Democratic legislators deserve credit
I appreciate our Democratic legislators. They stood firm against the toxic bills proposed by their Republican counterparts and worked hard to defeat them. They worked equally hard to pass bills that benefit everyone.
This session, our Democratic senators and representatives proposed and fought tirelessly for a long list of beneficial legislation to improve our lives by tackling the real needs of Arizonans. Their bills addressed affordable housing, housing assistance and a transportation task force, workers’ rights, overtime pay and raising the minimum wage, a climate change study, electric vehicles and water conservation, improving the health of families, child care, and kinship foster care, elderly assistance and victim compensation, funds for public schools, grants for school counselors and social workers, repealing school expenditure limits, tribal education and child welfare and same day voting.
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Voters can give Democratic legislators the chance to make Arizona a healthier, safer, more prosperous state. I plan to do my part by electing Democrats in November. I hope you will too.
Tina Whitley
Northeast side
Water troubles
I would appreciate an explanation of why, in the midst of a 20-year drought, Tucson allows cemeteries to plant grass that needs to be watered? Do the “residents” of those areas care? Can’t there be lovely rock designs instead? We have many rocks in Arizona. Can’t trees be planted to shade the ground and provide a little pollution control? At least native trees don’t need constant, wholesale watering. While we are at it, how can our local governments approve so much new development? Are Arizonans unaware that there is a water crisis in the Southwest? I understand the need for housing, but it would be wise for us to determine from where we will get the water to service all these people. It appears that, as long as water comes out of the tap, many of us don’t acknowledge that there is a looming problem. Maybe water rationing would bring it home before we are completely out of water.
Cindy Soffrin
Northeast side
Belief in God
Re: the May 16 letter “Separation of church and state.”
The writer of this letter must believe in God to say God has no place in government. The word of God is very specific on this matter. In Romans 13:1-3, “The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, whoever rebels against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and you will be commended.” (New International Version) Yes, read it for yourself. God is in authority! Thank you.
Rob Jones
East side
The illusion of safety
President Joe Biden seems to have finally learned what many of us have known for a while now — there is no way to work with an opposition party bent on your destruction. Not merely defeat, destruction. The Republican Party has embraced the dream of an authoritarian one-party state and they’re dangerously close to getting it. Yet too many in the Democratic leadership don’t seem to see the danger they themselves are in.
When the Nazis began rounding up Jews, some Jews stayed put in spite of warnings. Their reasoning was this: “They can’t touch me, I’m a law-abiding citizen.” Democratic Party leaders seem to think being reasonable, law-abiding people will keep them safe from a one-party Republican state. It won’t.
Marian Weaver
Sierra Vista
Arizona Republicans
By now, no one in this state can reasonably deny that Reps. Mark Finchem and Andy Biggs enthusiastically supported the Jan. 6 attempt to violently overthrow the government (“Hang Mike Pence!”) or that even Rep. Paul Gosar’s brothers and sisters warn that he is an unprincipled liar and white supremacist, or that our Republican Legislature’s screwball “audit” of the 2020 election was forced to admit that Trump lost by an even greater margin. These things are a matter of record and generally even the parties involved don’t deny them. Now Sen. Wendy Rogers claims (no evidence, of course, but what else is new?) that the confessed mass murderer in Buffalo was secretly acting on behalf of the Biden administration. And I won’t even get started on Sen. Rand Paul, Reps. Madison Cawthorn or Elise Stefanik outside of Arizona.
So this is my question for anyone still planning to vote Republican in Arizona: Which category do you fall into — Nazi, nutcase or numbskull? If there’s another option, I’d sure like to know what it is.
Andrew Browning
Foothills
Abortion restrictions and safety
If a safe, sterile abortion was available to my great-grandmother, Laurena Priest, she wouldn’t have died at age 29 from “abortion sepsis.”
Married and already having five children, why she terminated her pregnancy will never be known. Perhaps because of a medical abnormality or marital strife. Maybe she was a victim of sexual assault or their bleak economic reality was too daunting. All valid reasons that resonate today.
What is known is that in rural Colorado in 1906 proper medical care was difficult or impossible to find and the result was her untimely death.
As a self-righteous minority strives to impose their vision of morality on the world, let’s hope a touch of empathy can find its way into their judgmental hearts.
Make no mistake. Regardless of obstacles imposed, abortions will continue.
Women must no longer be treated as child-bearing chattel but have unfettered access to the finest medical care available to ensure their health, safety and long lives.
Edward Messing
Northeast side
