The
Birther Bill has passed the Senate in Arizona and now goes to the House. It will undoubtedly pass in the House as a version passed there in 2010 but the legislative year ran out before the Senate could vote on it.
A couple of things from it. First, it looks like Judy Burgess or her staffers - the Arizona State Senator who introduced the legislation - amends existing legislation with Microsoft Word. One of the annoying things about Word is that its grammar editor changes all your which's to that's. Note in the screenshot below the telltale sign of Microsoft Word's grammar skills.
The bill is pretty straight forward in what comprises a political candidate for an elections that the State of Arizona must deal with. The additional language that makes it 'the birther bill' is the language that requires proof of citizenship and birth in the United States.
The bill requires the party to provide proof of a candidates; Birth Certificate, Baptism or Circumcision Certificate, Medical Record signed by the Doctor and Midwife, early Census record and Sworn testimony of witnesses saying the candidate for President had been in the United States for fourteen years.
The legislation states that if the Secretary of State does not receive a long form birth certificate and does not have sufficient other documentation to prove the candidate is a citizen of the United States, then the Secretary can form a committee to determine if the candidate is really a citizen or not.
Is the legislation worth it? The answer is no. While the US has a mixed federal and national character with the states handling the presidential side of the election courtesy of the electoral college, this seems to be much ado about nothing.
This was only introduced because Arizona has a Republican Senate and Assembly, and the President of the United States is a Democrat who many in the state of Arizona dislike being President. The whole 'birther' movement is stupid, irrational and seriously, you have to be a committed idiot to believe it.
The only reason the birther movement has momentum is because it is easy to construe as a conspiracy, Hawaii is a long way away, and much of talk back radio and cable news perpetuate the 'some say' style of conspiracy. Additionally, those that do not like a Democrat or Obama as president will lean toward believing that his presidency is illegitimate, and him not being a citizen appeals to the removal of political and institution legitimacy.
This bill is unnecessary. It isn't even good politics but is typical of the poor nature of legislation that is coming out of the Arizona Senate. Good governance is valued, legislation like this is not.
More A
run down of the issues on the birther bill including constitutionality;
Senate President Russell Pearce, R-Mesa, proposed a bill in June 2009 to ask voters to require presidential candidates to provide proof of citizenship. It never got a hearing.
Last year, Rep. Judy Burges, R-Skull Valley, twice proposed a similar bill, although it would not have required voter approval. One never got a hearing, the other was halted right before it got a final vote in the Senate.
"It died in the Senate because (then-Senate President) Bob Burns thought it was stupid," said Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Phoenix. "This year's Senate president doesn't think it's stupid."
There has been three separate attempts to push through birther bills including one by the current Senate President Russell Pearce who produced the SB1070 legislation and the nullification law. Most of the bad legislation coming out of Arizona can be attributed to Pearce's leadership in the Senate.
More Jan Brewer, the Arizona Governor, has vetoed the birther bill. The statement for House Bill 2177 was;
Today I vetoed House Bill 2177. House Bill 2177 empowers the Secretary of State or other election officers in Arizona to judge the qualifications of every federal, state and local candidate at the time of filing. As a former Secretary of State, I do not support designating one person as the gatekeeper to the ballot for a candidate, which could lead to arbitrary or political motivated decisions.
In addition, I never imagined being presented with a bill that could require candidates for President of the greatest and most powerful nation on earth to submit their "early baptismal or circumcision certificates' among other records to the Arizona Secretary of State. This is a bridge too far.
This measure creates significant new problems while failing to do anything constructive for Arizona.
Which seems sensible on the Governor's part.
Phoenix Eats Out is the restaurant review site for
Phoenix,
Scottsdale and
Old Town Scottsdale which lists the modernist and contemporary restaurants, taverns and bars in the greater Phoenix area.
This is the list of the most popular restaurants pages from phoenixeatsout.com that have been viewed the most;
My personal favourite restaurants in Phoenix are
AZ88,
Postinos,
Bomberos with
Grazie,
Humble Pie,
Orange Table,
The Vig,
Fez and others coming close behind. View the complete list with the photo-journalistic style images on
phoenixeatsout.com
Arizona is an outdoor state and has lots of hiking in the city and around the state. Phoenix is unusual for most cities in having several large mountains in the center of the city with great hiking. Anyone who comes to Phoenix has to do the
Echo Canyon trail on Camelback and the
Summit Hike on Squaw Peak or Piesta Peak. The views of the city, suburbs and surrounding mountains are wonderful from Camelback and Piesta Peak.
For more experienced hikers there is the McDowell Mountains in North Scottsdale that has several difficult and strenuous hikes in
Tom's Thumb and
Bell Pass. Alternatively, you can hike the highest mountain in Arizona. At 12,600 feet
Humphrey's Peak is a long and difficult hike.
Between 2004 and 2009 this site,
southsearepublic.org, was a constitutional blog based on scoop which focused on Australian and global constitutional issues.
One of the strongest aspects of it was the development of constitutions by those involved in the blog. These constitutions are the outcome:
The constitutions were built using principles from Montesquieu's separation of powers, the enlightnment's universal political rights and the ancient Athenian technology of sortition and choice by lot.
South Sea Republic started in 2004 as an Australian constitutional blog in 2004 based on scoop software. It was an immigrative outgrowth of Kuro5hin. The archives for each year since then;
The articles are ordered by views.
I am an Australian living in the United States as a permanent resident.
I am a software developer by trade and mostly work in Java and jump between middleware and front end.
I originally worked in the New York area of the United States in telecommunications before moving to Washington DC and
working in a mix of telecommunications, energy and ITS. I started my own software company before heading out to
Arizona and working with Shutterfly. Since then I have joined a startup in the Phoenix area and am thoroughly enjoying myself.
I do a lot of photography which I post on this website, but also on flickr. I have a photo-journalistic website which lists
the modernist and contemporary restaurants in phoenix. I have a site on the
Australian Flying Corps [AFC] which has been around since the 1990s and which I unfortunately
lost the .org URL to during a life event; however, it is under the
www.australianflyingcorps.com URL now.
The AFC website has gone through several iterations since the 90s and the two most recent are
Australian Flying Corps Archives(2004-2002) and
Australian Flying Corps Archives(2002-1999) which are good places to start.
