Republicans setting up more hurdles to voting
The Arizona Legislature is back in session and Republicans are again introducing bills to make it harder for Arizonans to vote.
Senate Bill 1092 makes it harder for people who miss the deadline to mail in their early ballots to deposit those ballots at a polling place. It limits who can drop off such ballots. It also requires submission of an affidavit by the person delivering the ballot attesting to their relationship with the voter. If the voter herself drops off her ballot, she has to show ID even though she will have already signed her ballot attesting to who she is.
Notwithstanding a lack of evidence of voter fraud in Arizona, Republicans assert that SB 1092 “safeguards” the voting process. If they really care about protecting our democracy, Republicans would introduce bills to protect our voting system from being hacked by foreign governments. But somehow that issue is not worthy of Republican attention.
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Eileen Hollowell
Oro Valley
Use surplus funds
to address deficiencies
So the state has surplus funds. Whoopee! The governor, in all his wisdom, has decided we need more tax breaks and a lot less income. Never mind the seriously underfunded education in this state. Never mind the crumbling bridges and failing roads. Never mind the totally underfunded Child Protective Services. Never mind the underfunded correctional system. Let’s just pass out those tax breaks, which will benefit very few of us but no doubt will highly benefit him and his cronies. What kind of stupidity is this? What is the matter with this guy? Can’t he see the great need we have in this state? We do not need less income. We need to correct all the deficiencies we have been living with for years.
Bette Bunker Richards
Northwest side
Improve gov’t programs to feed more children
Re: the Feb. 13 article “TUSD caps meal charges to avoid debt that could reach $1M.”
The Tucson Unified School District caps meal charges? I wonder, does the bookkeeping and collection costs exceed the cost of recovering funds from unpaid meals? What about financial stigmatization of children? Public school is free. Meals need to be free, too.
Childhood hunger is real. Real in Tucson. Real in America. We can end childhood hunger in this land of ours by expanding and simplifying food programs, including school meals. In schools, serve all meals free of charge.
The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children needs to be fully funded, removing eligibility limitations and serving all children under 6 years of age.
Head Start not only provides early education but also good food and it too needs to be opened to all children. And SNAP, aka food stamps, of which most of the food goes to children, needs to simplify the application process to be no more difficult than a 1040EZ income tax return.
We must do this for our all children.
Charles “Punch” Woods, retired director of the Community Food Bank of Southern Arizona
Southwest side
Fitz is feeling
the Klo-mentum
Re: the Feb. 15 article “Klobuchar is this cartoonist’s candidate of the minute.”
David Fitzsimmons made the right choice. Sen. Amy Klobuchar is the Democratic presidential candidate best positioned to unite the party and send Trump packing in November.
Amy Klobuchar is a graduate of Yale University and the University of Chicago Law School. Her career has been divided between the private sector and public service. Practical and progressive in her instincts and on the issues, she has compiled an extremely productive record in the Senate. She gets things done, even in this highly partisan political environment.
Klobuchar can appeal to all elements of the electorate, and she has the experience to do the job once elected.
Yeah, Fitz, I’m with you. Amy Klobuchar is the one to return integrity to the presidency and move the country forward. Take a close look, Arizona. I think you’ll like what you see.
Robert Thompson
Foothills
Let elite players
go pro immediately
Greg Hansen has made an insightful comment about salaries being out of control for college-level coaches and the lack of money for the players, whose talent and skill draw millions of college fans and their money.
I have difficulty coming to terms with the fact that many regular students end up with a lifetime of debt to earn a degree, and one-and-done kids walk away with two semesters fully paid and the adoration of fans who will never see them play again.
I enjoy basketball, but sadly and hypocritically, I have been part of this madness. Let those players who want to be pros go straight from high school. No college degree is needed to play in the NBA. Parents hire the agents, and once an agent is hired, no college eligibility. Nike and the other shoe companies have ruined college sports. If you don’t believe me, read the book by Joshua Hunt, “University of Nike.”
Let’s get the shoe companies out of college sports.
Richard Harper
Northeast side
Stature does not guarantee greatness
Donald Trump, like bullies everywhere, thinks one’s height and girth is significant in one’s abilities to achieve success as president. Certainly that is true if one is talking about basketball players and other sports competitors and even with winning elections. Most of our presidents have been taller than the average height of the American male. But low and behold (pun intended), perhaps the greatest document authored by any American, and the fundamental basis of our Democracy, is attributed to the shortest man to be elected President of the United States of America, James Madison. He stood no taller than 5 feet, 4 inches.
Now I — once 5-foot-6, but now down to 5-foot-3 as a result of gravity and joint compression, though happy to be in my 80s — take umbrage with that man occupying the White House who thinks one’s height is a measure of ones ability to preside intelligently.
Please people, use your brains when you vote come November.
Hal Bardach
Southwest side
We may be seeing history repeat itself
George Santayana famously said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” In 27 B.C., the Roman Empire came to an end when the Senate affirmed Augustus Caesar as emperor. In 1804, the French Republic, modeled after our own, came to an end when its Senate affirmed Napoleon Bonaparte as emperor. It now appears that 2020 will be the year that the American Senate affirms Donald Trump as the American emperor.
Looks like George was right.
Steven Brown
Midtown
We have the right
to be well armed
Re: the Feb. 15 letter “Second Amendment bad excuse for poor aim.”
I am not a gun owner, but I do support the right to bear arms. The reason citizens were given this right was so that they could protect themselves against tyranny of all types. I am a decent shot with a rifle, and it is true that you do not need a semiautomatic weapon to kill a deer. But since gun manufacturers are able to sell these weapons to potential enemies, then a law-abiding person should be able to own one.
Victor Panizzon
Northwest side
Senate Republicans
have created a monster
The Senate trial and vote to acquit Donald Trump of all impeachment charges essentially encouraged his quest for absolute power. Consequently, Republican Senators have blindly emboldened him to retaliate, threaten and heap obscenities on all who oppose him.
Trump’s acquittal and enabling support have unleashed a frighteningly vicious, vengeful, power hungry monster who demands absolute loyalty and manipulates his supporters with inciteful, dictatorial rhetoric.
This madman, rising unchecked to destroy our democracy, must be defeated in November.
Robert Swaim
East side
