Is our democracy under attack? The Think Tank debates it

The Think Tank will discuss scandals in the recent special primary election along with several other legislative topics on Sunday.

BY MIKE O'NEIL/THE THINK TANK

Mar 2, 2018, 4:00 PM

Follow on Google News

(Tom Ryan Photo)

Tom Ryan was the attorney for the legislative staffer involved in a sexting scandal with losing congressional candidate Steve Montenegro.

In this week’s Think Tank, we discuss this matter as well as the dismissed campaign finance charges against the Republican primary victor, former state Sen. Debbie Lesko.

Often when something interesting at is going on in the legislative arena, you will find Ryan around somewhere. But aside from his involvement in this matter, Ryan has many interesting observations about the state of our politics.

Among other things we discuss are bills in the Legislature to:

Circumvent the independent redistricting process voted in by the people of Arizona
Pre-empt cities from banning “dark money” in politics (there is one such proposal on the Tempe ballot in March).
Require that citizen initiatives be reauthorized by a re-vote of the people every 10 years
Make legislators electronic devices private (so sexting would be beyond the reach of the public’s right to know?)
Freeze the minimum wage increases approved by a 58 percent to 42 percent vote of the people two years ago.

Taken together, it would seem that the legislature is not much enamored of the public’s right to participate in the initiative process or to have such votes taken seriously.

We discuss all this — and more — in this week’s Think Tank on Sunday from 5 p.m. to 6 p.m. and rebroadcast from 9 p.m. to 10 p.m.