Strike Everything

Yesterday was a day of firsts for Rep. Ed Ableser. Sure, it was the first time in his brief legislative career that the House and Senate would end their annual session in April. It’s also the first time in recent years that the waning days of the session didn’t include any budget action, as the spending for the upcoming year was settled six weeks ago.

More importantly to Ableser, a Tempe Democrat, is that yesterday marked the first time that one of his bills had cleared every hurdle in the legislative process and was sent to the governor for final approval. The bill, H2462, creates a new article of statute that regulates “private property trespass towers.”

The bill had sat idle in the House for nearly two months after it cleared the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee in late January. But, in mid-March, it went to the floor for debate, and then for a vote 10 days later, passing 50-9 on March 29.

After being amended in a Senate committee and on the upper chamber’s floor, it was put up on the big board yesterday and received a 19-8 passage. When it came back to the House last night for a final vote, it was one of the final bills heard before the Legislature went dark for the summer. It passed 38-19, and was forwarded to the governor this morning.

I asked him about the bill earlier in the week, and Ableser was clearly excited. He also learned firsthand how difficult it is to shepherd a bill through the process. “I’m not sure if it’s worth the effort,” he joked.

Gov. Jan Brewer has until May 11 to act on the bills approved on the final day. Given the bipartisan support of the measure among lawmakers, it seems likely she’ll sign it into law some time soon.

-Jim Small

Democratic Attorney General Terry Goddard led all potential Republican rivals in the 2010 governor’s race in a poll released April 27.

The poll, by the North Carolina-based firm Public Policy Polling, showed Goddard, the presumptive Democratic nominee for governor, with slim leads over incumbent Gov. Jan Brewer and Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio. The poll, which surveyed 803 voters from April 23-25, showed him beating Republican candidates Dean Martin, Buz Mills and John Munger by wider margins as well.

Goddard led both Brewer and Arpaio by 47-to-44 percent margins. Both hypothetical matchups fell within the poll’s 3.4 percent margin of error. Arpaio has said he is considering a run for governor but has not declared as a candidate.

The other candidates, who are challenging Brewer for the Republican nomination, did not fare as well against Goddard. Poll respondents gave the attorney general a 47-to-36 percent lead over Martin, the state treasurer; a 45-to-37 percent lead over Mills, a Paulden businessman; and a 46-to-31 percent lead over Munger, the former chairman of the Arizona Republican Party and past president of the Arizona Board of Regents.

Poll respondents gave Brewer a poor job approval rating, with 35 percent saying she’s done a good job since taking over in January 2009, and 46 percent giving her a negative rating.

Goddard had a 39 percent favorability rating in the poll, better than all candidates except Arpaio. The sheriff had a 58 percent favorability rating, with a 38 percent unfavorable rating.

Martin and Mills had 19 and 18 percent favorability ratings, respectively, and Munger showed just 4 percent. But the poll showed most respondents undecided on the trio of Republican challengers. Sixty-eight percent of respondents said they were not sure whether they had a favorable or unfavorable opinion of Martin, 65 percent were unsure about Mills, and 85 percent were unsure about Munger.

Forty-three percent of respondents identified themselves as Republicans, compared to 35 percent who said they were Democrats.

-Jeremy Duda

Misstatement or not, Republican gubernatorial hopeful Buz Mills left some questioning his anti-illegal immigration credentials when he spoke out against Arizona’s employer sanctions law at a recent candidate forum.

“I’m not your guy for employer sanctions. If you want employer sanctions you’ve got to go somewhere else,” Mills said during a candidate forum at the Arizona Farm Bureau on April 8. “That is a failure on the part of the feds that has made you the policeman. We need a different system.”

Campaign manager Camilla Strongin said Mills made a “misstatement” and that he does support the anti-illegal hiring law. She said he didn’t tailor his remarks to fit the crowd at the Arizona Farm Bureau, which opposed the employer sanctions law itself.

“If you spent as many days giving speeches (as Mills does), unfortunately you sometimes get your words mixed up,” Strongin said.

Mills endorsed S1070 shortly after it was passed by the Legislature. Nonetheless, with the landmark bill pushing illegal immigration to center stage at the Capitol, some GOP faithful are asking questions. Mills’ opposition sounded vehement, and he appeared to be reading his answers as he spoke. Conservative blog Sonoran Alliance called him out on the “misstatement,” and accused him of “kissing up” to the farm bureau.

After more than a year of other GOP candidates attacking her from the right, incumbent Gov. Jan Brewer may have some conservative ammunition against Mills, who’s made a strong showing in recent polls. Brewer signed S1070 on April 23, likely scoring some points with a Republican base that is largely hostile over her push for a temporary sales tax increase.

And in a primary where everyone is trying to be the most conservative, Brewer probably won’t be the only one taking shots over at Mills over his remarks. State Treasurer Dean Martin and former Arizona Republican Party Chairman John Munger have been vocal supporters of S1070 as well, and may eager to paint Mills as soft on illegal immigration.

- Jeremy Duda

Rasmussen’s latest poll shows some upward movement for Gov. Jan Brewer in the four-way race for the GOP primary nomination, with State Treasurer Dean Martin sliding down.

According to their numbers, Brewer has edged up a bit, with 26 percent of likely voters saying they will support her. That’s up from about 20 percent support when Rasmussen conducted a comparable poll in March. In a similar poll by Rasmussen in January, she had 29 percent support from likely voters.

Arizona businessman and political newcomer Buz Mills, who had not officially joined the race before the first Rasmussen poll was released in January, shows 18 percent support. He had 19 percent support in the March poll.

Former Republican Party Chairman John Munger has 14 percent support, compared to 10 percent in the March poll and 7 percent in the January poll.

Martin had led the race in January with 31 percent of likely voter support, according to Rasmussen, which is the only pollster to track the GOP primary race numbers so far. Martin’s numbers, though, have dropped significantly since then; he had 21 percent in the March poll, and the most recent poll showed him at 12 percent.

While the latest numbers indicate steady upward movement for Brewer, and a similarly consistent decline for Martin, 24 percent of those polled said they still hadn’t made a decision about who to support.