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Paul Eckerstrom, Co-chair of “Start our State” movement, to speak at Democrats of Greater Tucson

by on Apr. 03, 2011, under Life, Politics

Paul Eckerstrom, taken by Curtis Dutiel

Tucson attorney Paul Eckerstrom, Co-chair of the Start Our State (SOS) campaign to separate Pima County from the State of Arizona will be speaking at Democrats of Greater Tucson (DGT) on April 4.

This political committee started in late February and has been reported extensively on by Tucsoncitizen.com blogger/attorney Hugh Holub (“View from Baja Arizona”), who is somewhat credited with this idea of promoting the formation of a Southern Arizona state, tentatively called “Baja Arizona”. Click here (http://tucsoncitizen.com/view-from-baja-arizona/2011/02/25/americas-51st-state-movement-starts-to-free-baja-arizona/) for one of Hugh’s first blogs on this subject.

Eckerstrom is a former Chair of the Pima County Democratic Party.The other SOS Co-chair is Peter Hormel, another attorney activist in Tucson who was once a Green Party of Pima County candidate for Pima County Attorney, and the Treasurer is attorney David Euchner, former Chair of the Pima County Libertarian Party. These three local attorneys, from each of the 3 parties are leading the way in this “separation for equal representation” movement.

To establish a new state in Southern Arizona free of the un-American, unconstitutional machinations of the Arizona legislature and to restore our region’s credibility as a place welcoming to others, open to commerce, and friendly to its neighbors.

(from the SOS website)

Websites: http://startourstate.com/, and http://www.facebook.com/startourstate (with 3245 “likes” so far). Donations can be sent to “Start Our State”, P. B. Box 308, Tucson 85702 or online via Paypal, email is startourstate@gmail.com. “Free Baja Arizona” bumper stickers are for sale as well.

I heard Paul speak at Drinking Liberally (at The Shanty) on February 27, and about 30 people in the bar agreed that they no longer wanted to be associated with the conservative Arizona legislature. One fellow said that the current situation felt like “taxation without representation” because the current legislators did not represent the interests of the tax paying people here in Pima County.

And here’s Paul being interviewed on KUAT TV Channel 6 on March 11: http://www.azpm.org/politics/story/2011/3/11/1830-is-baja-arizona-for-real/

If you want to hear about this movement to separate/secede from the State of Arizona which has gotten a lot of media coverage (even nationally), log onto their website, read Hugh Holub’s numerous articles, and/or go to DGT on April 4.

DGT meets at the Dragon View Restaurant, 400 N. Bonita (between W. St. Mary’s Road and W. Congress) on Mondays at high noon (except holidays). Chinese buffet lunch costs $8.50 including drink & tip, or just $2.50 for a drink.

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  • Don

    Could somebody ask Mr. Eckstrom how he plans to compel the productive sections of Pima County into following him, Isabel Garcia and Dolores Huerta into his and Hugh’s hacky-sack Shangri-La?

    • Hugh Holub

      Don…I love how some folks try and distract from what’s really going on by creating strawmen issues…..the Baja Arizona thing has nothing to do with left wing immigration activists. It does have a lot to do with wasting a lot of time and energy in Phoenix on issues that no state really can do much about because the GOP has blocked any serious immigration law reform at the federal level and tried to capitalize on the frustration everyone feels about the situation.  What obviously frightens the far right in your party is that you really are not the majority in the state, let alone our part of it.  Personally I see Baja as a very conservation measure….tired of spending a lot of money driving all the way to Phoenix to deal with stuff that relates to down here. That’s actually how Arizona got created because the guy who lived in the house next door to mine got tired of having to go to Mesilla, New Mexico Territory (through Apache country) to do business…..

      • Don

        Ah…the old strawman charge!  So, you’re the one that gets to decide how people may or may not perceive Baja Arizona? ( Come to think of it…it IS your fantasy, so maybe you are.)

        Oh, BTW, Leftfield just cautioned Fraser and I about getting worked up in a lather over this whole Baja Arizona thing.  Perhaps he should caution you, too?

      • Don

        So, you’re saying that Dolores and Isabel and Three and Company WON’T find Baja Arizona to their activist liking?

        • Hugh Holub

          I’m sure they’ll make their pitch…as will your side and a whole bunch of other views.

          What you are missing in all this is that our area has a very long history of a more libertarian view of stuff. Remember we’re cowboy country where what your neighbor does is of no matter as long as it doesn’t impact you. Thus what you would probably call “liberal” in that a Baja Arizona would probably not have laws about banning gay marriage is not “liberal” but in fact libertarian…. government has no business messing with private stuff.

           And if you are a staunch private property person… try and impose Anglo zoning codes on Hispanics. 

          You have a whole lot of people…cowboys and Hispanics around here who don’t trust the “wisdom” of government any more than the Tea Party.

          Where the GOP has made a vast mistake is making the immigration issue racist and fear driven when in fact they very people you all demonized actually support a whole lot of “conservative” ideas and don’t trust government at all.

          You’ve left the Huertas et al as the only voice in the political process for many people who would not otherwise have gone there.

          Something worth your time is get some background in the time period 1900 to 1920 when Mexico came unglued and many folks left that country..and the similarily to what is going on now…. 

          You see Baja Arizona as a left wing liberal haven and I see Baja Arizona as a third way where what seem to you as opposing views actually merge into something really positive about protection of individual liberty and allowing maximum expression of the human potential we are blessed with here.  The Phoenix agenda diminishes us.

          • Don

            How do you know how things “seem” to me, Hugh? You must have a lot of built-up anger against the GOP, to project it onto someone you’ve never met or spoken with.

            When did “I” demonize immigrants, Hugh? 

            But yes, I do see Baja Arizona as a haven for the hackysack and si se puede crowd.  They’ll be drawn to it, Hugh.  How do you plan to keep them out?

  • Fraser007

    Key words….Drinking Liberally. It will go about as far as that…..28 feet past the bar’s front door.

    • Carolyn Classen

      I think that the idea for this  SOS campaign was even hatched at The Shanty bar on 4th Avenue, and  the organizers & supporters continue to meet there.

    • Hugh Holub

      And do you believe that the American revolution was not hatched in a few pubs in Boston?

      • Carolyn Classen

        Actually Hugh, some people did comment on Feb. 27 at The Shanty that it did feel like the pre-American Revolutionary days, sitting in a “pub” advocating for secession from a unpopular government that did not represent them.

        • Fraser007

          Almost how we feel when Obama will try to give citizenship to mexican illegals or how Obama refuses to protect  the border. (With 450 National Guard troops!! Wow). Works both ways Carolyn.

      • Don

        Just let us all know when you’ve got your Sons (and Daughters, and Gender-Neutral-Non-Judgemental-Persons) of Liberty all ready to go.

      • Fraser007

        No but it was finished on a battlefield in Yorktown.

  • Carolyn Classen

    Eckerstrom to speak on this SOS movement at Saguaro Eastside Dems on 4/25, 7 p.m., New Spirit Lutheran Church, 8701 Old Spanish Trail.

  • John

    Please-go ahead and secede. In fact, why not join mexico? I’d give you a year before you beg to come back. I just hope we’d say NO.

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