Problem solvers in a cooked country
This week’s odds and ends … Election nuttiness, outer space and rain shadows … And he just won’t give up his day job.
Tucson Republican Congressman Juan Ciscomani announced recently that he would lead a bipartisan delegation to the Arizona–Mexico border “to see the progress firsthand and build on real solutions.”
The tour is supported by the Problem Solvers Caucus, which we assure you is a very real group of Democratic and Republican lawmakers (although we wouldn’t blame you if you thought we made it up).
Border tours are a fairly routine dog-and-pony show here at the Arizona-Mexico border — both Curt and Joe have gone to our share of these tours, held by other members of the the Problem Solvers caucus.
At the moment, there are about four dozen members of the caucus, although Ciscomani is the only one from Arizona.
Ciscomani is the newest member, but former members of the House caucus include: U.S. Reps. Ann Kirkpatrick, Martha McSally, Tom O’Halleran and Kyrsten Sinema.
Grijalva backs ending Citizens United
Congressional District 7 Democratic nominee Adelita Grijalva sat down with Tiffany Muller, president of End Citizens United, pledging to help overturn the now 15-year-old Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission SCOTUS decision.
She pledged not to take corporate PAC money or any forms of dark money in her race. But Grijalva doesn’t need millions of dollars to beat a Republican in the Democratic-leaning CD7.
Grijalva noted that her father had shunned corporate money in his races and instead relied more on local donors.
Not a great time
With Project Blue fresh in the mind of the community, this probably isn’t the best time for the annual review of Tucson City Manager Tim Thomure.
However, the Tucson City Council will go behind closed doors during its study session next week to review his performance.
Right or wrong, Thomure has become the face of those raucous public meetings ahead of the Council vote that ultimately rejected the annexation request from the Project Blue developers.
But that has historically been the role of the city manager — or if it was the county, the county administrator.
Being front and center at those discussions is part of the job.
Green Party endorsement
One of the Green Party candidates who ran for the CD7 nomination is withdrawing his support for the party’s nominee, Eduardo Quintana.
Gary Swing announced that he regrets that he endorsed Quintana instead of Grijalva. He noted this is the first time he has voted for or endorsed any major party nominee for federal office since 1992.
While he isn’t going to be the swing vote in the Democratic-leaning district, it is a hint at the complex nature of CD7 politics.
‘We’re so cooked’
Social media influencer and former congressional candidate Deja Foxx addressed questions about her future, telling supporters she will continue to stay in politics — despite no clear vision for what comes next.
“I took time to touch grass, be with my friends, do the DIY projects around the house that I've been putting off,” Foxx said in her three-minute video.
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The Gen-Z candidate, who surprised some pundits by coming in (a distant) second in the CD7 special election primary this summer, took to TikTok to thank supporters and caution her followers not to trust anyone who says they have all of the answers.
”I don't have all the answers. I wish I did. You would be the first to know. And anybody, elected officials, public figures, content creators who tell you that they, and they alone, have all the answers are lying,” Foxx said.
She said she, too, wakes up some mornings and is concerned about the direction the country is going.
“And there are days where I wake up and feel like, ‘Oh my God, we're so cooked’ and I don't know what to do,’” Foxx said.
All politics is local
Trying again: Cochise County’s two new supervisors are ready to again push the boundaries of Arizona’s election laws, even though their predecessors were indicted for refusing to certify the 2022 election results, Votebeat’s Jen Fifield reports. Supervisor Frank Antenori said they should start planning how to hand-count ballots now, otherwise “I think we are fighting with two feet in the grave.”
Just put them closer to the sun, right?: When the Tucson City Council was debating whether to support Project Blue, Councilwoman Nikki Lee floated the idea of building data centers in outer space. A University of Arizona researcher says that’s not a crazy idea, considering the servers will be kept cold in space, they’ll have access to unlimited solar energy and the computing done in space can be beamed home, the Arizona Luminaria’s Robin Tricoles reports.
Voucher rejection: A homeschooled 15-year-old from the Catalina Foothills wasn’t allowed to join the high school cheer team after Catalina Foothills High School officials found out her family uses school voucher funds, KVOA’s Jafet Serrato reports.
D.C. in Southern AZ
Tragic detention: A 32-year-old Mexican man died of unknown causes on Sunday while in ICE custody at a private prison in Mesa, the Tucson Sentinel’s Paul Ingram reports. He was arrested by Phoenix police in July on assault charges and ICE took him into custody soon after.
On their own: The feds pulled funding from the University of Arizona’s SNAP-Ed program that provides nutrition education in 12 counties, Arizona Daily Star’s Prerana Sannappanavar reports. The program is set to end at the beginning of October.
Stinky mess: Santa Cruz County lost out on a $52 million federal grant to develop colonias in Southern Arizona shortly after news broke that the county treasurer had embezzled $38 million, the Sentinel’s Adrian O’Farrill reports. The county got the first part of the “Distressed Area Recompete Pilot Program,” worth $500,000, but the much larger part of the grant vanished.
Local journalism is also a distressed area. You can help un-distress it by clicking this button.
Local weirdness
Odd geography: Northbound thunderstorms tend to skip Green Valley and unload over Sahuarita and Tucson because of the "rain shadow effect,” where the Santa Rita Mountains lift rain clouds, the Green Valley News’ Jeff Chew reports.
You can’t outrun a Google search for long, especially when you’re a far-right vigilante.
Michael Lewis Arthur Meyer (known for his “Veterans on Patrol” in Tucson and outrageous accusations about child trafficking) took his show on the road and is now stirring up conspiracy theories in Wyoming.
He spoke at a Sweetwater County Board of Commissioners meeting this week and made it through the initial news coverage OK. He said he was an investigative journalist, and he just wanted to talk about chemtrails and severe weather events.
But that didn’t last long. A reporter at Sweetwater Now outed him as an “alt-right militia founder” two days after the county commissioners meeting.
Instead of flying under the radar, Meyer got a 1,000-word profile recounting the times he’d been arrested or had threatened elected officials.
Maybe Juan Ciscomani is right: So much "progress" has been made on the border that not even he and his family would have made it across the border today. He is quite fortunate that his family came to a more welcoming United States of America than the current anti-immigrant USA that rivals the 1840 and 50's days of the Know Nothing Party.
I had to look up what Deja Foxx meant by "touch grass." In case any other alter kockers were similarly flummoxed, it means disconnect from the internet and re-engage with the real world, especially by spending time outdoors in nature. OK, zoomer. I assume Deja left Arizona. There's an open House seat in Manhattan now that Jerry Nadler is stepping down. She could join the crowd in that Democratic primary in a district where she also has a home.
Speaking of alter kockers, Green Party candidate Eduardo Quintana, backed by the Three Sonorans with half a brain each, is still going around saying that he is the only candidate on the CD7 ballot who has called the war in Gaza genocide. Not true: I think it is, and Adelita Grijalva said so out loud in the debate, but even after that, that obnoxious website repeated grouchy Eduardo's claim. Are they deaf?
Today's Washington Times has an article, " Democrats' likely new 'Squad' member: Arizona's Adelita Grijalva" with the sub-head "The anti-Israel congressional candidate holds views increasingly representative of the left." which kind of goes overboard in the opposite direction from Arizona's Green Party.
Wonder why the Arizona No Labels Party (full disclosure: I am on the ballot as the CD7 candidate with them) and the Arizona Green Party both petitioned to get on the ballot in 2024, but No Labels has nearly 40,000 registered voters -- despite no attempt to get Arizonans to join the party -- while the voter-hungry Greens have only a little over 5,000 registrants and will have to file a petition to get themselves and Jill Stein on the ballot in Arizona again so they can help Trump win another term in 2028.