Archive for the 'Terry Goddard' Tag
November 6th, 2009, 11:34 am by Le Templar
Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard let the world know this morning via Twitter that he’s going to formally take steps toward running for governor:
“Today I will file papers to explore running for Governor. AZ needs strong leadership focused on jobs & ending partisan gridlock”
It’s been known for some time that Goddard, a former mayor of Phoenix, planned to make another bid for the post after losing out to Republican Fife Symington in 1990 and to Democrat Eddie Basha in the 1994 primary. Goddard is even considered an early frontrunner and likely will be the only major Democratic candidate to enter the race.
He will be “exploring” until at least mid-January to avoid triggering Arizona’s “resign to run” law. However, some people believe the attorney general already has violated it and should have resigned his current job already.
Goddard’s announcement comes less than 12 hours after the Republican incumbent, Jan Brewer, formally entered the race. The timing likely isn’t a coincidence.
Note: This post has been corrected to reflect the accurate information about Goddard’s past campaigns.
Posted in: Congress • Election issues • Governor • Journalism • 2010 elections • Jan Brewer • Terry Goddard | 1 Comment »
September 29th, 2009, 3:37 pm by Le Templar
Can we start referring to Attorney General Terry Goddard as the early front runner in next year’s governor’s race? A national political poll released today, the second in less than a week, shows Arizona voters favor Goddard over Republican incumbent Jan Brewer and at least one other prominent GOP name. As with the previous survey, the new poll from Rasmussen Reports leaves out a number of potential Republican contenders, so these results are in no way predictive of what will happen next year. Still Democrats are happy to tout Goddard’s standing in these polls as a real trend.
Interestingly, Rasmussen is often cited by Republicans as more reliable than other national polling firms. (Sssh! Don’t tell the GOP that poll founder Scott Rasmussen is a former member of the mainstream media.) So these results should provide more emphasis for Republican insiders to “encourage” Brewer to step aside and let other contenders vie for the 2010 party nomination.
Posted in: Election issues • Governor • 2010 elections • Jan Brewer • Rasmussen Reports • Terry Goddard | 1 Comment »
September 23rd, 2009, 3:06 pm by Le Templar
In a sign that Arizona politics continues to attract national interest, a Democratic political pollster based in Raleigh, N.C., is rolling out a series of quick turnaround voter surveys related to 2010 statewide elections. Results released today from Public Policy Polling shows Arizona voters currently favor Democrat and Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard to be the next governor over Republican incumbent Jan Brewer and two other GOP big names: state Treasurer Dean Martin and former Gov. Fife Symington. (Paradise Valley Mayor Vernon Parker, who is formally announcing his move into the race tonight, wasn’t offered as a choice.)
On Tuesday, the same firm released polling numbers about President Barack Obama and potential Republican challengers in 2012.
Spokesman Tom Jensen said told me his firm is looking at the political climate in various states across the U.S. this fall where there’s expected to be hot races for U.S. senator and governor in 2010. This week happens to be Arizona’s turn. The firm is covering the costs of these polls out of its own pocket, presumably to drum up publicity and to attract individual candidates as clients.
Jensen said the firm will release survey details Thursday about potential Democratic challengers to Sen. John McCain (Janet Napolitano?). On Friday, it will have a closer look at possible Republican primary match-ups.
Public Policy Polling is upfront about its political leanings but insists that it focuses on honest results. The firm doesn’t have much experience in Arizona. Jensen told me its pollsters first sampled state voters in August 2008 to see if Barack Obama had any shot at upsetting McCain in his home state during the presidential election. Seeing that McCain had a lead of 12 percentage points, Public Policy Polling didn’t waste any more time here.
McCain’s biggest threat in the 2010 Senate race would be in the Republican primary and not from any Democrats, especially since Napolitano still will be running Homeland Security. But Democrats are eager about Goddard heading their 2010 ticket and potentially elevating other candidates. So Public Policy Polling is back and ringing up registered voters again.
Posted in: Arizona government • Congress • Election issues • 2010 elections • Dean Martin • Fife Symington • Jan Brewer • Public Policy Polling • Terry Goddard • Vernon Parker | Post a Comment »
September 1st, 2009, 7:27 pm by Le Templar
 Randy Pullen Randy Pullen, chairman of the Arizona Republican Party, has called a news conference Wednesday at which he plans to demand a state special prosecutor be appointed to investigate whether certain state officials such as Attorney General Terry Goddard and Rep. Kyrsten Sinema (both Democratic leaders) have violated the state’s “resign to run” law by openly talking about their plans to campaign for another office in 2010. I welcome Pullen bringing public attention to this issue, to the extent that Arizona should decide whether to enforce this law, or dump it and let our politicians speak freely to us about their career paths.
But I do have a couple of questions I hope to ask Pullen:
1. Violating the “resign to run” law isn’t a crime, which usually is the only reason to consider appointing a special prosecutor (as the title implies). Obviously, Goddard can’t investigate himself. But why couldn’t one of Arizona’s 15 county attorneys investigate, as they have exact same authority as the attorney general to enforce state statutes?
2. For a truly objective investigation, should any and all possible violations that have been identified be part of the special prosecutor’s charge, including those involving Republican officials?
Posted in: Election issues • John Huppenthal • Kyrsten Sinema • Randy Pullen • Terry Goddard | 1 Comment »
May 18th, 2009, 12:12 pm by Le Templar
Late Friday afternoon, Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard filed federal court papers to stop the shutdown of the Tucson Citizen. The Citizen, while the state’s oldest continually printed newspaper, had been ailing for years despite a special exemption to federal anti-trust laws that allowed it to share profits and expenses with its main local competition, the Arizona Daily Star.
The Citizen’s corporate owner, Gannett, had been operating the Citizen on a day-to-day basis while negotiating with potential buyers. But it didn’t make sense to any investors because Gannett refused to sell the Citizen’s web site or Gannett’s share of the newspaper joint operating agreement.
The Citizen announced just before 10 a.m. Friday that it was closing down the print edition the next day. But the situation had been apparent for months. So I have to wonder why Goddard’s office didn’t have an emergency motion ready to file immediately when Gannett made the closure official. Instead, Goddard’s filing came near the end of the business day, and he couldn’t get a judge to hear his request for a temporary restraining order until this afternoon.
(Here’s another question: How does Goddard serve as attorney general for more than six years and still not know a single judge that he can get to sign an emergency TRO on a Friday evening or Saturday morning?)
The Citizen’s death as a newspaper and transition to a commentary/opinion Web site might have been inevitable, but I have to agree with Goddard’s assertion that Gannett’s actions violate the intent of newspaper joint operating agreements and the underlying federal law that allows them. So it would be great if a federal judge forces Gannett to make an honest effort to sell the Citizen and its assets to someone who wants to keep it as a newspaper, instead of the shell game the company has played for the past few months.
UPDATE: U.S. District Judge Raner Collins said he will rule Tuesday on Goddard’s motion. But can Collins actually order the Citizen to start printing again (and somehow bring 50 employees back to work), or would he simply order Gannett to restart sale negotiations under a different set of conditions? Or maybe he’ll see Goddard’s move as too little, too late.
SECOND UPDATE: The judge did rule Tuesday as promised, and it was in Gannett’s favor. Apparently, the folks who wanted to buy what parts of the Citizen that Gannett was willing to sell just didn’t offer enough money to match the cost of liquidation, so no anti-trust violations occurred.
Posted in: Journalism • Newspaper Preservation Act • Terry Goddard • Tucson Citizen | 1 Comment »
March 18th, 2009, 3:44 pm by Le Templar
One of Arizona’s most popular Democrat blogs has captured an interesting moment from state Attorney General Terry Goddard’s appearance Tuesday before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee. Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Penn., accidentally referred to Goddard as the Arizona governor. Goddard quickly corrected Specter, but he did drop in this side remark, “Aspiring, perhaps.”
Political observers have long assumed that Goddard is manuveuring to campaign for governor next year. In fact, he’s the presumed Democratic front-runner in many circles. But Goddard has scrupulously avoided the topic, if only to avoid triggering Arizona’s “resign to run” law. With the 2010 election season just around the corner, Goddard’s next move appears to be at the forefront of everyone’s mind, including his own.
Posted in: Arizona government • Election issues • Governor • 2010 election • Terry Goddard | Post a Comment »
January 26th, 2009, 4:04 pm by Le Templar
ARIZONA SECRETARY OF STATE KEN BENNETT (LEFT) AND GOV. JAN BREWER (Photo by Capitol Media Services)
Former state Senate President Ken Bennett took his oath today and became Arizona’s latest secretary of state. His primary duties include managing statewide elections and keeping campaign finance reports, registering trademarks, and recording official acts of the state including all new laws from the Legislature and new rules adopted by state agencies. (Apparently, he won’t have much to do on that last item for a while.)
As Gov. Jan Brewer got to handpick her successor, she and Bennett have agreed that he will take on some extra tasks for her administration by serving as a liaison to the Legislature and helping her sort out the state’s budget mess. It sounds sort of like something a lieutenant governor might do. But Bennett isn’t in line to be governor, yet. The state constitution requires someone who is elevated to that office to be elected to their prior post. As of now, Attorney General Terry Goddard would become governor if something happened to Brewer through 2010.
Bennett has said he intends to run for election in next year, and that would place him back in the line of succession (if he wins).
Posted in: Arizona government • Governor • Jan Brewer • Ken Bennett • Terry Goddard | Post a Comment »
October 22nd, 2008, 3:24 pm by Le Templar
I recently wrote in a print column that a Maricopa County Superior Court judge had declared unconstitutional a two-year-old Arizona law that allowed disputes between homeowner association boards and HOA members to be addressed by a state hearing officer. This was intended to be a more affordable and homeowner-friendly alternative to fighting an HOA board in court. The point of the column was to outline various possible options if that ruling stands. But the headline of the column was rather provocative, suggesting that I sided completely with the HOA industry in opposing any more government regulation. That brought out some real anger among both local readers and HOA activists across the country. Here’s an example of what they had to say to me from reader Melissa Hill:
“Before you wrote this article you should have investigated further into the issues surrounding HOAs and the folks that live in them. This is not simply a contractual issue. A few members of a neighborhood can band together and change the contract ‘rules.’ or contract terms, at any time without discussion or vote, as has happened in my neighborhood, and use scare tactics to force the neighbors into ‘compliance”’of these new contract terms, as they would be considered by (Scott) Carpenter. While this is illegal under our existing documents, they do it because they know that the homeowners do not have the money to challenge them in a court of law. In the real world we call that “bait and switch”, also known as FRAUD.
“The title of your article is downright irresponsible and shows your ignorance of the rampant misdoings in HOAs. I’m a board member in my HOA, and I know what I’m talking about. And my board president IS A LAWYER. Mr. Carpenter has much to gain by leaving the system as it is. This is not a professional opinion that should carry much weight in a story about the true FACTS of the situation.”
And that was among the more polite emails I received (Melissa and I exchanged several additional emails of a more positive nature, and I respect her passion on this issue).
While doing my interviews, it was pointed out that a Superior Court judge doesn’t set precedent. So the hearing officer process might just continue even if it couldn’t be applied to this specific case. But another alert reader let me know that Scott Carpenter’s law firm already has requested that the judge’s ruling be applied to all future HOA cases, which essentially would block the hearing officer route entirely.
We’re still waiting to hear whether state Attorney General Terry Goddard will appeal the ruling.
Posted in: Arizona Legislature • Arizona government • HOA • Homeowner associations • Terry Goddard | 4 Comments »
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