023 | Opinion
By Pat Nolan |
The surge in deaths from Fentanyl overdoses is overwhelming communities across the country. Fentanyl is responsible for at least 70 percent of all drug deaths in the U.S. According to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the United States suffered more fentanyl-related deaths than gun- and auto-related deaths combined last year. And it is the number one cause of death among U.S. adults, aged 18-45.
Here in Arizona, the Fentanyl crisis is particularly acute. Fentanyl flows easily into our state across our southern border. Until Washington gets serious about controlling it, Arizona has to take decisive action now to disrupt the supply lines of the drug cartels.
In the rush to “do something” about this very real crisis, some well-intentioned legislators have proposed HB2167, which would spend precious law enforcement resources on seeking murder sentences for individual sellers rather than going after large traffickers. Certainly, we want to punish those who support their drug habit by selling small amounts of Fentanyl, and current Arizona law sends a person who provides illicit drugs to prison for up to 25 years. That is a substantial sentence.
HB2167 would go further so that if a person dies after receiving the drugs – even if it is not “the immediate cause of death” – the person who gave them the drug would be sentenced by the judge as a murderer.
This is problematic because the cartels often press Fentanyl into pills to make them like prescription pills. They do this because Fentanyl is cheaper than the ingredients of the real prescription drugs. And profit is what motivates the cartels. Keith Humphreys, a Stanford University professor who tracks the opioid crisis wrote, “You don’t need land, good weather, peasant labor, processing of crops, etc. Instead, you can whip it up in a small lab, and every gram is 50 times as strong as heroin.”
It is impossible for a buyer to know if the drugs they buy also contain Fentanyl. HB2167 calls for sentencing the person who gave or sold these ersatz drugs as a murderer even if they were unaware that Fentanyl had been added. That could result in real injustice.
Take for example, your daughter goes away to college and falls in with friends who enjoy getting high. If she gave a pill to a friend who later died, your daughter could be sentenced as a murderer without the state having to prove that the drug caused the death! Certainly, your child deserves to be punished, and she can be imprisoned for up to 25 years without HB2167. But it would be wrong to punish her as a murderer with a much longer sentence.
The DEA’s top priorities are interdicting the traffic in Fentanyl and prosecuting the large drug trafficking organizations. But by including “small fish” as I explained above, HB2167 in its current form puts Arizona out of step with the DEA’s priorities. The House Judiciary Committee should amend HB2167 so that it aligns with the DEA by targeting resources to taking down the leaders of the large distribution networks, and putting them out of business. That is the most effective way to make our communities safer.
Pat Nolan lives in Prescott and is the founder of the American Conservative Union Foundation’s Nolan Center for Justice. He is a respected national leader on crime issues.
by AZ Free Enterprise Club | Jan 21, 2023 | Opinion
By the Arizona Free Enterprise Club |
The people of Arizona do not want to turn our state into the next California. But just a few weeks into her reign as governor, Katie Hobbs has made it clear—that’s exactly what she intends to do. Last week, Hobbs released her first budget plan, and it’s nothing more than a liberal wish list of big spending, extreme proposals, and corporate welfare designed to reward her special interest friends.
Her first target is education, and she wasted no time going after Arizona’s expansion of Empowerment Scholarship Accounts (ESAs). Yes, the program that is so popular that it overwhelmed the Department of Education’s website immediately after launch—the one that even some Democrats have openly supported. Despite being a private schooler herself, Hobbs wants to dismantle school choice for all with a full repeal of universal ESAs. And that’s just the start…
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by Dr. Thomas Patterson | Jan 20, 2023 | Opinion
By Dr. Thomas Patterson |
Nobody seems to know what to do about our illegal immigration crisis. Somehow, no other nation in the world seems helpless to control unlimited, illegal immigration. Democrats alternately claim it is being handled, and that it is the fault of uncooperative Republicans, who in turn can only agree that “something” must be done.
It’s time for a Great Reset, to rethink the basics of how we treat illegal immigration. Here’s an idea: Follow The Law. Just Say No.
It starts with refuting the notion that noncitizens, who have followed none of our rules for legal entry, have a natural right to come here anyway, and we have a corresponding duty to oblige them. Like all other nations, we have no such moral burden.
We make an effort to prevent entry for some. But most immigrants, when they reach American soil, are meekly processed through and provided food, shelter, and transportation into our country, as if that doesn’t incentivize their coming.
Among other obfuscations, open border advocates claim our immigration laws need a complete overhaul to mitigate our ongoing catastrophe. Nobody ever specifies exactly what those new laws are.
Reforms initiated by Democrats when Biden took office included eliminating the Remain in Mexico policy, and anything else with the taint of Trump about them. Predictably, conditions at the border worsened. The only “solution” Democrats have any interest in is amnesty, which is no solution at all.
We have adequate laws in place. Illegal immigration is already illegal. We just need to execute those laws.
Today, the operating principle of our immigration policy is sanctioned asylum fraud. Instead of a good faith effort to legally control our borders, illegal immigrants are coached to state “I am in fear,” and we pretend to believe them.
But accepting the same lie millions of times is simple abuse of asylum. Asylum, unlike illegal immigration, is a compassionate process administered internationally to provide safe harbor to individuals suffering persecution, or a credible fear of persecution, due to one of five specific causes: race, religion, nationality, social group, or political standing.
Persons claiming asylum have their cases heard in court. If they prevail, they are granted “indefinite” asylum with the tacit understanding that the asylum lasts until the threat is removed.
That’s a far cry from the daily mobs at our border, who, understandably, for economic reasons, would rather live in the U.S. than in their home country. It would be wonderful if we could save every person in the world living in poverty by bringing them here, but that’s not the way it works in our world of corrupt socialist autocracies.
But we can, and are, making our own country less safe and free, less fit to be a beacon of liberty under law to others.
In spite of the fact that only a minuscule percentage of the millions of asylum claims made at the border are ever substantiated, border patrol agents are instructed to continue to process them as potential claims with a deferred court hearing and release into the U.S.
Although the asylum status claims at the border are transparently bogus, the scofflaws rarely face consequences for failure to appear at their subsequent hearing. They will eventually be offered amnesty, then citizenship, then registration as a Democrat, if all works as planned.
There’s a better way, simple and legal. We should require all asylum claims to be made in their home country. Refugee processing centers could be established in the common countries of origin, where applicants would have their status determined. Unaccompanied minors at the border would be sent home.
This would greatly benefit legitimate asylum seekers. They could be assured of their status before beginning the journey to safety. The rest could be politely turned away at the border as the law requires. Word would quickly spread that the rules have changed. The crowds at the border would soon dissipate.
Americans are beginning to appreciate the stress unlimited migration places on our education, medical, and judicial systems. Barring a major course correction, it is bound to get much worse.
But we can end the misery if we just have the will to do so. Follow The Law. What a concept!
Dr. Thomas Patterson, former Chairman of the Goldwater Institute, is a retired emergency physician. He served as an Arizona State senator for 10 years in the 1990s, and as Majority Leader from 93-96. He is the author of Arizona’s original charter schools bill.
by AZ Free Enterprise Club | Jan 18, 2023 | Opinion
By the Arizona Free Enterprise Club |
From their pulpit at press conferences, they shrugged off questions and concerns about the potential for long lines on election day and whether they would have their voting centers properly equipped. For weeks, the mainstream media blasted out to Arizonans that they are competent election officials, about to implement the “safest, most secure” election in history.
Then it all came crumbling down in what was one of the worst election days in recent history. Long lines, yes. But more importantly, critical equipment failures resulted in the complete inability to tabulate ballots at dozens of voting locations for several hours. It didn’t stop there. The issues persisted in the coming weeks for Maricopa County, who responded to requests for information with hostility. And then, we found out Pinal County (following major problems in their primary election) had miscounted hundreds of ballots, shrinking the already miniscule gap between the candidates for attorney general.
Two months later, these issues are still being litigated. But regardless of how the election contests being pursued by Kari Lake and Abe Hamadeh turn out, nothing changes the fact that Maricopa and Pinal Counties bungled the election.
Going forward, Arizona must learn from what happened, craft meaningful solutions, and focus efforts on productive goals ahead of 2024…
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by AZ Free Enterprise Club | Jan 14, 2023 | Opinion
By the Arizona Free Enterprise Club |
For the last two years, Republicans have been winning the education debate, and Democrats are not happy. Public education has long been their baby, using it to indoctrinate children with their radical ideas all while deceiving voters into outrageous tax increases.
But after watching Republican Tom Horne win the race for Arizona’s Superintendent of Public Instruction this November—while 19 conservatives picked up school board seats—Democrats went into a tailspin. That’s why it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that Governor Katie Hobbs is willing to do whatever it takes to change the narrative, including lying to voters about K-12 education spending…
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