Arizona Capitol Times Your Inside Source for Arizona Government, Politics and Business

As Arizona nears its 100th birthday, we find ourselves divided, polarized and in desperate need of a government system that will serve us well for the next 100 years.

I was arrested July 29 for blocking a thoroughfare — demonstrating in the street – against the SB1070 law that went into effect that day. I went to Arizona with 120 Unitarian Universalist ministers at the request of colleagues serving there. We were being called to witness racial discrimination and cultural tension that surrounded the immigration issue. On Oct. 29, my name will be called at the Maricopa County Court in Phoenix and a judge will ask me how I plead.

Affirmative action job quotas, minority contract set-asides and extra points in college admissions are wrong and it’s time to get rid of them. Achieving “diversity goals,” however well-intentioned, often amounts to the functional equivalent of a quota

A group of extreme, partisan, and stunningly unknowledgeable people are trying to take over the Central Arizona Project Board. Why? Because it’s easy, and because they believe that all government is bad and should be cut.

Are those nails scraping across a chalkboard, or is someone asking a small-business owner to do more tax reporting paperwork? It’s the latter, and Congress has mandated it with a 2012 start date.

The financial crisis has not only battered home values and investment portfolios, it has exposed major investment frauds. Many of those schemes unraveled as the cash needed to keep the perpetrators afloat dried up and investors began demanding their money. Here’s one story about how attorneys in private practice and working at public agencies have successfully recovered investors’ losses.

If you’ve studied the 14th Amendment and determined that it’s been misinterpreted, then you have plenty of company among those who believe only children of native-born or naturalized citizens should be granted citizenship.

Arizona has the chance to shape our health care as we make decisions and plans to implement federal health care reform. As a state, we face a great deal of work, but also immense new opportunities, and it’s time for the Arizona Legislature to roll up its sleeves.

It is unfortunate that in a time when Arizona manufacturers need a consistent and positive message from Washington about economic policy, all we seem to hear is partisan bickering and a confusing and uncertain tax policy future.

Two fundamental myths about government desperately need to be debunked for the well-being of the U.S. economy in the near term and over the long haul.