OUR VIEW: IT'S IMPORTANT THAT WE ALL KNOW OUR LEGISLATORS' PASSIONS AND PRIORITIES More on agendas of area lawmakers Story Comments | Posted: Thursday, February 11, 2010 12:00 am
We continue our weeklong exploration of the legislative agendas of state lawmakers from Southern Arizona. As a public service, we reviewed the bills each is sponsoring and have sought to speak with them about their goals and priorities. • Rep. Patricia Fleming is a Sierra Vista Democrat who represents District 25. She is listed as a primary sponsor of more than 20 bills and six House concurrent resolutions. She did not return telephone calls seeking information on her top goals. According to her official page online, Fleming's priorities include funding for "education and vital community programs without frivolous spending." She is also "passionate about protecting Arizona's families, children and seniors, . . . believes that economic growth must go hand in hand with carefully considered land use . . . (and) understands the necessity for Arizonans to protect the environment and reduce their dependence on fossil fuels by using solar energy and other alternative sources of power." Among her bills, a measure mandating that public and charter schools provide recess periods in kindergarten through grade five; measures forbidding outsourcing state services and procurement work; a measure barring health-care organizations from denying care by categorizing pregnancy as a pre-existing condition; and a bill that would add an annual "sustainable parks" fee to car-registration charges, which would then be used to operate state parks. The state has closed many of its parks due to the budget crisis. Fleming also is a sponsor of a measure that would set a timetable for energy-conservation improvements in state-operated public buildings. • Rep. David Stevens, a Sierra Vista Republican representing District 25, did not return telephone calls seeking his views. His Internet House member page provides no biographical information. Stevens is listed as a primary sponsor of more than 45 measures pending before the Legislature. As Capitol Media Services reported on Tuesday, he is leading the effort to strip Arizona voters of the right to decide who should be a candidate for the U.S. Senate and instead have the legislators from the political parties choose the nominees. Stevens also is a sponsor of a measure from Rep. Frank Antenori, R-District 30, to exempt Arizona from a 1997 federal law that may make incandescent light bulbs extinct by 2014. Measures Stevens is sponsoring include HB 2281, which would bar public or charter schools from teaching classes designed for students of a specific ethnic group and advocating ethnic solidarity. He is a primary sponsor of measures that would require physicians to give specific informed-consent information to prospective egg donors; bar the selling of human eggs; and another that bars in vitro fertilization of a human egg with anything but human sperm or the transfer of a human embryo to anything but a human womb. • Rep. Nancy Young Wright, a Democrat from District 26, said her priorities are schools, the state budget, efforts to address Arizona's water future and animal-abuse issues. She has launched a nonpartisan water caucus that will begin meeting next week, and she earlier started a nonpartisan animal-welfare caucus. "HB 2778 is pretty exciting, I think," she told us. "This bill would prohibit homeowners' associations from banning rainwater conservation. They could make you do it in a pretty way, but they couldn't prevent you from harvesting rainwater from your roof." She also is a primary sponsor of bills to tighten regulations and the accountability required of school-tuition organizations that channel tax-credit money to scholarships. And Young Wright sponsored a bill to increase charter school accountability. • Rep. Vic Williams, a Republican who represents District 26, told us he is committed primarily to enacting three bills that he and Rep. Steve Court, a Mesa Republican, are sponsoring together. The first is a constitutional amendment that would go to the voters. If enacted, it would require that Arizona's budget be balanced every year. The second measure would require that all initiatives that include required spending be reaffirmed by voters every 10 years, he said. "I don't think it's prudent or practical to have these mandates in perpetuity," Williams said. "Demographics change, and so does technology - societal changes will happen." The third would cut off the salaries of lawmakers and the governor if they don't enact a budget by the June 30 end of the fiscal year. "I think the people of Arizona really want us to focus on the state of Arizona's problems," Williams told us. "And all of these three hit the core issue: the systemic budgetary problems we're facing in Arizona," he said. Arizona Daily Star