In his quest to rid Tucson of its partisan City Council elections, state Sen. Jonathan Paton is often criticized for ignoring the will of local voters.
With the Tucson Republican pushing a bill that would make our local races nonpartisan, Democrats have pointed out that voters already said "no" to the change.
That's true.
But Paton sought to put that point in perspective during a recent debate on the floor of the Senate, telling his colleagues that the last time Tucson voters had a say on the matter was when "All That She Wants" by the Swedish pop band Ace of Base topped the charts.
And Paton said he believes more than just musical tastes have changed since that 1993 election.
Of course, following that logic, maybe Lady Gaga should be Tucson's next mayor.
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Tucson High Magnet School has found itself wrapped in yet another political entanglement.
This one dates back to 2006, when labor activist Dolores Huerta gave a speech at the school and declared she was considering starting a postcard campaign to protest the GOP's immigration efforts — "Republicans Hate Latinos."
The statement was deemed by some politicos as being a bit over the top, ruffling GOP feathers and drawing attention to the school's ethnic studies program.
Well, the issue lives on.
Tom Horne, state superintendent of public instruction, is pushing legislation at the Capitol to rid the school of the program, arguing that it teaches students to see the world through a racial lens.
Race, he says, shouldn't matter.
But it did matter in a recent press release on the subject. In that release, Horne pointed out that that one of his bill's sponsors was Republican Rep. Steve Montenegro of Litchfield Park — "a Latino legislator," the document pointed out.
Some Democrats called the designation hypocritical, since Montenegro's whole point was he didn't want to be put in a box.
But Horne said he included Montenegro's ethnicity to show that people of all backgrounds support his move, including Hispanics.
Republicans have figured out how they're going to defeat freshman Democratic U.S. Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick of Flagstaff next year: Frame the Northern Arizona congresswoman as a Nancy Pelosi liberal.
Guess they figure that might just scare the whosawhatsits out of her constituents.
And since that strategy worked so well at defeating Gabrielle Giffords last year, we suppose Republicans saw it wise to dump more resources into such an attempt. Yeah, right.
State Rep. John Kavanagh, a Republican from Fountain Hills, never passes up a chance at a one-liner.
As chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, Kavanagh is known for delivering witty remarks in his heavy New York accent. Like explaining the other day why he was now in an "advisory" role in state budget negotiations: "Too many cooks will spoil the broth."
But our favorite was last week, when Kavanagh stood on the floor to warn against a bill aimed at using tax dollars to build baseball stadiums for spring training. Kavanagh argued it was unethical to take public money and give it away to a private entity.
Asked in jest by Notebook if he liked baseball, Kavanagh responded: "I like religion, but I don't want to build a church."
Daniel Scarpinato
