Randy Parraz, primary cheerleader for the Recall Russell Pearce campaign, updated the Progressive Caucus of the Arizona Democratic Party at their recent meeting in Tucson. The recall effort has exceeded the minimum number of signatures needed, but since some signatures are always rejected as invalid, they will use the next 40 or so days to collect as many signatures as possible.

If you would like to donate to the recall effort or volunteer to collect signatures in Mesa, check their website.

UPDATE on the Disappearing Video

Well, if you didn’t watch the attached video during the few short hours it was available on You Tube and the Citizen, you’re not going to watch it now.

Parraz contacted the amateur videographer who shot it and asked her to pull the video of his public speech at a public meeting. (The Arizona Democratic Party’s Statewide Committee Meeting and related caucus meetings are open to the press and any self-proclaimed Democrat. Several political bloggers and a reporter from the Arizona Republic were there.)

Frankly, I don’t understand this suppression of free speech. Wearing my TucsonCitizen.com press pass, I was sitting next to Alison while she openly filmed Parraz and other speakers. Parraz could see that she was taping his presentation. (I also would have been filming– if I hadn’t forgotten to charge my camera batteries. Doh.)

Parraz claimed the speech included sensitive campaign information and should be pulled for that reason, but I don’t remember hearing anything really new in the speech. Yes, we can bring this guy down. We’re working hard, but we need more signatures! You can help! I thought it was a great speech– fiery, not too long– which is why I asked Alison for the link.

What is highly ironic about the disappearance of this video-taped campaign speech shot openly at a public meeting is that the anti-Pearce bloggers practice guerilla journalism against Pearce, Tom Horne, and other people they don’t like. They shove video cameras in the faces of politicians and aggressivley shout questions to provoke a reaction.  Would these bloggers ever pull a video because the subject didn’t like it? I don’t think so.

So, there are lessons learned all around. Alison now knows her rights as a citizen journalist; she had every right to shoot that video of a public speech in a public forum and publish it online.  Randy now knows that every time he makes a public speech in a public meeting he could be quoted or filmed or both. And I know to keep my camera batteries charged!

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 17th, 2011 at 5:24 pm and is filed under Arizona, Arizona Legislature, democracy, Democratic Party, Immigration, Political corruption, Progressive Democrats of America, Republican Party, Russel Pearce, Tucson. Tags for this post: Arizona Legislature, Randy Parraz, Russell Pearce, Tea Party. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.