Citizen Staff Report
THE FINAL EDITION

Jan. 21: In an inaugural address reminiscent of JFK’s, President Obama gives Americans hope and a dose of reality.

Jan. 22: Legislators should stop trying to ban photo radar cameras. They save lives.

Jan. 23: In her inaugural address, Gov. Jan Brewer offers no specifics. But there are hopeful signs for schools.

Jan. 24: Good for U.S. Rep. Raúl Grijalva in fighting to prevent mining on about 1 million acres near the Grand Canyon.

Jan. 26: Don’t call it No Child Left Behind. Nearly Every Child Left Behind is a more accurate title for this flawed federal program.

Jan. 27: A needed expansion and unified of the transit system will improve regional service.

Jan. 28: When the Citizen reported on hazing at some local fire stations, fire officials banned tape recorders in training sessions – the wrong way to address the situation.

Jan. 29: Tax credits have helped give schools needed programs, but if necessary, they should be cut to save basics.

Jan. 30: State secrecy on deficit-fix ideas is hurting TUSD’s ability to plan its next budget.

Jan. 31: The state must come up with guidelines to spend federal stimulus money as the feds intended.

Feb. 2: The state of the city is grim, but cheerleading Mayor Bob Walkup says, “We have what it takes.”

Feb. 3: A fix for the fiscal 2009 budget is shameful, unimaginative and harmful to education.

Feb. 4: Three TUSD officials are on leave for bid rigging and conflict-of-interest laws – the latest scandal to hit the district.

Feb. 5: UA cuts to the science center, museums and cooperative extension will hurt the community.

Feb. 6: The Tucson-based Morris K. Udall Foundation may be tripling its workload under the Obama administration.

Feb. 7: One partner in a three-way downtown development plan leaves. But the work must go on.

Feb. 9: The state must do more to inform people about food stamps. Qualified people are not being helped.

Feb. 10: Limitations on child care subsidies will hurt low-income families and keep them from working.

Feb. 11: Legislative Republicans are wrong to cut revenue, then blame the larger deficit on former Gov. Janet Napolitano.

Feb. 12: A City Council move to stimulate the economy turns into a finger-pointing farce and no answers.

Feb. 13: State schools chief Tom Horne says English Language Learning will cost substantially less. How? Show us the numbers.

Feb. 14: Legislative threats to yank millions of dollars in funding from Tucson’s downtown redevelopment are unfair and shortsighted.

Feb. 16: Proposals in the Legislature could reduce reproductive health choices for women – especially in rural areas.

Feb. 17: We support higher taxes, as considered by Gov. Jan Brewer – but only if they are temporary and targeted.

Feb. 18: The city again shoots itself in the foot on Rio Nuevo funding – paying UA invoices without the necessary scrutiny.

Feb. 19: In a misguided budget-butting move, Child Protective Services workers are ordered to take time off.

Feb. 20: A wide variety in state school standards undermines the goals of No Child Left Behind.

Feb. 21: Arizona, which has a sky-high teen pregnancy rate, needs more comprehensive sex education.

Feb. 23: Forget the naysayers. There are things happening downtown and delaying museum construction makes more money available.

Feb. 24: Kudos to Bishop Gerald Kicanas for leading a campaign for more affordable housing.

Feb. 25: Attorney General Terry Goddard should end doubts about the 206 RTA election and recount the ballots.

Feb. 26: The City Council is right to delay layoffs and consider every other possibility to cut expenses.

Feb. 27: The number of illegal immigrants in the U.S. declines – possibly because of increased border violence.

Feb. 28: Gov. Jan Brewer is right to accept federal stimulus money for roads and other projects.

March 2: A legislator is flat wrong when he says education does not create jobs.

March 3: Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio turns law enforcement into a media circus.

March 4: The Legislature’s move to grab open-space funds violates the state Constitution.

March 5: Arizona must step up and join the climate-change fight.

March 6: Gov. Jan Brewer has bold ideas but few specifics in her budget-fix proposals.

March 7: We put walls on the border, but turn a blind eye to guns smuggled into Mexico.

March 9: Compared with other states, Arizona pays too little in unemployment insurance.

March 10: Gov. Jan Brewer should take federal stimulus funds for unemployment compensation.

March 11: The next Tucson police chief should not spend time chasing illegal immigrants.

March 12: The Child Protective Services caseworker staff has been slashed beyond recognition – as a child murder trial is underway in Tucson.

March 13: The botched hunt for the next police chief is costly and embarrassing.

March 14: There isn’t much money, but it’s good that TUSD schools get to set their own spending priorities.

March 16: Arizona teens have big plans for the future, but adults don’t give them the necessary tools.

March 17: Arizona has lots of public information online, but there are continuing fights for access to public documents.

March 18: It’s about time that the feds decide to look for guns and money being smuggled from the U.S. into Mexico.

March 19: It shouldn’t have taken Tucson officials so long to realize that city savings are almost depleted.

March 20: The Legislature should not force school districts to join in their budget-writing procrastination.

March 21: Battered by an unforgiving world economic crisis the likes of which hasn’t been seen for eight decades, Rio Nuevo goes back to its basics.

March 23: Legislators should outlaw “hog dogging” – a vicious and bloody “sport” in which a pit bull is sicced on a wild boar in an arena with no escape.

March 24: The United States has wrongly banned Mexican trucks from U.S. highways, leading to consumer-harming retaliatory tariffs imposed by Mexico.

March 25: Arizona and other states must eliminate the financial incentives for nursing homes to house the mentally ill. The populations must be separated.

March 26: Help for our violence-wracked border with Mexico finally is on the way, thanks to President Obama and, especially, Homeland Security chief Janet Napolitano.

March 27: Gov. Jan Brewer should not engage in a battle with the feds that could cost Arizona $1.6 billion in stimulus money.

March 28: A threat to cut federal stimulus money should persuade the Legislature to restore funding for community colleges and universities.

March 30: We long felt that voucher programs violate the Arizona Constitution – and the state Supreme Court agreed.

March 31: The city of Tucson is drifting toward its worst budget crisis ever, but all the City Council can do is to point fingers.

April 1: A hand count of votes from the 2006 RTA election will erase all doubts about whether the vote was flipped.

April 2: Local taxpayers – who already are enduring cuts in basic government services – should not shell out $125 million to build a third pro stadium for spring training.

April 3: With Christopher Payne sentenced to death for murdering his two young children, it is appropriate to recall the short lives of Ariana and Tyler Payne and remember lessons learned from their tragic deaths.

April 4: It’s the one-year anniversary of the free pass issued to ignore U.S. environmental laws to build a border fence.

April 6: U.S. Rep. Raúl Grijalva is to be commended for requesting a federal probe into the death of the last jaguar known to have lived within the United States.

April 7: School districts must write their budgets without knowing from Gov. Jan Brewer how federal money might be used.

April 8: Not content with botching the hiring of a police chief, the Tucson City Council made a far more grievous error by firing City Manager Mike Hein.

April 9: Republicans, who hold majorities in both houses of the Arizona Legislature, should invite Democrats into the budget-writing process.

April 10: With their unexpected and ill-conceived firing of City Manager Mike Hein, City Council members face a litany of critical issues.

April 11: The controversial work required for immigration reform has been foiled and put on the back burner again and again.

April 13: You’d think Arizona’s working-poor families had just scored big time, with the arrival of millions of federal child care dollars. You’d think wrong.

April 14: As Tucson leaders debate the future of downtown – and whether it has much of a future at all – a new study on job sprawl provides direction.

April 15: The city’s desperate attempts to fend off legislative tampering with Rio Nuevo are making the operation look even more haphazard.

April 16: The time has come for the Board of Regents to say “no” to another cost increase at the state’s universities.

April 17: One year ago, we were happy to see National Guard members leaving our border with Mexico. With new border violence breaking out, they are needed back.

April 18: Despite promises of an open process that would encourage public input, the state budget is being drawn up in secrecy.

April 20: With the Bush administration gone, the upcoming Earth Day is the first in eight years that engenders hope instead of despair.

April 21: State prison costs can be cut, but it will take time. It is unrealistic to expect quick savings.

April 22: It is embarrassing that the U.S. Supreme Court has been forced to intervene in an English-learning case that Arizonans should have resolved eons ago.

April 23: Pima County voters can breathe easier now that a hand recount has validated the outcome of the 2006 election on the Regional Transportation Plan.

April 24: Give me a campaign donation, and I’ll give you an earmark. That’s the kind of quid pro quo that U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords seeks to block.

April 25: An automated external defibrillator saved the life of a high school student. Every campus must have aty least one AED.

April 27: In adopting a budget, the City Council should look to cut costs, not just generate new revenue.

April 28: Life has become a little better for unemployed Arizonans, but the state still is not doing all it should to help those without a job

April 29: The swine flu outbreak is a serious matter. Caution and concern are merited, full-bore hysteria is not.

April 30: Sheriff Clarence Dupnik’s idea that schools should be able to check citizenship status when students enroll is poppycock.

May 1: As the city examines new revenue sources to balance its budget, Pima County is on much more sound financial footing.

May 2: Gov. Jan Brewer eased a hit on the pocketbooks of university students – but her demand for an overhaul of the higher education system leaves a lot to be desired.

May 4: Where is Gov. Jan Brewer as the Legislature works on a budget that slashes education and other critical state services?

May 5: Pima County’s response to six confirmed cases of swine flu has been sensible, compared with reactions elsewhere.

May 6: In its rush to cut spending, the Legislature is ignoring a voter mandate requiring that funding for education be increased annually.

May 7: The Legislature must let Rio Nuevo live long enough to prove that it can be viable when the economy recovers.

May 8: Good for the the Board of Supervisors for voting to undo an earlier decisions to impose fees on after-school and summer programs and to close some community centers and parks.

May 9: A state budget that can only be described as disastrous is taking shape as Gov. Jan Brewer stands on the sidelines.

May 11: President Obama halts construction of the medieval fence on the Mexican border, bringing to an end a chapter of pointless environmental devastation.

May 12: A legislator threw unsubstantiated and inaccurate allegations at school officials, accusing them of “illegally and secretly stockpiling millions of dollars.”

May 13: Proposed state budget cuts would will deeply affect the lives of developmentally and mentally disabled people.

May 14: TUSD has found that when you ask for ideas on how to save money, people can be creative.

May 15: Several members of the Tucson City Council violated the spirit – and possibly the letter – of the state’s Open Meetings Law.

May 16: Goodbye.

Citizen Staff Report
THE FINAL EDITION

When I arrived at the Tucson Citizen’s police press room for my first shift in December 1999, I carefully inched toward the one-room office and opened the door just enough to peek inside. I was visibly nervous; a big fish at the college paper, I was suddenly a nobody with a notepad, thrown into an internship at a professional news operation.

“Are you Dave Teibel?” I asked, my voice quivering.

The man put down a newspaper and adjusted his Coke-bottle glasses to get a closer look at me. “I am,” he curtly replied.

Knowing a bit about Teibel’s storied career in Tucson, I said “Well, it’s truly an honor to meet you, sir.”

I expected to hear “Nice to meet you, too.” That’s what normal people say.

Instead, he groaned and put his feet on the desk, opened his newspaper and proudly muttered, “Yes . . . yes it is.”

That brief conversation scared me half to death and I nearly quit on the spot. But then, somehow, we began to click.

Over the next three years, this wonderful man – part pit bull, part teddy bear – helped craft the person I’ve become today. He did the same for dozens of rookies before and after me.

DAVE CIESLAK

Former staff member

One top memory: Arizona softball coach Mike Candrea leading Team USA to a gold medal in softball at the 2004 Olympic Games in Greece. His team dominated, not that it was a surprise in going 9-0 and outscoring opponents 51-1. What struck me, though, was his humility, poise and pride in the journey. It came just five weeks after his wife, Sue, died of a brain aneurysm while on the pre-Games tour.

I remember him in the dugout, hand on chin, taking in the team celebration on the field. Heartfelt and memorable.

“I thanked them all for the greatest moment of my life,” he said at the time. “I love this team.”

And, through it all, he didn’t get a medal. Coaches don’t get medals.

“That’s not what this is about,” he said.

STEVE RIVERA

Sports reporter

Nothing in my 21 years at the Citizen has been personally more life changing than covering the Tucson International Mariachi Conference.

My first encounter with the conference showed me that this was a world-class tradition with instrumentalists and singers to rival the best orchestras and opera companies in the country.

But in time, I realized that I was watching history unfold before my eyes as Mexican-Americans recast their self-image through their culture and set sail toward a future of higher education and pride in their personal and collective accomplishments.

What seemed at first concerts and workshops became the seeds of the transformation of a people, and it was my good fortune to be there to write about that historical pivot point as it was unfolding.

DAN BUCKLEY

Reporter/videographer

Gannett News Service

WASHINGTON – Lawmakers are close to restarting a debate on immigration reform that lasted more than a year in the last Congress without producing a resolution.

In the Senate, Democrat Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts and Arizona Republican John McCain are working out details of a new bill that would let millions of illegal immigrants get legal status and allow hundreds of thousands of foreign workers to come to the United States legally.

In the House, Republican Jeff Flake of Arizona and Democrat Luis Gutierrez of Illinois are working on a companion bill that lawmakers could take up once the Senate finishes with the issue later this spring.

Lobbyists expect the bills to be similar to legislation the Senate passed last year.

Aides said the Senate bill could be introduced next week or the week after, and committee debate could begin by late March. Both chambers aim to take up immigration reform in 2007, before election-year politics start to dominate legislative tactics.

“We came close last year,” Kennedy said in a statement prepared Wednesday for a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on immigration reform. The hearing officially kicked off the new focus on the issue. “Hopefully, we can find common ground in coming weeks,” Kennedy’s statement said.

The administration sent two Cabinet members to Capitol Hill on Wednesday to underscore Bush’s support for the reform proposal, which passed the Senate last year but stalled after GOP House leaders refused to take it up.

Immigration reform represents a chance for Bush to claim a major legislative victory, even though Congress is now controlled by Democrats.

“We must have a solution which is workable, one that will not have us back in this room debating this same issue in 10 years,” Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez told members of the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday.

While Democratic leaders in the House and Senate say they support the broad outlines of the reforms the Senate passed last year, lobbyists don’t think legislation can pass without support from at least 20 Republicans in the Senate and 40 in the House.

A coalition of business groups, civil rights organizations and religious leaders support the reform legislation, but keeping potential allies together will require delicate negotiation.

The bill’s chief sponsors also are taking more time to talk to administration officials about how the Department of Homeland Security would initiate sweeping immigration reforms, given that they probably have better prospects for making it through Congress than before.

“This time we realize we’re not shooting with blanks,” Flake said.

One item from last year’s Senate bill that may not make it back into any new proposal: the complicated three-tiered system that would have set different standards for immigrants to get legal status depending on when they came to the United States.

“That three-tier (system) is what was adopted last year,” said Eliseo Medina, executive vice president of the Service Employees International Union, the nation’s fastest-growing labor union. “The political situation is really quite different this year.”

Opponents of last year’s bill plan to try again to defeat it.

“There is an urgent need to secure the border” against drug smugglers and illegal immigrants seeking jobs in the U.S., said Chris Simcox, president of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, a Phoenix-based group that patrols the border.

USA TODAY

Traffic deaths dropped substantially in 16 states last year, in many cases reflecting stepped-up enforcement and education campaigns, a USA TODAY analysis of statistics shows.

Highway fatalities fell by at least 5 percent in those states and rose at least that much in nine states. Texas and Georgia reported preliminary declines of more than 5 percent, but traffic safety agencies in those states said they expect the totals to rise above 2005′s figures.

The fatality numbers are preliminary. Several states are still collecting data from county and local law enforcement agencies, and the figures could rise.

Highway safety officials in several states said they were pleased by the unofficial 2006 numbers.

“This was the safest year on Ohio roads on record,” said Lt. Tony Bradshaw of the Ohio State Highway Patrol.

He said 1,238 people died on the state’s streets and highways last year, a 6.6 percent drop from 2005.

Bradshaw attributed the decline to enforcement and education efforts and new research initiatives that enable state troopers to focus on areas where crashes are most likely to occur.

Illinois saw traffic deaths fall below 1,300 for the first time since 1924.

Road deaths there have dropped every year since 2003, when Gov. Rod Blagojevich signed a law that allows police to stop motorists solely for not wearing seat belts.

Last year, three other states – Alaska, Kentucky and Mississippi – enacted such laws, bringing the number to 25.

All three states reported declines in traffic deaths. Officials in Kentucky and Mississippi attributed the drops to the new law.

States report their highway death numbers to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which analyzes the figures before issuing a preliminary national fatality total, usually in August.

The agency releases its official tally in the fall.

The 2006 total is not likely to show major changes from 2005.

Since 1995, the annual total has ranged between 41,000 and 43,000.

National highway safety experts caution that the preliminary 2006 statistics should not be viewed as evidence of safety trends.

“It’s impossible to draw conclusions or see a trend in just one year to the next in state data, because the fluctuations are often very large in any one state’s fatality figures,” said Anne McCartt, senior vice president for research at the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. “Even something as basic as the weather can affect traffic fatalities.”

“You have to look at vehicle miles traveled, the cost of gas, whether people were driving as much,” said Judie Stone, president of Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety. “To give full credit to (enforcement and education efforts) is probably not fair.”

ARIZONA STATS

Preliminary figures from Arizona show 1,193 traffic fatalities in 2006, up 1.2 percent from 2005.

The Associated Press

The Associated Press

BAGHDAD, Iraq – Sen. John McCain said Thursday that America should deploy 15,000 to 30,000 more troops to Iraq to control its sectarian violence and give moderate Iraqi politicians the stability they need to take the country in the right direction.

McCain made the remarks to reporters in Baghdad, where he and five other members of Congress were meeting with U.S. and Iraqi officials.

“The American people are disappointed and frustrated with the Iraq war, but they want us to succeed if there’s any way to do that,” McCain, a possible 2008 presidential candidate, said at a news conference at the U.S. Embassy in Iraq’s heavily fortified Green Zone.

The Arizona Republican said five to 10 more brigades of U.S. combat soldiers must be sent to Iraq. Brigades vary in size but generally include about 3,000 troops, meaning he was recommending 15,000 to 30,000 additional forces.

Connecticut Sen. Joseph Lieberman said the delegation had met with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite, and urged him to break his ties with anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and disarm his Mahdi Army militia.

Al-Sadr controls 30 of the 275 parliament seats and is a key figure in al-Maliki’s coalition.

The U.S. military has about 140,000 troops in Iraq, and President Bush is considering a change of strategy in the country, including Baghdad, where stepped-up efforts to curtail sectarian violence failed this summer. The current U.S. force includes about 15 combat brigades made up of 50,000 to 60,000 soldiers, the U.S. military said Thursday.

McCain has joined other legislators and military analysts in saying that Bush sent far too few American troops to Iraq after the coalition toppled Saddam Hussein in March 2003, leading to widespread violence at the hands of Sunni Arab insurgent groups and Shiite militias.

But McCain said U.S. military commanders in Iraq had not asked the delegation for more U.S. troops, and one of the senators traveling with him didn’t seem to accept his argument.

“Iraq is in crisis. The rising sectarian violence threatens the very existence of Iraq as a nation,” said Sen. Susan Collins, a Republican from Maine. The current U.S. strategy in Iraq has failed, but “I’m not yet convinced that additional troops will pave the way to a peaceful Iraq in a lasting sense,” she said.

“My fear is that if we have more troops sent to Iraq that we will just see more injuries and deaths, that we might have a short-term impact, but without a long-term political settlement,” Collins said.

Gunmen in military uniforms kidnapped dozens of people Thursday from a commercial area in central Baghdad, police said, and a car bomb killed two policemen who were trying to defuse it in Baghdad’s Sadr City section, where officers were on high alert after receiving tips that militants were moving more bombs into the Shiite slum.

McCain said he realizes that only about 15 percent to 18 percent of Americans favor deploying more U.S. troops to Iraq, and that if such a move proved unsuccessful in the unpopular war, it could hurt his presidential ambitions.

But the Vietnam War veteran also said that Americans must realize that if U.S. troops leave Iraq in a state of chaos, insurgent groups such as al-Qaida in Iraq “will follow us home.”

USA TODAY

WASHINGTON – The election this week transformed not only Congress but the playing field for the 2008 presidential race.

Two things didn’t change: the contenders leading the polls on both sides.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., won a resounding re-election victory after raising nearly $40 million.

It was the most cash raised by any U.S. Senate candidate this year.

Clinton isn’t talking about her future, which is widely presumed to include a presidential bid but could involve a leadership role in the Democratic Senate.

Some analysts praise her campaign skills but say they wouldn’t be surprised if she chooses the latter, given the difficulties of a White House run.

“She comes with baggage that no other candidate has and the ability to mobilize Republicans against her that none of the other Democrats can match,” says Peverill Squire, a political scientist at the University of Iowa.

The Republican front-runner for the presidential nomination, U.S. Sen. John McCain of Arizona, campaigned and raised money for candidates nationwide while building a network for his White House bid.

McCain supports President Bush on Iraq, but his disagreements with Bush about immigration policy, prisoner abuse and just-resigned Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s performance kept McCain’s maverick image alive.

While former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani also does well in polls and barnstormed the country, “right now it’s hard to see another Republican who has similar stature” to McCain, Squire says.

At the opposite end of the GOP stature spectrum was Virginia Sen. George Allen, whom The Associated Press declared the loser Wednesday in his race with Democrat Jim Webb, based on a canvass of election officials.

Two red-state Democrats, former North Carolina senator John Edwards and Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh, solidified their standing in ways that may pay off later.

The Associated Press

The Associated Press

WASHINGTON – In a warm-up for next week’s immigration debate, impatient senators flirted with the fringes of the issue with separate bills to crack down on border tunnel builders and insist that the national anthem be sung in English.

A compromise that would protect most of the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants from being deported faltered in the Senate in April.

Senators, however, were unwilling to wait to express their disdain for a recently released version of the national anthem in Spanish or to delay legislation for imprisoning smugglers convicted of digging tunnels under the U.S.-Mexican border.

The Senate approved a resolution late Monday evening stating that the national anthem, the Pledge of Allegiance, the oath recited by immigrants when they are sworn in as citizens and other songs or statements symbolizing national unity should be spoken or sung in English.

A similar resolution has been introduced in the House by Rep. Jim Ryun, R-Kan.

A Spanish version of “The Star-Spangled Banner” debuted last month, prompting an outcry around the country. President Bush said people who want to be U.S. citizens ought to learn English and learn to sing the national anthem in English.

It was later revealed the State Department’s own Web site has four versions of the national anthem in Spanish, as well as translations of the Constitution and other national symbols.

Sens. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., introduced a bill for cracking down on border tunnel builders and financiers “just to get it done” in case broader immigration legislation never makes it to Bush’s desk.

Their measure would impose prison sentences of up to 20 years for anyone who builds a tunnel or pays to have one built and up to 10 years for anyone who allows one to be built on their land or disregards the building of a cross-border tunnel.

Citizen Staff Writer

Arizona’s checkered record of protecting children could take a turn for the worse if a bill in the Legislature becomes law.

SB1430 would make it more difficult for Child Protective Services to come to the aid of abused or neglected children.

The bill, introduced by state Sen. Karen Johnson, R-Mesa, purports to give parents needed rights if CPS is investigating them. But parental rights already are well protected by the law and by the courts at every step of the process.

The most troublesome aspect of the bill would require CPS workers to make “reasonable” efforts to contact parents and tell them of “allegations and specified rights” before removing from a home a child who may have been abused or neglected.

Suppose that children are left alone at home or found wandering. How much time must a CPS employees make a “reasonable” effort to find parents before the children are taken to a safe place?

What if police raid a meth lab where children live? If the parents aren’t there or flee when police arrive, how long would a “reasonable” effort to locate them take before the children are removed to safety?

Suppose that a teacher notices bruises on a child and, as is required, notifies CPS. Before any investigation is conducted, the parents must be found and told of the allegations – giving them adequate time to coach the children before they are questioned by authorities.

None of these are far-fetched scenarios. All are situations that CPS employees routinely encounter.

Other parts of the bill are also troubling:

• Courts would be required to use the higher legal standard of “proof beyond a reasonable doubt” instead of the current “clear and convincing evidence” standard before children are removed from a home. This would unnecessarily hamper investigators in what may not be a criminal case.

• Parents could keep CPS workers from entering homes – a move that could make it impossible to investigate allegations.

Arizona’s record of looking out for children is inconsistent even under current law. The state Auditor General’s Office found last year that CPS was failing to investigate every report of child abuse, as required by law, and that investigations sometimes took too long, putting children in jeopardy.

CPS employees are not to blame. The agency has been plagued by a high caseload and low pay for employees with extremely stressful jobs. SB1430 would only add to the stress and make their jobs more difficult.

SB1430 has passed the Senate and been sent to the House. It should die there. But should the bill make it to Gov. Janet Napolitano’s desk, we are confident she will veto it.

Liz Barker, a spokesman for CPS, said it clearly: “This is just going to make the job of protecting children harder.”

That must not happen.

Say ‘cheese’

Congratulations to the space scientists at the University of Arizona, who built a camera that was sent into orbit around Mars – 145 million miles away.

Last week, they tested the camera, and it worked perfectly. At a time when many of us have problems operating a digital camera that we can hold in our hands, this is an astounding accomplishment.

The skill and sheer brainpower of our local scientists never ceases to amaze.

Citizen Staff Writer

A commemoration of Cesar Chavez’s life is appropriate for Tucson, and so is a paid holiday for city employees.

The civil rights activist, a co-founder of the United Farm Workers, brought attention to the plight of migrant farmworkers, who faced dangerous work conditions, inhumane housing and low wages.

Chavez’s work, including nationwide lettuce and grape boycotts, drew international attention and ultimately spurred improvements for farmworkers in the United States.

He was born in Yuma County and died there, too, at age 66 in 1993.

Pima County employees have been given a holiday since 2001 to honor Chavez.

A paid holiday celebrating Chavez’s work is akin to the holiday for the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., which Arizona has observed since 1992. City of Tucson workers are given a paid MLK holiday.

As Tucson Councilwoman Carol West noted, the workers’ Chavez holiday would cost nothing, as it simply would replace the birthday off they now are given.

Given the significance of Chavez’s work, and his roots in a southern Arizona region rife with agriculture, a holiday to remember him is eminently appropriate.

Likewise, we support plans for a high-profile celebration of Chavez in Tucson, with an April 2 rally and march from Pueblo High Magnet School down South Sixth Avenue to Rudy Garcia Park.

The city expense of $4,000, allotted to ensure security and cover police and parks costs, is a small price to pay for what likely will become an important local event.

Chavez learned the difficulties of migrant farm work first-hand when he was but a boy.

After the Great Depression cost his father his business and a drought cost the family its ranch, the Chavezes began harvesting produce in California, living in migrant camps and sleeping in their car.

Chavez quit school after eighth grade to work full time in California vineyards. He joined the Navy to serve in World War II.

Returning to farm work in the late 1940s, Chavez began to battle for change. He organized, led strikes, urged boycotts and fasted to obtain better wages and working conditions for migrant field workers.

In the 1980s, he led a boycott to protest use of pesticides on grapes.

Chavez’s heroic efforts, on behalf of workers and the environment, are well worthy of commemoration.

No Shaba baby

The pachyderm pregnancy proposed at Reid Park Zoo won’t happen, since studies of first-time elephant mothers ended plans to breed Tucson’s 26-year-old Asian elephant, Shaba.

The domino effect of this decision could be elephantine, as the zoo had sought an $8.4 million elephant enclosure expansion to breed Shaba for Tucsonans – especially children’s – viewing pleasure.

The proposal has been controversial, as some activists called for the elephants instead to be sent to a sanctuary and others criticized the high cost of an expansion.

Shaba and African elephant Connie now live in a half-acre enclosure, and activists have said even the expansion to eight acres would be insufficient.

City officials, including City Council members, would do well to hasten study of the matter, do so publicly and proffer some solutions.

Whether the duo will be kept in their small quarters has yet to be determined.

Discouraged by some outrageous proposals bandied about in the House of Representatives on how to combat illegal immigration, I had hoped that the grown-ups in the Senate could do better.

No such luck. Don’t look now, but the equivalent of a schoolyard scuffle has broken out in the upper house.

It started when the class bully, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, tried to short-circuit the efforts of the Judiciary Committee to produce an immigration reform bill by proposing a bill of his own. The gesture was a finger in the eye of Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Penn., who has been trying to unite rival factions and produce something that the Senate can discuss – all by today. That’s the deadline set by Frist for the full Senate to begin its debate of this contentious issue. Frist wants the debate to wrap up by April 7, when the Senate goes on spring recess.

What’s the rush? Congress hasn’t taken a hard look at immigration reform in 20 years and now Frist wants to breeze through the whole exercise in less than 20 days.

The truth is that the Frist maneuver is about only two things: amnesty and his desire to distance himself from anything that resembles it while mounting a 2008 presidential bid.

Frist has said that he doesn’t support giving legal status to the undocumented. But amnesty is where the Judiciary Committee is heading. Specter has proposed a bill that would let illegal immigrants remain in the United States indefinitely – provided they register with the Department of Homeland Security, pay back taxes, abide by the law and remain employed.

With illegal immigrants now accounting for 1 out of every 20 workers in America, according to a study by the Pew Hispanic Center, I doubt that the last item on the list will be an issue.

Specter also has said that he would go along with providing illegal immigrants a path to legal residency, provided that the United States first clear through the backlog of 3 million people waiting to immigrate legally.

I don’t have a problem with Frist being against amnesty. I happen to agree. Frist says he doesn’t want to reward lawbreakers; my objection has to do with absolving individuals of the responsibility to make better choices.

The trouble is, with that off the table, there’s not much left to talk about but increasing enforcement. And so, predictably, Frist’s bill spends more time discussing how to prevent more illegal immigration than what to do with illegal immigrants who are already here. Frist proposes increasing the number of border guards, improving fencing along the U.S.-Mexico border and speeding up deportation of illegal immigrants. Big deal. We’ve heard all this before.

Yet, whether or not the Judiciary Committee produces a bill this week, Frist seems ready to put his bill before the full Senate.

But wait. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid said that he would try to tie up Frist’s bill with procedural motions if the majority leader goes to the floor with legislation that hasn’t been vetted in the Judiciary Committee. Reid says he wants comprehensive reform – increased enforcement, guest workers and legalization for millions of illegal immigrants.

Note the common theme. This isn’t over, but it’s close to being over. In the Senate, most roads lead to amnesty. And the anti-legalization lobby is just about out of moves. And so now it’s time for them to come up with a “Plan B” and think of something they can live with.

Personally, in exchange for beefing up enforcement on the border and cracking down on employers with fines and jail time, I could go along with a limited amnesty for some illegal immigrants. Preference should be given to those who have been here the longest and have immediate family members who are here legally. The others would be deported. Those allowed to stay would have to do everything that Specter mentioned, although I’d add two additional requirements: They should have to learn English and enroll in citizenship classes.

The goal should be to get these newcomers to buy into America, and cut the ties that bind them to their home country once and for all. That’s good for the immigrant and good for America. It’s also an essential part of any immigration reform package that deserves to be called comprehensive.

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

Citizen Staff Writer

The Legislature has been in session for more than two months, and it appears talks finally are turning to a budget for the fiscal year that begins July 1.

Money has been tight for the past several years, causing contentious debate about where cuts should be made to accommodate growth-driven increases in resources for education, prisons, social programs and other areas.

This year, money is plentiful – and so is the debate. A revenue surplus of at least $1.1 billion is forecast, leading to talk of large tax cuts.

We are not, of course, opposed to cutting taxes. But before cuts are made, legislators must take a look at Arizona’s long-term needs.

Carol Kamin, executive director of the Children’s Action Alliance, accurately noted, “Voters want decent education, they want health care, they want clean air, they want transportation. They say it over and over again, but the Legislature is not listening.”

Clearly, those needs must be examined before cuts are discussed. But, this being an election year, legislators want to give money back to taxpayers. With that in mind, several factors must be considered:

• Cuts should not be so deep that they harm the state’s ability to survive a downturn. That has occurred in the recent past.

• Much of the surplus is from one-time occurrences, such as the rapid run-up in real estate prices. Tax cuts that treat these increases as permanent would hurt the state’s revenue base.

• Tax cuts should be focused. Cuts should be made in areas that provide the best long-term stimulus to the economy.

There are two factions in the Legislature: One favors $400 million in personal and corporate income tax cuts over two years; the other favors a one-year, $200 million cut in property taxes to cushion a tax increase that might follow a leap in property valuations this year.

But there is a key problem with both. Because they would be distributed so widely, the impact would be negligible.

The Legislature would be wise to consider tax-cut proposals from Gov. Janet Napolitano. Included are a credit for small businesses that provide health insurance to their employees, lower auto license fees for cars that get high gasoline mileage and expanded tax credits for businesses that conduct research and development in and for Arizona.

All would stimulate the economy in ways that a broad tax cut could not.

This budget surplus must be used in a targeted manner – not as tax cuts spread across the state so thinly that they would be all but meaningless.

Any such cuts must come only after critical state needs are addressed.

Border pollution

A federal grant to the University of Arizona to study the border environment is a badly needed initiative.

The $1.7 million grant from the Environmental Protection Agency will pay for a center to help study and clean pollution along the border.

That makes eminent sense. Borders are a unique part of the environment where ecosystems often are overlooked. Fences and other barriers are designed to deter people, but pollution crosses back and forth largely unchecked.

The grant will help develop equal environmental expertise on both sides of the border. And that is needed.

Citizen Staff Writer

The University of Oklahoma football team was on a winning streak in the early 1950s – on its way to 54 straight victories, still the national collegiate football record – when an Oklahoma legislator made note of it in a floor speech by mentioning that the university’s academics were lagging.

“We want a university that the football team can be proud of,” he is purported to have said.

We don’t know if it was tongue-in-cheek or serious, but the point we take away is that academics and athletics can mix. But academics must come first.

The University of Arizona last week lost four football scholarships because academics haven’t come first with the football team or the athletics department. The UA baseball team also has been penalized, losing 10 percent of its scholarships.

The lost scholarships were a strong message sent by the National Collegiate Athletic Association: Improve the academic performance of student-athletes.

The NCAA rejected a UA claim that several football coaching changes in rapid succession were responsible for an unusual downturn in performance.

UA officials were disappointed by the ruling, but the NCAA clearly is on the right track. In the past, the NCAA has said universities must pay attention to academic progress of athletes – but that was largely lip service with no real penalties attached.

Now, after a lengthy ramp-up process, the NCAA has shown there will be sanctions against schools in which the numbers of athletes in good academic standing and graduating do not reach benchmarks.

Most schools reached those levels. And in most sports, UA did, too. In football and baseball, UA did not.

It is important for UA officials to take this matter seriously and not make excuses. It was good to hear head football coach Mike Stoops say, “We’re going to confront it and take our penalty now and work on getting better.”

UA athletics department officials have plenty of resources at their fingertips to improve student-athlete performance – resources not readily available to the rest of the student body. Coaches keep a close eye on their players to make sure they attend classes. There are mandated study periods and personalized tutoring.

Jim Livengood, UA’s director of athletics, must take the lead in setting a tone that studies and grades come first. That must be an openly stated expectation for UA student-athletes.

UA fans, from President Peter Likins down through season-ticket holders and armchair quarterbacks, all must demand academic excellence.

Very few college athletes will play professionally. Most must use their degree, if they earn one, and their academic experiences to earn a living.

When it comes to student-athletes, the role of student must come first.

Bilingual cops

Good for the Tucson Police Department, which is diligently working to ensure that officers and other employees can communicate with the diverse population they serve.

TPD offers financial incentives for officers and civilian employees to learn Spanish and rewards certified Spanish speakers with a bump in pay.

It is important for police officers to be able to communicate with everyone in the community. TPD has the right idea to make that possible.

Citizen Staff Writer

A federal judge complained more than three months ago about “extensive lawyering” in the case involving state funding to teach English to students.

Now, just as the judge has ordered money spent to help students, Republican legislative leaders are siccing lawyers on the case again, sure to bring about another delay in the 14-year saga.

Particularly ludicrous was the reaction of House Majority leader Steve Tully, R-Phoenix. He said U.S. District Judge Raner Collins was “not elected for this” and labeled him “an activist judge working with an activist governor.”

It’s about time someone decided to become an activist.

We wouldn’t be in this mess if legislators, who by the way were elected for this, had not been so passive about it for more than a decade.

In 1992, a lawsuit was filed on behalf of a Nogales family whose third-grade daughter spoke only Spanish but was placed in classes where only English was spoken.

That pupil now is a University of Arizona student. But the cause that drove her family to court remains unresolved.

In December, Collins correctly perceived that the Legislature would do nothing to address the issue unless he threatened it with a club: fines starting at $500,000 a day and escalating to $2 million a day until there was a state plan to teach English and adequate funding attached.

Even that did little to prod legislators to act. Some $21 million in fines accumulated. But because the money was held in a state fund, legislators were unconcerned.

The Legislature passed a halfhearted resolution to the matter this month. Gov. Janet Napolitano let it become law without her signature, hoping Collins would reject it and make legislators get serious.

It won’t be known until after an April 3 hearing if Collins will accept the Legislature’s plan. Last week, he ordered that the $21 million in fines be distributed to school districts to help English learners.

Lawmakers went apoplectic.

Collins’ ruling makes sense. Fines were imposed because the teaching of English was inadequate; so, fine money should be used to improve that teaching.

Because there are about 154,000 English-language learners – the vast majority of them American citizens – school districts will receive $136 for each. That’s $1.1 million for the Tucson Unified School District.

Republican legislators and state schools superintendent Tom Horne said they will appeal Collins decision, a move that will further delay a resolution and help for students.

Stop the appeals. Stop the “extensive lawyering.” Do what’s right.

Obey the judge’s order, which above all means appropriate enough money so all children in Arizona can learn to read, write and speak English.

Sad anniversary

Last weekend was the third anniversary of the war in Iraq, a conflict in which 57 Arizonans have been killed.

Eleven were from the Tucson area:

Benjamin Biskie, Thomas H. Byrd, Sean Kelly Cataudella, Sam Williams Huff, Kenneth E. Hunt Jr., Jeffrey David Lawrence, Joshua E. Lucero, Seferino J. Reyna, Tina Time, Robert Oliver Unruth and Robert Paul Zurheide Jr.

We may have different views of the war, but we can agree that we owe our local American heroes and their families our respect, honor and sincere thanks.

The Washington Post

By MARK LEIBOVICH

One of the enduring notions about U.S. senators is that they’re congenitally infected with the urge to run for president. And “it can only be cured by embalming fluid,” the late Democratic Rep. Morris Udall of Arizona once said, a line often quoted by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., whose White House aspirations are far from embalmed.

The virus persists despite the well-catalogued losing streak among senators who have run: None has reached the White House since John F. Kennedy in 1960, and before JFK it was Warren G. Harding in 1920.

Yet the Senate is awash in strivers intent on running anyway, to a point where the 2008 campaign is coloring the chamber’s daily dynamic at an unusually early stage.

A full 32 months before the presidential election, at least 10 senators are entertaining bids.

That means they have traveled widely, taken interest in the well-being of state lawmakers in Iowa or, in all likelihood, cast votes and given floor speeches with an eye to presidential voters.

The presumed roster includes a former first lady (Hillary Rodham Clinton), the most recent Democratic nominee (John Kerry), the Senate majority leader (Bill Frist), repeat candidates (McCain, Joe Biden), former governors (George Allen, Evan Bayh), darlings of the left and right (Russell Feingold, Sam Brownback) and a leading GOP critic of President Bush’s Iraq policy (Chuck Hagel).

It does not include Pennsylvania Republican Rick Santorum, who says he is focused on his re-election campaign this year but has not ruled out ’08, win or lose in ’06.

The concentration of prospective candidates creates “a whole host of environmental changes in the Senate that weren’t there before,” says former Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle, who came close to a run in 2004 and is considering one in ’08. “There’s a critical mass of people whose actions are going to be interpreted, rightly or wrongly, as motivated by their desire to run for president.”

On any given day, senators are devoting a great deal of energy to “exploring” (their preferred term) campaigns for their party’s nomination in ’08.

This can take a number of forms: Biden giving a national security speech in Texas, Bayh meeting with potential donors in Hollywood or McCain hosting a “town meeting” on immigration in Florida – all of which occurred on the same day a few weeks ago.

Recently, several possible presidential candidates – including four senators – traveled to Memphis for the 2006 Southern Republican Leadership Conference to participate in a presidential straw poll.

“You have a lot of people doing things where the purpose is to get attention versus to legislate,” Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., said last month in Hampstead, N.H., where he saw Frist address 300 GOP activists at a Lincoln-Reagan Day dinner, Frist’s second trip to the state in three months.

“This is going to happen anyway in the Senate,” Gregg said, “but with this many people running, it’s much more noticeable.”

The 2008 election will be the first since 1928 that won’t include an incumbent president or vice president, unless by some long shot Dick Cheney runs.

And although previous campaigns have included multiple senators – John Edwards, Bob Graham, Joe Lieberman and Kerry ran in ’04 and Biden, Daschle and Christopher Dodd considered it – analysts say it’s unlikely that so many senators of both parties have ever explored candidacies at such an early point.

“It seems unprecedented,” says Charlie Cook, editor of the Cook Political Report.

“A lot of senators are more inclined to think, ‘This thing could line up for me,’ ” Brownback says.

This is doubly true given wartime realities, which could favor the foreign policy credentials of senators as opposed to, say, the domestic orientations of governors.

Several current and just-departed governors might run in ’08 as well, although their ranks are not as numerous.

Mark Leibovich is a reporter for The Washington Post’s Style section.

Syndicate

It used to be that protesters took to the streets to build public support for their cause. Now they do it to show their strength. Instead of moving you to join them, now they want you to know that they won’t be moved.

That’s especially true when the issue is illegal immigration. Around the country, immigrant-rights activists, illegal-immigration apologists and open-border advocates are protesting immigration reform efforts in Congress.

In Chicago, nearly 100,000 people clogged the streets recently in support of immigrants and looser immigration laws. Clearly offended by efforts to criminalize the undocumented, many protesters carried signs with slogans such as: “No somos criminales.” (We’re not criminals.)

Not to be overly technical, but if the person holding the sign came into the United States illegally, then he or she most certainly is a lawbreaker. This part isn’t complicated. There are federal immigration laws on the books governing the proper way for one to enter the United States, and, every year, more than a million people break those laws by entering the wrong way. Ergo, these people should be considered criminals.

Those who believe otherwise have one leg to stand on. For the time being, the fact that one is in the United States without the proper documents is only a civil violation. That’s a technicality that deserves to be changed. The Border Protection, Anti-Terrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act – and passed by the House in December – would do that.

The bill is deeply flawed. It ducks the tough question of what to do with the 12 million illegal immigrants already here, and it makes clergy, charities and social workers into criminals by expanding the definition of “smuggling” to include anyone who “assists” an illegal immigrant.

But the part about making unlawful presence a crime seems like a reasonable concession. It’s also the part that many in the immigrant-rights movement are angry about.

Many illegal immigrants and their advocates really seem to believe that if you enter the country illegally but keep your nose clean and never break another law, it’s like you never entered illegally in the first place.

There’s the problem. Everyone has an opinion on illegal immigration. But on both sides, whether you’re talking about immigration restrictionists or open-border advocates, no one wants to be honest and admit the obvious.

On the right, they’ll never admit that younger Americans in particular have lost their work ethic, or that much of the angst over illegal immigration comes from the clash of cultures. On the left, they’ll never admit that the illegal did anything wrong in coming here, or that the United States has the right to protect the sovereignty of its borders.

Meanwhile, I’m getting fed up with flamboyant, self-satisfying street protests such as the one in Chicago. Here you had thousands of people waving Mexican flags – granted, along with a good number of American flags – who seemed completely unaware that they were killing their own cause. A lot of Americans are already freaked out by what they’re convinced is a Mexican invasion, so naturally what do the protesters do? Wave the Mexican flag. A lot of Americans are already afraid of becoming less relevant because of rapidly changing demographics. So what do the protesters do? Declare the concerns of many over illegal immigration to be irrelevant.

Besides, protests like the one in Chicago or in front of the U.S. Capitol around the same time only reinforce the stereotype that all Latinos favor amnesty and want some special accommodation to sneak in our relatives to the south. Latinos’ views are more complicated than that.

I understand that the protesters want their voices heard. With Congress working itself into a frenzy, a lot of people are scared, frustrated and angry. But there are more productive ways to be heard than with chants and banners and raised fists. They could educate themselves about the issues and decide what immigration reforms they could live with. And those who are U.S. citizens could vote in large numbers and begin pushing back on those politicians who are pushing them around.

Best of all, it’s an example of being proactive, while the protesters are stuck being reactive and letting others set the agenda.

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