It is good news for South Side shoppers – and for the Tucson economy – that a third Costco Wholesale store may be on the way.

Costco is under contract to buy 16 acres near South Kino Parkway and Interstate 10.

In that location, it would attract shoppers from Green Valley, Mexico and other points south of Tucson. It also would provide a sales tax boost for the city.

The store would be on the southern tip of a 356-acre development that also will include a hotel, the University of Arizona Bioscience Park and residential and commercial development.

Until recently, the southern portion of Tucson has lagged in development of retail and high-end office space. That is changing, especially with the construction of this multiuse project.

Costco will offer South Side residents one more retail option. It’s about time.

Wedding business-to-be draws a cold reception from blissful community

Tanque Verde Loop Road is adorned with signs in opposition to a feared wedding business at a proposed chapel there.

The last best place in the Tanque Verde Valley, a secluded glen of quiet families, now is ready for war.

Forget Forty Niner Country Club, Mariposa Resort and the gated communities and swimming pools that have come to characterize this valley.

The mile of Tanque Verde Loop Road north of Speedway – “the Loop” – is a relic of mostly old, unpretentious properties.

But in the country kitchens behind the funky goat yards and horse barns, sophisticated computer investigations are producing pounds of corporate and court documents.

The findings are painstakingly plotted on a color-coded chart revealing a Byzantine web of corporate intrigue.

If slick real estate mogul John Fazio thinks he’s dealing with country bumpkin simpletons out on the Loop, he’s got another think coming.

Fazio says he plans to plunk a church in the close confines of this community.

But Fazio has yet to open a “church” that didn’t instantly morph into a busy wedding center replete with receptions serving alcohol.

Au contrair, he’ll interject. That business is run by his wife, Debi Fazio (or Debi Beyer-Fazio or Beyer Fazio sans hyphen, depending on the document).

But no matter whose name is on which part of this family affair, business has been brisk at both Reflections at the Buttes in Oro Valley and Reflections at Saguaro Buttes on Old Spanish Trail.

Wedding business, that is. The official “church” at Saguaro Buttes draws few parishioners.

Now Fazio is angling to open the Mesquite Grove Chapel at 1902 N. Tanque Verde Loop Road.

His other Reflections sites are sizable. Mesquite Grove, however, would occupy just 2.8 acres next to humble homes on the Loop.

“Is it a church or an event center?” asks Tina Whittemore, chief zoning inspector for Pima County. “If the whole purpose of the church is to front the weddings . . . it wouldn’t be allowed.”

She is awaiting documents from Fazio to demonstrate that the property will be used only for a church.

If Whittemore is not convinced, Fazio could appeal to the county Board of Adjustment.

In Oro Valley, Fazio filed a lawsuit against the city in July for failing to issue a certificate of occupancy after modifications to the business there.

Some elected officials fear Fazio may sue the county, too. But a lawsuit is the least of the Loop residents’ worries.

They’re most concerned about commercial traffic on a little-used country lane where children regularly ride bicycles and horses.

They worry that the mesquite forest on the site would be mowed down to create a parking lot.

And they fear the prospect of drinking, noise and bright lights from night wedding receptions, among other things.

But a lawsuit? “Mr. Fazio can bring it on. He picked the wrong neighborhood to do the wrong thing in,” says Murray Stein, who lives down a dirt lane off the Loop.

“We will follow this fight as far as it goes. And if Mr. Fazio succeeds in opening this business, he can look forward to picketers (when weddings are held there).”

Signs and banners opposing such a business already are displayed prominently along the Loop. If Fazio proceeds, Stein says, those banners will multiple, becoming veritable wallpaper along the roadway.

The fierce opposition is understandable.

A wedding center on the Loop would have little effect on most of us who live elsewhere in the Tanque Verde Valley.

But the Loop is truly the road less traveled.

Strangers don’t pass through because the neighborhood’s narrow, dirt side streets lead to dead ends.

Neighbors know and look out for one another, and strangers here stick out.

“This is such a special place, and we’ve so loved it,” says Karen Kartchner, whose rancher in-laws donated the Kartchner Caverns land that eventually became a state park.

“It’s just heartbreaking to think of this happening.”

An events center “just seems terribly inappropriate for this neighborhood,” says Ken Wise, who lives across the street from the Fazio site.

“This is one of the last remaining mesquite bosques in Pima County. . . . It’s dark out here, and he’s going to light up the place. And there are flooding issues,” Wise adds.

The residents are represented by county Supervisor Ray Carroll, who calls Fazio “the most pugnacious preacher I’ve encountered.”

As Loop residents await Whittemore’s ruling and Fazio’s next move, Carroll says, “They’re not only concerned about the midnight macarena. They’re concerned . . . whether this is more about credit cards than holy cards.”

Amen.

Reach Billie Stanton by e-mail at bstanton@tucsoncitizen.com or by calling 573-4664.

Diana Jones: “Everything we addressed with (Fazio), he had a slick answer. Everything he said made me more upset.”

Location of the proposed chapel

General Motors headquarters in Detroit. On average, GM pays $81.18 an hour in wages and benefits to its U.S. hourly workers, The Wall Street Journal says.

Remember when Democrats lamented the growing budget deficit and spoke of the burden our children and grandchildren would face if we didn’t put our fiscal house in order?

That was when Republicans ran the federal government and Democrats opposed tax cuts. Now that Democrats are about to be in charge, concern about the deficit has disappeared and spending plans proliferate, even though the national debt passed $10 trillion in September and we added another $500 billion last month.

The latest, but by no means the last supplicant at the public trough, is the auto industry, which wants a bailout to save jobs because its cars are not selling. There is a reason for that and it can be summed up in five words: The United Auto Workers Union (UAW).

Half of the $50 billion the auto industry wants is for health care for its current and retired employees. This is the result of increasing UAW demands, strikes and threats of strikes unless health care and pension benefits were regularly increased.

While in the past UAW settled for some benefit decreases while bargaining with the Big Three U.S. automakers, according to the Wall Street Journal in September of 2006, “on average, GM pays $81.18 an hour in wages and benefits to its U.S. hourly workers.”

Those increased costs, including the cost of health care, were passed along to consumers, adding $1,600 to the price of every vehicle GM produced. In February 2008, after General Motors offered buyouts to 74,000 employees, the Center for Automotive Research estimated the average wage, including benefits, for current GM workers had dropped to $78.21 an hour. New hires pulled down a paltry $26.65.

GM, now facing a head-on collision with reality, has taken an important first step toward fiscal responsibility by announcing the elimination of lifetime health care benefits for about 100,000 of its white-collar retirees at the end of this year.

Contrast this with non-union Toyota, whose total hourly U.S. labor costs, with benefits, are $35 per hour. Those lower labor costs mean Toyota enjoys a cost advantage over U.S. automakers of about $1,000 per vehicle. Is it any wonder that Toyota is outselling American automakers and from plants that have been built on U.S. soil?

According to James Sherk of The Heritage Foundation, Japanese car companies provide their employees with good jobs at good wages: “The typical hourly employee at a Toyota, Honda or Nissan plant in America makes almost $100,000 a year in wages and benefits, before overtime.”

While many in the Democratic Party have focused on “corporate greed” and “fairness,” according to Sherk, “competition, not corporate greed, is the real problem facing labor unions. When unions negotiate raises for their members, companies pass those higher costs on to consumers.”

Americans used to tolerate those increases, but no more. Competition has brought lower prices for Japanese cars and Americans are buying more of them, taking a pass on those manufactured in Detroit.

The argument made by those favoring a bailout of Detroit is that it will save more than 100,000 jobs in the auto and related industries. But what good does that do if people are not buying cars in sufficient numbers to allow the Big Three to make a profit?

This becomes the kind of corporate welfare Democrats decry when it comes to Wall Street. But, then, Wall Street isn’t unionized and Democrats want and need the union vote.

What about Chrysler’s bailout 30 years ago? It was a loan. Didn’t Chrysler pay back the government? Wasn’t it worth the risk to save jobs?

According to the Heritage Foundation, the $1.2 billion in loan guarantees made by the Carter administration still resulted in a partial bankruptcy for Chrysler. “Most of the company’s creditors were forced to accept losses just as they would if Chrysler had gone through Chapter 11, and the company ended up firing almost half its workforce, including 20,000 white-collar workers and 42,600 hourly wage earners. The only people who benefited from the bailout were Chrysler shareholders.”

The Heritage Foundation also notes, “If Washington really wants to help Detroit, they could end the regulatory nightmare that prevents profitable, fuel-efficient cars from reaching market.”

Ford, they say, has begun selling a car that gets 65 mpg, but they’re not selling it in America. Why? Because it runs on diesel fuel “and environmentalists in the U.S. have fought to keep diesel taxes high and refinery capacity low.”

More government intervention in private industry will bring us closer to socialism. Better to renegotiate the labor contracts, re-train workers for other jobs, or help them get hired at the Japanese auto plants in America than to subsidize a failed economic model for the sake of political gain.

E-mail Cal Thomas at tmseditors@tribune.com.

If I were the U.S. Treasury Department, I’d offer GM executives $10 billion, on the condition that they walk away from Chrysler and never look back.

Or $15 billion, $20 billion – whatever it takes to ride out this economic storm without getting panicked into a desperate and ill-advised merger.

For politicians who talk about helping Main Street as well as Wall Street, the cost of low-interest loans to help automakers weather a recession is chicken feed compared with the $1 trillion-plus already approved for banks and financial firms.

The payoff is also easier to foresee and more immediate: protecting hundreds of thousands of jobs for blue- and white-collar workers at factories, dealerships and other businesses across the country.

I’d insist on other conditions beyond banning a GM-Chrysler merger. Any U.S.-based automaker would qualify for low-interest loans as long as management could convince me it has a feasible plan for the company to survive long-term. A plan that includes alternative-fuel vehicles and a thriving lineup of cars of all sizes. Cars designed and developed to compete with vehicles from anywhere on Earth. Great cars to end Detroit’s reliance on trucks.

GM has such a plan. Ford does, too. They’ve learned from the mistakes they made in the 1980s and ’90s. The recent introduction of successful vehicles such as the Chevrolet Malibu, Cadillac CTS, Ford Fusion, Escape and Edge and GMC Acadia prove it. Cut them checks.

Chrysler’s leaders, on the other hand, spent much of the nine years they were part of DaimlerChrysler approving vehicles that didn’t stand a chance in the market – the Sebring sedan and Jeep Compass, to name two of too many. New owners from Cerberus arrived a year ago and dropped even the pretense of a long-term strategy.

I’m sure Cerberus would happily cash a federal check, but nothing in its behavior suggests the money would secure Chrysler’s future.

Cerberus’ ownership of Chrysler is a strip-and-flip operation. Step one: Lay off people, cut investments, close plants and drop models to make Chrysler a small, easily digestible acquisition. Step two: Sell it to an automaker that will build something new from the ashes.

Chrysler possesses many valuable assets. It builds great minivans – so good that Volkswagen hired it to provide the new Routan. Nissan has stopped developing big pickups because it saw the new Dodge Ram and realized Chrysler does the job better and cheaper.

Chrysler also has a sales network that blankets North America, the renowned Jeep brand and the legendary Hemi V8 and 300 sedan. It’s a smart acquisition for a number of automakers.

But not GM. That combination could devastate both companies rather than save either of them. GM and Chrysler have too much overlap in vehicles, sales outlets, manufacturing and engineering. A merger would assure widespread closures of plants and dealerships, and thousands of job losses from the factory floor and engineering office to the reception desk and service bay at your local dealership.

I don’t see the feds underwriting that, but an aid package that required a merged company to keep extra factories, trucks, brands and dealerships – as has been suggested – would set GM’s own reorganization back years and threaten the company’s future.

It’s a matter of time before Cerberus sells Chrysler. The government may have a role in facilitating that deal and protecting workers, but not at the cost of overburdening another struggling U.S. company.

People are dying in emergency medical helicopter crashes while federal officials still haven’t implemented safety recommendations made almost three years ago.

The National Transportation Safety Board, which made the recommendations, says the Federal Aviation Administration is implementing them – but not fast enough.

Not quickly enough, certainly, for the families of seven people killed in June when two copters collided while arriving at Flagstaff Medical Center – or for the 1-year-old and three adults killed this month in Aurora, Ill.

The safety board asked the FAA to, among other things, require the copters to have Terrain Awareness Warning Systems, to have a formal risk evaluation before each flight and to apply stringent safety rules now in place for flights carrying patients and donated organs to also include flights of medical personnel.

The FAA should implement these basic safety improvements at once.

Element to fuel cars abundant – stations aren’t

The Chevrolet Equinox fuel-cell vehicle draws onlookers at the University of Arizona Mall.

The last time I heard anyone talk about using hydrogen for transportation, some guy on an old newsreel was yelling, “Oh, the humanity” and the Hindenburg was crumbling to the ground in a huge fireball.

That, J. Byron McCormick assures me, will not happen with the fleet of hydrogen-powered SUVs General Motors has deployed under his leadership.

No explosions. No fireballs. No newsreel spectacular.

But also no gasoline. And no exhaust except for water and warm air. And a very green vehicle running on a fuel that could be manufactured with power from the sun.

Technically, it is possible – and it is being done now on a very small scale. Jay Leno drives a GM car powered by a hydrogen fuel cell.

But daunting practical barriers must be overcome before you can buy a car that runs on hydrogen and ditch the gasoline habit forever.

McCormick is executive director of fuel cell activities at GM – and he got his start at the University of Arizona, where he received bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees in electrical engineering. (For UA history buffs, McCormick is not related to a former UA president with the identical name: J. Byron McCormick.)

It was at UA that this McCormick first became interested in the technology of fuel cells, a device that breaks hydrogen into its two chemical components – oxygen and water – and in the process produces power to run an electric motor.

The technology is used on space vehicles and in nuclear submarines – mostly to produce water and oxygen, not power.

This week, McCormick returned to the UA campus with two Chevrolet Equinox sport utility vehicles that have been modified to run on hydrogen instead of gasoline. Except for fuel cell graphics plastered all over the SUVs, there was little obvious difference.

The vehicle drives like an “ordinary” one. But with an electric motor, it is totally silent while stopped and makes only a low hum when moving. Acceleration is impressive, with the vehicle leaping away from stops faster than gasoline-powered cars.

It will go about 200 miles on a hydrogen fill-up – but then what? There are no hydrogen pumps at your neighborhood gasoline station. There are a few around, but they are inaccessible to the public.

That’s the chicken-and-egg problem keeping all of us from driving hydrogen-powered cars: There isn’t a network of hydrogen fuel stations because there aren’t any hydrogen cars. And there aren’t any hydrogen cars because they have nowhere to fill up.

To nudge this problem off dead center, GM has hand-built about 100 hydrogen-powered SUVs and lent them – free – to drivers who live where there are a few fueling stations. Most are in the Los Angeles area, with a few in New York state and a handful in Washington, D.C.

Late-night host Jay Leno, well known as an automobile connoisseur, received one of the coveted vehicles. Most went to ordinary people willing to drive them and report any problems.

More will be built and distributed in Germany, South Korea, Japan and China, which have better-established hydrogen distribution networks.

There is no shortage of hydrogen. Vast quantities are vented as waste, often in the processing of petroleum. Or it can be made as needed, using electricity. If the electricity comes from solar cells, wind or some other renewal resource, the process is totally clean.

However, hydrogen also can be extracted from natural gas, releasing carbon dioxide. That makes the process less environmentally friendly.

McCormick predicts that production models of a GM hydrogen-powered vehicle will be rolling off the assembly lines by 2015 – only seven years from now. At first they are likely to be expensive boutique vehicles, but within five more years, they should be comparable in price to gasoline-powered vehicles of that time, McCormick said.

And what about the specter of scads of vehicles carrying Hindenburg-type fuel? Don’t worry. Fuel tanks are protected with Kevlar. And should they leak, the gas dissipates far faster than gasoline does, McCormick said.

Whew.

Mark Kimble appears Fridays on “Arizona Illustrated” on KUAT-TV, Channel 6. Reach him at mkimble@tucsoncitizen.com or 573-4662.

UA graduate student Grace Shih checks out the interior of the hydrogen-powered SUV.

McCormick

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THE BENEFITS OF HYDROGEN

• Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe and is available from a wide range of sources on Earth.

• There are large hydrogen production sites throughout the United States.

• Enough hydrogen is produced each year to fuel 180 million fuel-cell vehicles. Production is forecast to increase by 45 percent in three years.

• At current costs and production rates, hydrogen for a vehicle would cost the equivalent of $2.50 per gallon of gasoline, on a cost-per-mile basis. In the long term, that is expected to drop to $1-$1.50 per gallon.

• The only emissions from a hydrogen-powered vehicles are water and a little warm air.

Pima County’s plans to raise its transportation impact fee for new homes is overdue – despite the protestations of homebuilders and sellers.

The county should also press ahead with discussions to make the impact fee apply countywide instead of being limited to certain areas.

It has been 12 years since the Pima County Board of Supervisors approved a fee of $1,550 per new home to help pay for roads that would be needed by new residents.

The fee has been increased several times and now stands at about $4,600 per home. Chuck Huckelberry, the Pima County administrator, says he will recommend an increase to $8,800 to be imposed before the middle of 2009.

With the recession driving home building and sales to their lowest levels in decades, builders and real estate agents are rightly concerned about the increase, which would be passed along to buyers.

But if there are new developments, roads must be built to serve those residents. And with the county transportation budget already stretched serving existing developed areas, new residents must “buy” into the infrastructure.

Under state law, transportation impact fees can be imposed in designated areas only, with the money raised in those areas spent there for road improvements.

Huckelberry is recommending a regionwide impact fee – something that would require the cooperation of the incorporated cities in Pima County.

That is worth considering. New residents don’t drive solely in their corner of the county. The impacts of growth and additional traffic are felt regionwide. Several states allow regional impact fees, and Arizona should do the same.

Pima County should be able to spend money raised from impact fees anywhere on projects necessitated by growth.

With five cities and towns sprinkled across the unincorporated area of Pima County, roads can and do pass through several jurisdictions. The Regional Transportation Authority was created to bridge those jurisdictional gaps. Having a regionwide impact fee for transportation is a logical next step.

Current impact fees are based on road construction costs from six years ago. There is no question they must be increased so new development helps pay some of the additional costs it creates.

Proposition 201 creates a huge incentive for dissatisfied buyers to sue. There's little risk in going to court to ask for more than the homebuilder is offering.

Proposition 201 proponents, mostly unions, say the initiative is to protect new homebuyers against shoddy construction.

Opponents of Prop. 201, mostly homebuilders, claim that its intent to encourage litigation and enrich trial lawyers.

Although some of their arguments are stretched, opponents have the much better case. The primary effect of Prop. 201 would be to increase litigation rather than fix homes.

Consumer surveys indicate that most people are generally satisfied when they buy a new home. When they aren’t, however, it is a very big deal. For virtually everyone, their home is a major investment, both financially and emotionally.

In the 1990s, the home construction industry in California was racked by an explosion of construction defect litigation. The condo market largely froze.

In a former life, when I ran a public affairs agency, I was hired by the industry here in Arizona to promote an alternative dispute mechanism to prevent the California litigation craze from coming here.

I apparently wasn’t very successful, because legislation wasn’t passed in Arizona until long after I had become a journalist.

However, legislation was passed in 2002, on a very strong bipartisan vote. Only three of 90 legislators voted against it.

The current law is intended to encourage the resolution of disputes over home construction without litigation.

The buyer tells the homebuilder what he thinks is wrong. The homebuilder can make an offer to fix it. If buyer and builder agree, the repair is made. If not, the buyer still can sue.

If the dispute goes to court and the buyer gets more than the homebuilder offered, the homebuilder has to pay the buyer’s attorney fees. If, however, the buyer gets less than the homebuilder offered, the buyer has to pay the homebuilder’s attorney fees.

Under Prop. 201, the buyer would never have to pay the homebuilder’s attorney fees. In fact, the buyer would get attorney fees if he won anything, even if it was considerably less than the homebuilder offered before litigation.

This creates a huge incentive for dissatisfied buyers to sue. There’s little risk in going to court to ask for more than the homebuilder is offering.

You have to really like litigation to think that’s a good idea. And it’s likely to work against most dissatisfied buyers who just want their problems fixed, because it dramatically reduces the incentive of the homebuilder to be proactive before litigation.

That’s the heart of the measure and the main reason it should be rejected. Prop. 201, however, has other provisions, the consequences of which opponents are at least somewhat exaggerating.

You may have heard the opposition protesting that Prop. 201 even allows people who don’t buy a home to sue. That, however, isn’t for construction defects, which would clearly be ridiculous.

The proposition also requires that new home contracts contain additional disclosures, mostly about financial arrangements the seller may have with those doing the financing for the homeowner. This is the provision over which nonbuyers can sue.

That’s less ridiculous, but only slightly so. If someone doesn’t end up buying, what harm has he suffered? If there are harmful nondisclosures, real buyers can make the case.

Opponents are also making a big deal out of Prop, 201 striking current law exempting new home contracts with arbitration clauses from the dispute resolution mechanism set up by the statute. The proponents are trying to do away with arbitration is the claim.

What the proponents are trying to do by striking that provision in existing law is unclear, and certainly the overall thrust of the proposition is to encourage litigation. The Federal Arbitration Act, however, protects arbitration contract provisions and pre-empts state laws to the contrary.

There is one provision of Prop. 201 that would be a major disservice to most buyers of new homes that isn’t getting discussed enough. It would allow buyers to back out of a deal within 100 days and get 95 percent of their deposit back. If that were enacted, either construction on new homes would be routinely delayed for 100 days or deposits would become astronomical.

Proponents of Prop. 201 want voters to think it’s about a 10-year warranty on new homes. But Arizona courts have generally held that there is an implied warranty that new homes have to remain functionally fit for eight years, so there’s less gain in this than it appears.

Regardless of the motivation or the intent, the primary effect of Prop. 201 will be to have construction defects litigated rather than fixed.

Robert Robb, an Arizona Republic columnist, writes about public policy and politics in Arizona. E-mail: robert.robb@arizonarepublic.com

The Tucson Citizen Editorial Board interviewed candidates in contested general election races. Here are summaries of our previously published endorsements.

FEDERAL OFFICES

Raúl Grijalva

Democrat, U.S. Congressional District 7

The three-term U.S. House member is well known for his attention to early childhood and public education, conservation of natural resources and our nation’s wild places, as well as his appreciation of our military and desire for an end to the war in Iraq.

Gabrielle Giffords

Democrat, U.S. Congressional District 8

The accessible, candid first-term House member embodies the bipartisan spirit needed to get things done, has an excellent understanding of issues, such as the war in Iraq, and has the experience needed to use that knowledge on Arizonans’ behalf.

STATE SENATE

Manuel V. Alvarez

Democrat, state Legislative District 25

Rural health care is a major focus for the quiet, straightforward three-time state legislator. He astutely sees illegal immigration as primarily a federal problem and wants the state to focus on drug-runners and other violent criminals who break state laws.

Cheryl A. Cage

Democrat, state Legislative District 26

A businesswoman, Cage wants Arizona to exploit its potential for solar power, believes the state must diversify its revenue sources and says the Legislature should revisit a defeated initiative that would allow state universities to partner with private businesses.

Bob Westerman

Republican, state Legislative District 27

Westerman, a senior manager at Raytheon Missile Systems, has an enthusiasm for the job of governance, an unusually deep knowledge of the troubled state budget and a passion for education that would serve the Democrat-dominated district well.

Jonathan Paton

Republican, state Legislative District 30

Two-term state legislator Paton understands government and has done yeoman’s work, distinguishing himself most recently by co-sponsoring a package of laws designed to improve children’s safety and increase transparency in Child Protective Services.

STATE HOUSE

Richard Boyer

Democrat, state Legislative District 25

Boyer, a former Bisbee magistrate, has provocative ideas: He wants property tax relief, higher teacher pay and suggests teachers get the same deal as some doctors: help with college costs if they’ll work in a rural area initially.

Patricia Fleming

Democrat, state Legislative District 25

Fleming,who retired after 24 years with the Department of the Army, says southern Arizona’ No. 1 problem is drug trafficking and illegal immigration. She questions the proposed I-10 bypass and likes the concept of a Tucson-Phoenix rail connection.

Don Jorgensen

Democrat, state Legislative District 26

Jorgensen, a health care professional, promises transparency in the budget process. He wants a dedicated funding source for education, rather than leaving it to the whims of the Legislature, which has traditionally been stingy.

Nancy Young Wright

Democrat, state Legislative District 26

Wright, in the Legislature for a year, says prison costs should be reviewed, especially in private prisons. In budgets cuts, all-day kindergarten, KidsCare and prenatal services should not be touched; they save us money in the long run.

Olivia Cajero Bedford

Democrat, state Legislative District 27

Cajero-Bedford, a legislator for six years, has a deep sense of social responsibility and tried to increase cancer research funding. She is a staunch voice for education, social services, health care and services for elderly people.

Phil Lopes

Democrat, state Legislative District 27

Lopes, Democratic leader in the House, is one of the state’s outstanding legislators. He is a strong advocate for education at all levels. He has had a major role in helping craft palatable and workable budgets the past two years.

Matt Heinz

Democrat, state Legislative District 29

Heinz, a doctor, would bring real-world knowledge and advocacy for better health care. He wants to increase middle-class access to the state health care system. Safe communities and a stable educational system also make Arizona healthier.

Daniel Patterson

Democrat, state Legislative District 29

Patterson, an ecologist, wants economic justice for South Side working families. He says further tax cuts are not a good idea given Arizona’s spiraling budget deficit. Says a higher gas tax would increase needed revenues for transportation.

Frank Antenori

Republican, state Legislative District 30

Antenori, a program manager at Raytheon, is an advocate for smaller government. He wants to preserve strong public safety, transportation, basic health services and to ensure Arizona provides “a good, solid K-12 education.”

Andrea Dalessandro

Democrat, state Legislative District 30

Dalessandro, a retired accountant, opposes vouchers and tax credits, saying they take public dollars away from public schools. She is fiscally frugal and wants to encourage more business support of schools and better health care.

ARIZONA CORPORATION COMMISSION

Marian A. McClure

Republican

McClure, who served eight years in the state House, is a passionate advocate for consumers and a fiery foe of the usurious payday lending industry. She wants to battle securities fraud to protect the elderly and help Arizona to become a leader in solar.

Bob Stump

Republican

Stump, a former legislator, says renewable energy costs will drop as our use of those sources rises. Wants to pursue all forms of cheaper, cleaner energy. Supports net metering, noting that “consumers can liberate themselves” by generating more energy than they use.

Barry Wong

Republican

Wong served six months on the ACC and helped pass and is a strong supporter of the renewable energy standard for utilities, which segues our state into less use of foreign oil. As a legislator, he worked to create tax credits and market incentives for renewable energy.

COUNTY OFFICES

Sharon Bronson

Democrat, Supervisor District 3

Bronson is knowledgeable and competent. Despite her opponent’s hollow claims, Bronson has worked to maintain essential county services during the declining economy. A strong supporter of the Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan.

Barbara LaWall

Democrat, County Attorney

LaWall, who has held office for 12 years, has reduced the trial rate while concentrating on the worst criminals. She has an excellent record in working with victims of crimes and children who have been victimized. She has stayed within her budget.

Clarence W. Dupnik

Democrat, Sheriff

Dupnik has been sheriff for 28 years and has been responsible for making the department a well-respected agency despite staff shortages. Has formed a border crimes unit to go after those who commit crimes after entering the country illegally.

Linda Arzoumanian

Republican, Superintendent of Public Instruction

Arzoumanian has held the county school job for eight years. Has efficiently served 15 of the county’s 17 school districts with oversight of bookkeeping, accounting, teacher certification and, in some cases, transportation.

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For more information . . .

• about where to vote in Pima County, go to the Web site for the Recorder’s Office: www.recorder.pima.gov

or to the Pima County Elections Division site: www.co.pima.az.us/elections

• to see video of the candidates’ interviews with our Editorial Board, go to www.tucsoncitizen.com/election.

• In next Monday’s Citizen: a roundup of our endorsements of state and local propositions.

If Democrats gain unchecked power, the one thing they would most likely do is abolish the secret ballot for union elections. Even the so-called "conservative" Democrats running in swing districts are toeing the line on this one.

The anchor of this election season has been a fairly fixed sentiment among the electorate that they have had enough of George Bush and Republican rule.

That, in and of itself, doesn’t determine the outcome. Candidate races come down to: Compared to whom? John McCain, for example, has consistently outperformed the Republican brand in the presidential race.

Left largely unexamined, however, is the flip side of the sentiment to give the Republicans the boot. What would it mean if voters gave Democrats largely unchecked power at the national level, the presidency and large enough majorities in Congress to run over the Republican minority?

Would the result be something the American people want?

If Democrats gain unchecked power, the one thing they would most likely do is abolish the secret ballot for union elections. Even the so-called “conservative” Democrats running in swing districts are toeing the line on this one.

The House Democratic leadership forced a vote on the proposal last year, even though the issue could be used against its vulnerable members. Only two Democrats voted against it. All of the Arizona Democrats running in swing districts – Harry Mitchell, Gabrielle Giffords, Ann Kirkpatrick and Bob Lord – support abolishing the secret ballot for union elections.

The second most likely thing Democrats would do is to make the tax system sharply more redistributionist.

Obama famously vows to raise taxes on those making more than $250,000 a year. But that is only the beginning. He says he will cut taxes for 95 percent of American families, but only about 60 percent of such families pay income taxes now.

What Obama is proposing is a series of refundable tax credits for virtually everything people do: work, raise kids, save, buy a house, send children to college. The way a “refundable” tax credit works is that if the credit exceeds your income tax liability, the government sends you a check for the difference.

Obama justifies this as a “tax cut” by saying that, for those who don’t pay incomes taxes, it offsets their payroll tax. That, however, merely means the redistribution is occurring in the way the country finances Social Security and Medicare and undermines their status as social insurance programs.

Regardless, these refundable tax credits are more properly seen as large increases in spending rather than as true tax cuts.

Unchecked Democrats are likely to enact fundamental reform in health care. Obama proposes allowing all Americans to buy into a system similar to that federal employees currently have, in which private insurance companies compete. That is the heart of many reform proposals by both the right and the left.

However, Obama also proposes a Medicare-style fee-for-service alternative that might squeeze out the private insurance options. It may be intended to.

Democrats are clearly prepared to open the spending floodgates, using the economic downturn as an excuse.

Congress already has enacted a $168 billion stimulus package, a $300 billion housing refinancing plan and a $700 billion bailout for the banking system. Now, Democrats want another $300 billion stimulus.

This from a government that has to borrow money to pay the light bill.

And brace yourself if Democrats reform financial regulation. They like to use corporations to implement their social policies off budget. Remember Fannie and Freddie?

In reciting this litany, however, it becomes clear how little grounds the Republicans have to criticize it, except for taxes.

Big government spending programs? Bush proposed the largest expansion of the federal role in education since Jimmy Carter with No Child Left Behind and the largest expansion of the entitlement state since Lyndon Johnson with his Medicare prescription drug benefit. Most congressional Republicans supported them.

Racking up deficits? Bush is the champ. Interfering in the private economy? The Bush administration just partially nationalized the banks, forcing healthy banks to accept public capital they didn’t want.

John McCain once could have legitimately claimed to serve as a check on Democratic excesses, particularly on spending. And Americans seem to like divided government.

However, McCain supported the $700 billion bailout and proposes that the federal government spend another $300 billion buying up mortgages at face value. Vetoing earmarks isn’t going to make up for that.

So, there you have it:

An election Republicans deserve to lose, but Democrats don’t deserve to win.

RANDY HARRIS/Tucson Citizen

Robert Robb, an Arizona Republic columnist, writes about public policy and politics in Arizona. E-mail: robert.robb@arizonarepublic.com

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TAXES: WHERE THEY STAND

Barack Obama

Obama would keep the Bush tax cuts for earners whose income is less than $250,000. He would let the rate for the top income tax bracket go back to 39.6 percent. He would exempt the first $7 million for couples from estate tax, after which the rate would be 45 percent. He’d triple the earned income tax credit for the working poor. Seniors earning less than $50,000 would pay no income tax.

John McCain

McCain opposed the Bush tax cuts for not being paired with spending cuts but now says they should be made permanent. He would exempt the first $10 million for couples from the estate tax, after which the rate would be 15 percent. He wants to lower taxes on dividends and capital gains and lower the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 25 percent. He’d double the exemption per dependent to $7,000.

———

THE POLL

Results of a CBS-New York Times national phone survey of 771 likely voters. The margin of error for the poll, conducted Sunday through Tuesday, is plus or minus 4 percentage points.

OBAMA: 52%

McCAIN: 39%

OF INTEREST: About two-thirds are comfortable with Democrat Obama, and evenly split on whether they are comfortable with Republican McCain or uneasy about him. Three-fourths believe Obama has the temperament and personality to be president; just over half say the same for McCain.

UA law students to help voters at the polls, where proper attire will be required.

Erin Ford (left) and Emily Kane will be among some 60 University of Arizona law students who will check polling places around Tucson on Election Day.

Unless you just emerged from a cave, you know not to wear your Barack Obama “Change We Need” T-shirt when you go to vote.

The same goes for your John McCain “Country First” cap. Or your Ralph Nader whatever.

All that stuff is considered electioneering and is not permitted at the polling places.

But what if you have a shirt with just Obama’s picture on it? Or one with McCain’s name and nothing else?

Or what if your shirt has a picture of you and your spouse and children. Could that be considered electioneering in support of Prop. 102, the constitutional ban on gay marriages?

Would a picture of a house on your shirt be considered supportive of Prop. 100 – Protect Our Homes?

Some of this may seem absurd. But it all is open to interpretation by the people working at the polls. A shirt or a button or something else you considered innocent may keep you from voting.

More than 150 million registered voters are in this country. And in 12 days, an estimated 9 million of them will cast their very first ballots. It is likely to be the largest-ever turnout of first-time voters.

When 9 million people show up on the same day to do something they’ve never done before, there will be problems. And clothing issues may not be the most serious concern.

To help resolve problems, two University of Arizona students in the College of Law are organizing dozens of their classmates to monitor polling places on Election Day. They have no official role, but they are part of a national group that will try to work things out so people who are willing and eligible to vote have that chance.

Emily Kane, a third-year law student at UA, became interested in the effort after taking a class in election law. She talked with classmate Erin Ford, and the two got started more than a year ago.

To make sure the effort was free of political bias, UA chapters of the liberal Federalist Society and the conservative American Constitutional Society were invited to take part.

“We want to make sure there is nothing going on inside the polls that could disenfranchise voters,” Kane said.

There might not be enough pens to mark ballots. Lines could be too long. Equipment may not be working. Voters may show up at the wrong polling places. There might be questions about whether a voter has the proper identification required by Arizona law.

Or there could be a dispute about a T-shirt.

Ford says more than 60 law students and about 15 volunteer law faculty members will work in groups of two, checking polling places around town.

They’ll stay outside the 75-foot electioneering boundary, talking with voters, and will go inside only if invited by workers.

The students will be “trained volunteers who are there to help,” Ford said, and will not be trying to force a confrontation.

The help likely will be welcome and needed, said Karen J. Hartman-Tellez, a Phoenix attorney with Steptoe & Johnson. She came to Tucson last week to help train the law students who have volunteered to work Election Day.

“The T-shirt issue is very hot,” Hartman-Tellez said. She noted that the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona recently wrote to state elections officials, asking that the ban on electioneering at the polls be narrowly defined.

Voters who show up wearing partisan T-shirts should not be turned away if they are “involved in a silent and passive expression of their position,” the ACLU wrote. The state rejected that notion.

“There is no doubt the polling places will be busy and the lines will be very long,” Hartman-Tellez said. If delays keep everyone from voting, lawyers will be prepared to go to court to keep the polls open late, she said, adding, “I hope it doesn’t come to that.”

The local effort is part of a nationwide undertaking to make sure people who want to vote can do so. People with any questions about voting from now through Election Day can call a toll-free number (see box) for immediate assistance.

“I’ve always been involved in social justice work,” Kane said, “and I think our greatest changes start on Election Day.”

Mark Kimble appears at 6:30 p.m. Fridays on the Roundtable segment of “Arizona Illustrated” on KUAT-TV, Channel 6. He may be reached at mkimble@tucsoncitizen.com or 573-4662.

When 9 million people show up on the same day to do something they've never done before, there will be problems.

———

ELECTION HELP

For any questions about voting – your polling place location, what identification is needed, voting hours – or for any problems on Election Day, call a toll-free number and your question will be answered or a volunteer dispatched to resolve problems. English: 866-OUR-VOTE (866-687-8683) español: 888-VE-Y-VOTA (888-839-8682)

A mandate to purchase health insurance can be seen as a self-responsibility requirement and an anti-free rider protection.

Proposition 101 stands for a simple and commendable principle: People should have the right to use their own money to purchase the health care they want.

How the proposition would affect Arizona’s health care system now and in the future isn’t quite so simple.

The proposition is intended to preclude the imposition of a government health care plan that would mandate that everyone participate and forbid the purchase of health care outside the plan.

It is also intended to preclude government mandates that individuals purchase health insurance or that employers provide health insurance or pay a fine.

These are not idle concerns. In 2006, Massachusetts passed a plan with both individual and employer mandates. Vermont adopted an employer mandate that same year.

New Jersey has adopted a requirement that all children be insured. California is considering a Massachusetts-styled proposal.

In Arizona, House Democratic Leader Phil Lopes has been touting a proposal in which a government commission would establish a standard benefit plan for the state and set reimbursement rates for health care facilities and practitioners. Private insurance would be forbidden for services covered by the government plan.

The opposition to Prop. 101 is claiming that it could dramatically increase costs for the state’s Medicaid plan, which is based on restricting choices regarding health care providers.

That’s nonsense. Proposition 101 confers a constitutional right on individuals to purchase health care services and coverage directly. It confers no rights on individuals with respect to health care purchased for them by others, either the government or employers.

If individuals decide to enroll in the state’s Medicaid plan, they have to abide by the rules of that plan. Proposition 101 doesn’t change that at all.

In reality, opponents of Proposition 101 want to preserve the option of mandated participation and a governmental system without opt outs.

If there is to be universal access, the health care of those sick, particularly those with chronic illnesses, has to be subsidized.

Universal access could be easily provided simply by allowing anyone to buy into the state’s Medicaid pool. In that way, however, the subsidy would be reasonably transparent and borne by taxes.

Many universal access advocates prefer to hide the subsidy through the premium mechanism. By mandating that individuals purchase insurance, particularly in a governmental system without opt outs, the young and healthy are subsidizing the chronically sick without knowing it.

An employer play-or-pay requirement also hides the cost of the government social welfare policy.

Universal access is a laudable policy. But the necessary subsidy should be provided transparently through the tax mechanism, not hidden through the premium mechanism or employer mandates.

To the extent Proposition 101 precludes more opaque options, it forces reform discussion in the right direction.

However, the claim by supporters that Proposition 101 is purely preventative is probably not true. Proposition 101 would also probably make fairly sweeping changes in the existing private health insurance market.

Arizona, like many states, imposes a variety of mandates on private health insurance plans. These mandates include various medical conditions, such as autism, and various health care procedures, such as breast reconstruction in cancer cases.

There also are mandates that various health care professionals, such as chiropractors, be covered if the medical condition being treated falls within their scope of practice.

Proposition 101 says that no law can be passed that restricts an individual’s freedom of choice regarding “private plans of any type.” That presumably would include plans free of the mandates the state currently imposes.

Now, I happened to think that this is a good thing. Government shouldn’t be dictating the terms of insurance contracts. And these mandates are widely thought to drive up the cost of health insurance. People should have the right to purchase stripped-down insurance policies if they want.

But it does mean that the impact of Proposition 101 is probably far broader than proponents are admitting.

I certainly agree with Proposition 101′s goals of protecting the right of individuals to purchase health care services directly and to preclude employer play-or-pay provisions.

I’m more ambivalent about precluding a government mandate that people purchase health insurance. After all, if people get sick, they get taken care off. And if they don’t have insurance, often the rest of us are stuck with the bill one way or another.

A mandate to purchase health insurance can be seen as a self-responsibility requirement and an anti-free rider protection.

In the final analysis, however, it’s better to have the right to purchase health care independent of government constitutionally protected than not.

Robert Robb, an Arizona Republic columnist, writes about public policy and politics in Arizona. E-mail: robert.robb@arizonarepublic.com

Masquerading as a protector for access to private medical options, the initiative actually would hinder true reform

Professor Gene Schneller of Arizona State University concludes, "Lawyers will be the major beneficiaries" of Proposition 101.

About the way health care is delivered in Arizona and the rest of the United States, one thing is certain: The system is broken.

More than 1.2 million Arizonans,

nearly 20 percent,

lack health insurance. Since 1999, the cost of premiums in the U.S. has risen four times faster than inflation.

Fewer businesses with fewer than 10 employees offered health insurance in 2007 than in 2000.

Against this backdrop comes Proposition 101, which would amend Arizona’s Constitution to prohibit laws that restrict a person’s freedom to choose private care, or to decline to be covered by any particular health system or plan.

The proposition is a bubbling petri dish of unforeseen consequences that will not improve our health care system and will hinder true reform. It should be rejected.

The broad sweep of the proposition leads many health care experts to believe it will result in endless litigation as attorneys haggle over its interpretation. Even Dr. Eric Novack,

one of two Phoenix surgeons pushing the plan, acknowledges that the right combination of attorneys and plaintiffs could result in lawsuits.

The head of Arizona’s state Medicaid program says the proposal, if challenged in the courts, could force the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System

to switch to a fee-for-service model that would cost consumers $1 billion.

Professor Gene Schneller

of Arizona State University concludes,

“Lawyers will be the major beneficiaries.”

Prop. 101 supporters like to frame it in First Amendment terms, as if the proposal were enshrining a right akin to speaking or worshipping freely.

But it does not make access to health care a right or even guarantee the right to the doctor of one’s choice.

HMOs still would be able to change at will their lists of “in-network” physicians and hospitals.

Prop. 101′s provision giving Arizonans the right to opt out of a health plan is at odds with the benefits society would obtain from mandating that all Arizonans have health insurance. The analogy to car insurance, which is mandatory in Arizona, is apt.

Mandatory car insurance benefits all Arizonans. It puts insurers, not the state, on the hook for expenses. So it should be with health insurance. When the uninsured get sick, we all pay.

Supporters of Prop. 101 argue that mandatory insurance does not work because 25 percent to 40 percent

of motorists remain uninsured. But that doesn’t mean the law’s purpose is flawed, only that enforcement must be improved.

Businesses fear the proposition. Almost all chambers of commerce in the state oppose it, because they worry it would give any employee the right to reject the company health plan and demand an alternative – the tyranny of the minority.

Legislators, both moderate and conservative, have come out against the proposition because health care coverage is a legislative, not a constitutional, issue. They realize the proposal would handcuff their ability to make real fixes to the system.

Massachusetts and other states are experimenting with universal health coverage plans. Some may fail, but others may succeed. Under the constrictions of Prop. 101, Arizona would not be able to partake of the best practices of other states. We’d be stuck with the dysfunctional status quo.

“Choice” is the mantra of Prop. 101′s supporters. But Arizonans already have choice; what they need is real health care reform, which the initiative would impede. Prop. 101 may be what some special interests and lawyers want, but it is not what the doctor ordered.

The Tucson Citizen urges voters to reject Proposition 101.

You wouldn’t have picked up on it during the debates, but John McCain and Barack Obama actually agree on some issues. One of them is gay marriage.

Both presidential candidates oppose the concept, preferring instead the squishy alternative of civil unions.

They’re both wrong. I can sympathize. In 2000, when 61 percent of California voters approved Proposition 22, a ballot measure that defined marriage as between a man and a woman, I was an opponent of gay marriage. I thought that gay rights activists should concentrate on a more achievable goal such as a federal civil rights bill outlawing private-sector discrimination based on sexual orientation.

Then a gay family member helped me see that the issue wasn’t as complicated as I was making it. I now believe we simply can’t have a two-tiered system where some of us have the right to marry and others don’t, based on sexual orientation.

The fact that gays and lesbians – including some who are already in committed relationships – want to get married doesn’t weaken the institution. It strengthens it by allowing more people to participate.

As more states allow gays and lesbians to marry – Connecticut recently joined the list – I’ve taken note that civilization has not crumbled.

Here in California, some people are still worried it might. Proposition 22 was struck down last spring by the California Supreme Court, thus clearing the way for gay marriages. Now the opponents of gay marriage have proposed another ballot initiative, Proposition 8, which would amend the state constitution to ban gay marriage.

McCain has endorsed the measure. But Obama’s position is all over the map.

Despite having said that he opposes same-sex marriage and that each state should reach its own decision, Obama has also said that he opposes “divisive and discriminatory efforts to amend the California Constitution” in order to prohibit gay marriage.

There you have one of the inconsistencies in the “No on 8″ campaign.

After President Clinton signed the federal Defense of Marriage Act in 1996 – defining marriage as between a man and a woman and excusing states from recognizing gay unions approved by other states – supporters of gay marriage said the matter should be settled by the states.

Now that Californians are trying to do just that, the supporters of gay marriage are yelling foul. If the federal government can’t settle this issue, and the states can’t either, then where do opponents of gay marriage – misguided though they may be – go to make their voices heard?

The “Yes on 8″ campaign has its own built-in contradiction. Opponents of gay marriage make a fuss over the fact that a handful of judges overrode the wishes of millions of voters. You don’t say?

These people are all too eager to use ballot initiatives to play citizen legislators, as they did eight years ago. But when real legislators pass a law, whatever they come up with must be able to survive judicial review.

The same goes for a voter-approved initiative. The opponents of gay marriage want all the power that comes from making laws, but none of the responsibility of making sure the laws they pass are constitutional.

Meanwhile, the California campaign is topsy-turvy. A Field Poll released Sept. 18 found that 38 percent of likely voters backed Proposition 8 and 55 percent opposed it.

Now, just one month later, a Survey USA poll – conducted on behalf of four California television stations – finds that 47 percent of likely voters support the initiative while just 42 percent oppose it.

One reason for the turnaround seems to be radio and television ads. A despicable offering from the “Yes on 8″ camp plays on the fear that, if gay marriage continues, it will make its way into the public school curriculum.

The television ad features a little girl who comes home from school and informs her mother that she’s reading a book about a prince who can’t find a princess to marry and so instead he marries another prince. And, she says, when she grows up, she can marry a princess.

Good heavens. The spot does not explain that California parents have the right to be notified of any instruction of sexually implicit material and to pull their children out of class if they so desire.

Instead, what you wind up with is Willie Horton meets “Sesame Street.”

Ruben Navarrette Jr. is a columnist and editorial board member of The San Diego Union-Tribune. E-mail: ruben.navarrette@uniontrib.com

Prop. 201 would allow dissatisfied buyers of new homes to sue builders without first trying mediation.

Ballot propositions are typically put forth to fix perceived problems in the Arizona Constitution or state law.

That said, it is unclear why Proposition 201 – the so-called Homeowners’ Bill of Rights – has made its way to the ballot.

Seemingly unneeded, it would undo a portion of state law that appears to be working fairly well.

Therefore, the proposition should be rejected by voters Nov. 4.

The Arizona chapter of the AFL-CIO is behind Prop. 201. But unless the organization’s goal is to force unionization of homebuilding, as some opponents of the proposition claim, the reason for the its involvement is hazy.

Prop. 201 would require a 10-year warranty on new homes, up from the industry standard of eight years.

But its most significant provisions would change the way dissatisfied homebuyers would deal with the homebuilders.

Current law is designed to steer both sides toward a resolution with a lawsuit as a last possibility.

Today, if a buyer is dissatisfied with a new home, the buyer must give the builder a written description of the problems.

The builder then must inspect the home and tell the buyer in writing how the problems will be resolved.

There are deadlines for each step in the process. If the builder fails to meet a deadline or if no agreement is reached, the buyer may file suit.

Prop. 201 would allow buyers to immediately sue builders without first trying to resolve the issue through mediation. The proposition also would not allow builders to ask a judge to award them attorneys’ fees if they win – a departure from law governing other types of lawsuits.

Those behind the proposition say it is needed because too many shoddy homes are being built. But the 2008 New Home Quality Survey by J.D. Power and Associates find homebuyers are generally satisfied and the number of complaints has declined.

The current law was enacted in 2002 after input from homebuilders and consumer advocates. Supporters of Prop. 201 have not put forth any pressing reason to replace that law with a new one that would allow buyers to immediately rush to sue while prohibiting builders from seeking repayment of their legal fees if they prevail.

The Tucson Citizen urges a “no” vote on Prop. 201.