FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Sept. 2, 2010

Don Bivens, Arizona Democratic Party chairman, offers the following statement on last night’s gubernatorial debate

“Wednesday night’s debate should be required viewing for every voter in Arizona. Attorney General Terry Goddard must be Arizona’s next governor – we cannot afford the alternative. Much could be made about Jan Brewer’s stumbles and gaffes, but her biggest failure was her utter lack of credibility. When her cue cards didn’t match the moment, Jan Brewer had nothing to say. Jan Brewer has no real ideas and no plan for tackling the serious challenges in our state. Arizona deserves much, much better than this.”

Click here to see the Governor's own security assessment, which says, "very little action taken to prepare physical plant and staff for the transition to Medium Custody in April 2010." (bottom of page 5)

Everything on the timeline below is corroborated and compiled primarily from ADOC's website, but also from legislative documents as cited. The one fact we have not been able to corroborate through ADOC records is the date Kingman was downgraded from a mixed medium/minimum facility to a minimum facility.

A key spot in the timeline is Dec. 23, 2009.

Kingman Private Prison/ Department of Corrections Timeline

2004 -- The Kingman facility, which was designed to house 1400 DUI offenders, opened with 450 beds in 2004. According to the the May 7, 2004 minutes of the Arizona Legislature's Joint Select Committee on Corrections, although there were plans for level 2 (minimum security) and level 3 (medium security) inmates at Kingman, those inmates were to be DUI offenders only . In fact, when Sen. Cannell asked for clarification of the level 2 and 3 beds, Schriro explained that "[m]ost DUI offenders are a relatively easy group to manage, but if there is a propensity for violence in the criminal history of the offenders, a higher level of custody is sometimes warranted." Of the 1400 beds, 1, 100 were designed for level 2 inmates and 300 for level 3, or medium security, DUI offenders. http://www.azleg.state.az.us/iminute/house/0507corrections.doc.htm

2005 -- The remaining 950 of 1400 total beds became available at the Kingman facility for DUI offenders.

FY 2006 and 2007 -- According to the ADOC Operating Per Capita Cost Reports, Kingman was a DUI-only facility in FY 2006 and 2007. http://www.azcorrections.gov/adc/reports/ADC_FY2006_PerCapitaRpt_%20CORRECTED_ORDER.pdf;http://www.azcorrections.gov/adc/reports/ADC_FY2007_PerCapitaCostReport.pdf

2008 -- Gov. Napolitano ran a bill (SB 1142) to regulate private prison design and the kinds of prisoners sent from other states, but it never got a hearing. The law has not been amended since that time. http://www.azleg.gov/legtext/48leg/2r/bills/sb1142p.pdf

July 2008 - December 23, 2009 -- DOC downgraded Kingman to a minimum security facility, where it remained until December 2009. According to DOC's FY 2009 Operating Per Capita Cost Report, Kingman has "[n]o offender with a higher than minimum custody level." (This report covered prison operations up to October 2009.) http://www.azcorrections.gov/adc/reports/ADC_FY2009_PerCapitaRpt.pdf (page 15)

September 3, 2009 -- Governor Brewer signed HB 2010 in the 3rd Special Session in September 2009. http://www.azleg.gov/legtext/49leg/3s/bills/hb2010h.pdf This bill authorized the privatization of all but one of the state prisons, including the maximum security units of those prisons, provided a private prison contractor was willing to pay a $100 million concession to the state at the beginning of the contract. Dir. Ryan had opposed these privatization provisions and had written a letter to Brewer asking her to veto a similar bill when it was introduced three months earlier. (Letter attached.) Despite her director's protests, Brewer authorized the conversion of maximum security prisons to private facilities.

December 23, 2009 -- Kingman changes from a minimum security facility to a minimum/ medium security prison according to DOC's daily prisoner count. http://www.azcorrections.gov/adc/PDF/count/12232009%20count%20sheet.pdf Approximately 300 beds out of the 1400 total are classified as medium security. The facility could not house murderers unless it was classified at least as high as "medium security." Because the facility housed minimum security prisoners only from July 2008 to December 2009, the 3 escapees must have been transferred to Kingman on or after December 23, 2009.

March 2010 -- The provisions of HB 2010 regarding the conversion of all levels of state prisons to private facilities were repealed in HB 2006 during the 7th Special Session in 2010 because no private contractor showed any interest in making bids on the contract. http://www.azleg.gov/legtext/49leg/7s/bills/hb2006h.pdf Therefore, the $100 million concession is no longer in place. However, another section of HB 2010 that authorized 5,000 new private prison beds is still effective. Bids have been received for the 5000 beds and are now under consideration. http://www.azcorrections.gov/adc/divisions/adminservices/notice_rfp22310v2.pdf These would be general population facilities.

April 3, 2010 -- 2000 additional beds become available at Kingman when a new facility opens. http://www.azcorrections.gov/adc/PDF/count/04032010%20count%20sheet.pdf This new facility was supposed to house medium security inmates, but prison officials determined that it did not comply with minimum standards for medium custody beds. http://www.kingmandailyminer.com/main.asp?SectionID=1&SubsectionID=797&ArticleID=39368 Therefore, the old facility at Kingman, with its 1400 beds, was converted to a medium security facility. http://www.azcorrections.gov/adc/PDF/count/04032010%20count%20sheet.pdf (It is unclear how the original facility, which,when originally designed, had only 300 beds at medium security level, could have all 1400 beds upgraded to medium security.)

May 2010 -- A riot broke out at the Kingman prison, resulting in a lockdown of the prison and the hospitalization of seven inmates.

July 2010 -- Three medium security prisoners escape from the original 1400 bed facility at Kingman.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Sept. 1, 2010

Schweikert scrambles to defend foreclosure investment scheme

His response doesn't mention multiple citations, fines for blight

PHOENIX – On Tuesday, perennial congressional candidate David Schweikert scrambled to answer questions about what real estate experts call his “vulture” or “bottom feeder” foreclosure investment scheme that banks on Arizona’s faltering housing market.

Responding to media questions via a campaign consultant, Schweikert justified his foreclosure investment scheme of an estimated $11 million in real-estate holdings by saying that he simply worked to “improve neighborhoods” and “rehabilitate” homes. [Arizona Capitol Times, Yellow Sheet Report, Aug. 31, 2010]The reality is, Schweikert has been repeatedly cited for neighborhood neglect and now faces thousands of dollars in fines. [Sources below]“David Schweikert is becoming less credible by the day,” said Luis Heredia, executive director of the Arizona Democratic Party. “He wants Arizonans to believe he’s a one-man Habitat for Humanity, but the reality is that he's created his very own Vulture Valley.”Schweikert and his properties have been cited by the City of Phoenix for violations of ordinances against blight -- including violations for graffiti, overgrown weeds and a stagnant swimming pool, as well as for leaving his homes open and unsecured. [Sources below]

Repeated violations of City of Phoenix ordinances

Schweikert’s properties have been REPEATEDLY cited for violations of City of Phoenix ordinances. The cited properties are owned by Swartz & Brough Inc., for which Schweikert is listed as the power of attorney (to view documentation, click on the blue “4” under “Pages”), and for which Schweikert’s home address at 15749 E. El Lago Blvd. in Fountain Hills, Ariz., is listed as the address of record.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Sept. 1, 2010

Governor’s top lobbyist is now punishing media outlets that dare question who profits from private prisons

PHOENIX -- Last night, news broke that Gov. Brewer’s campaign chief -- private-prison lobbyist Chuck Coughlin – canceled all of the governor’s campaign advertising on CBS 5 News. Why? Because the reporters were doing their job.

Apparently, they were asking too many questions about whether Brewer’s actions as governor are reaping profits for lobbyist Coughlin and his private-prison client, Corrections Corporation of America. Brewer’s campaign staff and governing staff are both overrun with lobbyists, particularly those connected to prison privatization.

“If Jan Brewer’s top adviser is punishing media outlets for asking legitimate questions about his lobbying influence over her, it raises another question: Has she given unchecked power to an unelected lobbyist?” said Don Bivens, Arizona Democratic Party chairman. “Jan Brewer can put an end to questions about special-interest lobbyists profiting from her tenure – she should ask her top lobbyist to step down.”

The billionaire brothers who are waging a war against Obama.

by Jane Mayer

AUGUST 30, 2010

On May 17th, a black-tie audience at the Metropolitan Opera House applauded as a tall, jovial-looking billionaire took the stage. It was the seventieth annual spring gala of American Ballet Theatre, and David H. Koch was being celebrated for his generosity as a member of the board of trustees; he had recently donated $2.5 million toward the company’s upcoming season, and had given many millions before that. Koch received an award while flanked by two of the gala’s co-chairs, Blaine Trump, in a peach-colored gown, and Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg, in emerald green. Kennedy’s mother, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, had been a patron of the ballet and, coincidentally, the previous owner of a Fifth Avenue apartment that Koch had bought, in 1995, and then sold, eleven years later, for thirty-two million dollars, having found it too small.

The gala marked the social ascent of Koch, who, at the age of seventy, has become one of the city’s most prominent philanthropists. In 2008, he donated a hundred million dollars to modernize Lincoln Center’s New York State Theatre building, which now bears his name. He has given twenty million to the American Museum of Natural History, whose dinosaur wing is named for him. This spring, after noticing the decrepit state of the fountains outside the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Koch pledged at least ten million dollars for their renovation. He is a trustee of the museum, perhaps the most coveted social prize in the city, and serves on the board of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, where, after he donated more than forty million dollars, an endowed chair and a research center were named for him.

One dignitary was conspicuously absent from the gala: the event’s third honorary co-chair, Michelle Obama. Her office said that a scheduling conflict had prevented her from attending. Yet had the First Lady shared the stage with Koch it might have created an awkward tableau. In Washington, Koch is best known as part of a family that has repeatedly funded stealth attacks on the federal government, and on the Obama Administration in particular.

With his brother Charles, who is seventy-four, David Koch owns virtually all of Koch Industries, a conglomerate, headquartered in Wichita, Kansas, whose annual revenues are estimated to be a hundred billion dollars. The company has grown spectacularly since their father, Fred, died, in 1967, and the brothers took charge. The Kochs operate oil refineries in Alaska, Texas, and Minnesota, and control some four thousand miles of pipeline. Koch Industries owns Brawny paper towels, Dixie cups, Georgia-Pacific lumber, Stainmaster carpet, and Lycra, among other products. Forbes ranks it as the second-largest private company in the country, after Cargill, and its consistent profitability has made David and Charles Koch—who, years ago, bought out two other brothers—among the richest men in America. Their combined fortune of thirty-five billion dollars is exceeded only by those of Bill Gates and Warren Buffett.

The Kochs are longtime libertarians who believe in drastically lower personal and corporate taxes, minimal social services for the needy, and much less oversight of industry—especially environmental regulation. These views dovetail with the brothers’ corporate interests. In a study released this spring, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst’s Political Economy Research Institute named Koch Industries one of the top ten air polluters in the United States. And Greenpeace issued a report identifying the company as a “kingpin of climate science denial.” The report showed that, from 2005 to 2008, the Kochs vastly outdid ExxonMobil in giving money to organizations fighting legislation related to climate change, underwriting a huge network of foundations, think tanks, and political front groups. Indeed, the brothers have funded opposition campaigns against so many Obama Administration policies—from health-care reform to the economic-stimulus program—that, in political circles, their ideological network is known as the Kochtopus.

In a statement, Koch Industries said that the Greenpeace report “distorts the environmental record of our companies.” And David Koch, in a recent, admiring article about him in New York, protested that the “radical press” had turned his family into “whipping boys,” and had exaggerated its influence on American politics. But Charles Lewis, the founder of the Center for Public Integrity, a nonpartisan watchdog group, said, “The Kochs are on a whole different level. There’s no one else who has spent this much money. The sheer dimension of it is what sets them apart. They have a pattern of lawbreaking, political manipulation, and obfuscation. I’ve been in Washington since Watergate, and I’ve never seen anything like it. They are the Standard Oil of our times.”

A few weeks after the Lincoln Center gala, the advocacy wing of the Americans for Prosperity Foundation—an organization that David Koch started, in 2004—held a different kind of gathering. Over the July 4th weekend, a summit called Texas Defending the American Dream took place in a chilly hotel ballroom in Austin. Though Koch freely promotes his philanthropic ventures, he did not attend the summit, and his name was not in evidence. And on this occasion the audience was roused not by a dance performance but by a series of speakers denouncing President Barack Obama. Peggy Venable, the organizer of the summit, warned that Administration officials “have a socialist vision for this country.”

Five hundred people attended the summit, which served, in part, as a training session for Tea Party activists in Texas. An advertisement cast the event as a populist uprising against vested corporate power. “Today, the voices of average Americans are being drowned out by lobbyists and special interests,” it said. “But you can do something about it.” The pitch made no mention of its corporate funders. The White House has expressed frustration that such sponsors have largely eluded public notice. David Axelrod, Obama’s senior adviser, said, “What they don’t say is that, in part, this is a grassroots citizens’ movement brought to you by a bunch of oil billionaires.”

Howard Fischer Capitol Media Services | Posted: Friday, August 27, 2010 12:00 am

GLENDALE - Jan Brewer is hiding the size of the state's current deficit to get herself re-elected, Democratic gubernatorial hopeful Terry Goddard charged Thursday.

Goddard said lawmakers need to come into a special session - and soon - because the revenues are not keeping pace with expenses, even with voter approval of a temporary 1-cent-per-dollar sales-tax increase that could generate close to $1 billion a year.

Brewer has conceded that further trimming may be necessary, but she has shown no interest in calling lawmakers back to the Capitol between now and the Nov. 2 election.

After championing the sales-tax increase to protect education, she refused to commit to using her power as governor to shield it from further cuts. She said, "I will do everything in my power to protect education" but cautioned, "To make promises is very, very difficult."

Goddard charged that Brewer wants decisions about how to fix the deficit - and potential further cuts to education - delayed until after the election.

"That is a crisis," Goddard said, and part of that solution has to be raising even more tax revenue.

Goddard acknowledged that Brewer shouldn't get all the blame for the state's current fiscal mess.

In the years before leaving as governor, Janet Napolitano pushed through new spending programs while approving a 10 percent cut in state income-tax rates.

Goddard said that was done with no regard to the possibility that the booming economy would ever crash.

And when revenues started to dip, Napolitano proposed some accounting changes designed to allow continued spending while taking the costs off the current year's books.

"Arizona, basically, in the exuberant good times made some very foolish economic decisions," Goddard said. "Now we have to live with those. We have to try to correct them to the degree we can." The conflicting views came both during and after the pair gave separate speeches Thursday to the annual conference of the League of Arizona Cities and Towns.

Brewer said the economy is improving in Arizona and took credit for that in the speech. She said that "we have come so far in the last 600 days" since she took over from Napolitano.

"We've changed everything," Brewer continued. Jobs are being created, she said, and she blamed the Obama administration for the rise in Arizona's jobless rate from 7.0 percent to 9.6 percent since she took office.

Pushed for specifics on additional revenue and spending cuts, Goddard demurred, saying it isn't his job; it's Brewer's. "She should be honest with the people of Arizona about the kind of financial trouble we're in," he said.

Democrats have Republican Ben Quayle right where they want him

by Doug MacEachern, Republic columnist - Aug. 28, 2010 07:34 PMThe Arizona Republic

All the post-election notoriety has focused on Congressional District 3 GOP primary winner Ben Quayle. But he was not the oddest Republican choice last Tuesday.

He was odd enough, of course. When the very first utterance about you by your general-election opponent is mockery, you have work to do.

Here is the first sentence of the first press release from Jon Hulburd, the Democratic candidate who is running against Quayle in the general election.

"This election is now between Jon Hulburd and Brock Landers."

"Brock Landers" was the pseudonym allegedly used by Quayle when he wrote silly, sexy, self-infatuated things on a naughty website a couple of years ago. In case you still miss the inference, Hulburd is mocking Quayle by calling him "Brock Landers."

Mockery assumes familiarity. You have to know someone, usually, to make fun of him. Quayle, however, arrives on Hulburd's doorstep self-packaged for mockery.

Even before Quayle's electoral victory Tuesday in his 10-horse race, websites were selling "Brock Landers" T-shirts, teddy bears and (yes) Christmas ornaments. These lovely gift items refer to the original "Brock Landers" - a fictional porn star - rather than Quayle, of course. But who's to know? Quayle isn't about to issue a statement clarifying things.

Snarky diners are leaving the name "Brock Landers" when making restaurant reservations.

These are the unfortunate consequences of being discovered in the act of committing brazen opportunism.

Young Quayle had a famous name, access to money, and little else.

He has little civic involvement locally. Practically no voting record. No indication if he knows "Prescott" from "Preskitt."

For a candidate like Hulburd, Quayle is a fat sitting duck. The well-funded, well-prepped, well-established Democrat, who has five of his very own kids (as opposed to the nieces the recently married Quayle borrowed for a photo shoot) is about to challenge the following dynamic:

In the most intensely Republican-friendly voting season in 16 years, in a district with a 50,000-voter GOP registration advantage, with all-important independent voters twitching to log votes against Nancy Pelosi, can a Democrat beat the ridiculous odds?

We very well may see Hulburd TV ads in which the candidate squarely addresses the camera and declares: "Brock Landers is the worst congressional candidate in history."

But is he? At least Candidate Quayle has a substantial Republican majority in his district. That is not the case in southern Arizona's District 8, where independents rule, and where The Angriest Successful Primary Candidate I Ever Met is the GOP nominee.

Just as Democratic Congresswoman Gabby Giffords hoped, Jesse Kelly beat former state Sen. Jonathan Paton, the heavy favorite in the GOP primary.

I met Kelly in an Editorial Board meeting. Honorable fellow: war veteran, like all the district's GOP candidates. Indeed, he was a Marine combat platoon leader, the most dangerous job on earth. He is an honest conservative. And a really, really angry guy.

When asked about priorities, he gave an answer that, while perfectly suitable for a former Marine officer, it seemed a bit over the top for a prospective member of Congress: "We've got to kill all members of radical Islam."

And, when asked if he could work with Democrats in Congress: "I hope there's no Democrats left in Congress when I get there."

Look, I like shock theater, too. And I've been known to be a bit edgy at times. But Kelly is that rare conservative who takes politics so personally that he has morphed into his worst enemy. Like far-left liberals, he doesn't believe his political opponents are merely wrong; they're evil: "I think liberals are destroying the nation. We had better go fight them in Washington before they destroy our children's future."

No wonder Giffords is smiling these days. Kelly dissed candidates endorsed by Sarah Palin as people "who will sell our principles down the river."

Suddenly, young Quayle doesn't look so bad after all.

Reach MacEachern at doug.maceachern@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-8883.

by Stranded Wind

Mon Aug 30, 2010 at 09:18:12 AM PDT

435 races every two years makes it impossible for one to stay up on all the happenings but there are some truly stellar candidates each cycle. One of the unheralded sleazeballs of this cycle is David Schweikert, who funds his campaign against Harry Mitchell by yanking the rug out from under struggling home owners.

Let's take a peak at a man in the running for Arizona's most loathsome Republican, a hotly contested honor, but I believe he has a shot at it.

Arizona stands with Florida and California as the pinnacle of a real estate market gone nuts. Housing values went up up UP and an arid sort of Tulip Mania took hold. Prices have tumbled about 40% since the peak in 2006 and Housing Doom chronicles the unwinding of a situation that sensible regulation never would have permitted in the first place.

A sociopathic opportunist (is that redundant?) David Schweikert has found a way to profit from the instability and misery it brings the residents of Arizona District 5. The banks drag their feet on loan modifications and Schweikert slips in, buying homes at auction and evicting home owners with a scant five days notice, some times even after their modification is in process. They try to fight back, but it's a complex muddle of rules with lobbyists' sticky paw prints all over it – another rigged game of the sort popularized during the Bush years.

Renters, perhaps already evicted once due to foreclosure, get a second bomb dropped on them, with dawn deliveries of eviction notices, in one instance being handed to a twelve year old instead of an adult in the house. Families that might have made it get nicked for an extra thousand in moving expenses, they don't get their deposit back even if they've been perfect tenants since the house has been seized from their former landlord, and the tsunami of homelessness has them. Shelter life grinds away at one's time and peace of mind, and soon the working adults in the household are troubled and under the watchful eye of a manager who is under the gun to cut costs.

Stepping back from Schweikert as he slithers around Arizona 5, this sort of conduct is emblematic of the breakdown of our society. Instead of rewarding productive behavior and prudent investing we arranged it so that idle speculators could gamble away the core of our economy for paper profits. What do you think will happen if a man like this makes it to Congress?

ANSWER: He'll create more messes so his fellow predators can continue the thievery of the Bush years, and they'll figure out a way to slip him a cut.

What's the alternative? Harry Mitchell. Centrist. Votes the right way on the important stuff. Americans for Prosperity, a tentacle of the degenerate Koch Brothers, just dropped $500k into this district. He's been in office since we took the House back in 2006. He isn't a Progressive Caucus member and he never will be, but he tends to the people of his district in a way that they find pleasing and he is an asset for the Democratic party.

This is an easy place for us to lend a hand – people find out about their politicians by using Google. If we loft a few diaries about this guy onto the rec list it'll ensure that the truth about him is readily apparent to all – being a large, ancient blog Google really trusts Kossacks when they talk about political figures.

I get on the rec list about once a month and it's kind of cool, but I'm more concerned that the job get done. If you've never been up there and you'd like to help take out a guy like Schweikert just drop me a note and we'll talk about the steps we can take to get you your fifteen minutes of fame.

NEWS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

August 31, 2010

PHOENIX -- It's time for Gov. Jan Brewer to cut ties with her staff of special-interest lobbyists. They, not Brewer, are running the 9th floor, and Arizona is suffering the consequences -- we remain dead last in school funding and we lead the pack in job losses and foreclosures.

Brewer's campaign staff and governing staff are overrun with lobbyists, particularly those with direct ties to prison privatization. Brewer's lobbyists have been leaders in the efforts to privatize Arizona's prison system at the expense of public safety. Here's a quick Who's Who:

Today, Brewer and her fellow Republicans on the general-election slate launched a noisy, coordinated assault on Democrats who fight for hard-working Arizonans. Yet Brewer was eerily quiet throughout August as her handlers' deep ties to private prison lobbyists were exposed in the wake of murderers escaping from a private Kingman prison.

Unless Brewer cuts ties with her lobbyist inner circle, this is the stark reality Arizona faces:

Please join us at one of our debate watch parties to cheer on our candidate, scrutinize Brewer's claims, and enjoy the company of fellow voters. If you know of other debate parties that we've missed here, please post them in the Events section of the Arizona Democratic Party homepage (www.azdem.org).

All debate parties run from 6:30 – 8:30pm

Phoenix

Majerle’s Sports Grill

24 N. Second St. (Corner of 2nd St. and Washington)

Parking in available in nearby garages, guests also encouraged to take the light rail. There is a stop just two blocks away at 3rd Street and Washington.

RSVP to Jonathon Cagle at jcagle@ourarizona.org

Tucson

Pima County HQ Office

4639 E. First St.

RSVP to Caitlyn Brady: cbrady@ourarizona.org

East Valley

GEMDEMS Office

7153 E. Main St., Mesa

RSVP to Mike Stevens: mstevens@ourarizona.org

Home of Corey Harbison

10944 E Bella Via, Mesa

RSVP to Mike Stevens: mstevens@ourarizona.org

Yuma

Yuma County HQ Office

2450 S 4th Suite 115

RSVP to Shaun Cassidy: scassidy@ourarizona.org

Nogales

La Padella de Nicola

554 N Morely Ave

RSVP to Alex Guzman: aguzman@ourarizona.org

Green Valley

Green Valley Democratic HQ

220 W Continental Rd, Suite 420

RSVP to Heath Vescovi-Chiordi: hvescovi@ourarizona.org

Sierra Vista

Home of Tom Wisnewski

3890 S Moson Rd

RSVP to Grant Freeman: gfreeman@ourarizona.org

Flagstaff

Collin's Irish Pub (back room)

7:00pm Start Time

2 N. Leroux St.

RSVP to Kelsey: kelseyb@ccdem.org

Dear Friend,

It's time to turn a negative into a positive-- across Arizona, we are ready to roll up our sleeves and fight back against the negative campaigning and failed policies that have harmed Arizona. As a native Arizonan and former governor, I am excited to tell you that our slate is, without a doubt, the strongest, most qualified and most diverse Democratic ticket our state has ever seen.

These are my candidates:

Governor – Terry Goddard

Secretary of State – Chris Deschene

Attorney General – Felecia Rotellini

Treasurer – Andrei Cherny

Superintendent of Public Instruction – Penny Kotterman

Mine Inspector – Manuel Cruz

Corporation Commission – David Bradley and Jorge Luis Garcia

U.S. Senate – Rodney Glassman

U.S Congress, District 1 – Ann Kirkpatrick

U.S. Congress, District 2 – John Thrasher

U.S. Congress, District 3 – Jon Hulburd

U.S. Congress, District 4 – Ed Pastor

U.S. Congress, District 5 – Harry Mitchell

U.S. Congress, District 6 – Rebecca Schneider

U.S. Congress, District 7 – Raul Grijalva

U.S. Congress, District 8 – Gabrielle Giffords

The stakes are high this November: by electing our slate, we can rebuild our public schools, bring jobs back to our state, and fix the huge hole in our state budget. Now is the time for us to come together to support our great Democratic ticket. Let's start now.

Many thanks,

Gov. Rose Mofford

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Aug. 26, 2010

PHOENIX -- Arizona has a brand new congressional candidate, and he’s a Republican strategist’s dream: aggressive, rich, and eager to go negative and spend whatever it takes to win in Arizona.

We’ve just discovered his campaign material and bio:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Aug. 25, 2010

Democrats and Republicans agree … on Quayle

Now that Ben Quayle is officially the Republican candidate in CD3, it’s time for a proper introduction. And who better to introduce their party’s nominee than Quayle’s fellow Republicans?

Paulina Morris: “Ben Quayle is the worst candidate in District 3, no experience, bad judgment.” [TV ad, Aug. 17, 2010]

Pamela Gorman: “The kid has never voted in Arizona, he has had a job with a family business for a couple years -- we laugh. It is like that show ‘Making Me,’ he moved to Arizona, he bought a house in my district last November, he got himself a wife, a dog, and he started taking pictures for his campaign brochures.” [Strictly Right Radio, July 19, 2010]

Steve Moak: “He [Quayle] doesn't have the experience and maturity to deal with the issues we're facing as a nation. [Fox News article, Aug. 12 2010]

Steve Moak: “Under pressure, Quayle changes his story and admits that he did write for the website using a fake name,” the ad intones. “Quayle said on the website, ‘My moral compass is so broken, I can barely find the parking lot.’ [TV ad, Aug. 20, 2010]

And the Arizona Democratic Party would like to add our own voice to Quayle’s introduction:

“Voters deserve a candidate whose top priority is serving the citizens in the district rather than Wall Street, Washington powerbrokers, or degrading Web sites,” said Don Bivens, Arizona Democratic Party chairman. “Republicans and Democrats agree -- Arizona can’t afford to send Ben Quayle to Congress.”

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Aug. 24, 2010

Website shows GOP candidate's record of preying on homeowners, profiting from housing crisis

PHOENIX – The economic downturn -- combined with the crashes of the sub-prime mortgage and housing markets -- has hit Arizona especially hard. Yet as Valley residents struggle to stay in their homes, perennial congressional candidate David Schweikert is circling overhead, preying on homeowners and profiting from Arizona’s foreclosure crisis.

“Stabilizing our housing sector is critical to Arizona’s economic recovery, but David Schweikert is banking on its failure,” said Luis Heredia, Arizona Democratic Party executive director. “After mismanaging his second failed campaign for Congress and racking up a half-million dollars in campaign debt, I can see the desire to make a quick buck. But doing so on the backs of suffering families who are being foreclosed on and forced onto the streets is despicable.”

For two years, Schweikert has not been forthcoming about his real estate dealings, particularly how they relate to the housing and foreclosure crisis that continues to rock Arizona’s economy and ravage our neighborhoods. He has remained conspicuously vague when discussing his occupation, describing himself as “a small business man” or the owner of a small “real estate business." But the fact is, he is a predatory real-estate investor – the type of investor that real estate experts often call a “vulture” or “bottom feeder" because they profit from failed, foreclosure-ridden markets.

"Arizona is second in the nation in foreclosures. And in this market, our loss is literally David Schweikert’s gain," Heredia said.

Today, the Arizona Democratic Party is launching www.yourlosshisgain.com, so Arizona residents can read the facts for themselves and see how Schweikert’s foreclosure investment scheme blooms in an unstable, falling economy by profiting off the misery of others and threatening Arizona's long-term recovery.

Among the website’s highlights:

Follow The Money

Shortly after his second failed congressional campaign came to an end in 2008, Schweikert announced he was going to run for Congress again. [Source: The Arizona Capitol Times' Yellow Sheet, “Schweikert: Another ‘Crazy’ Run in 2010,” November 10, 2008].

Since then, he’s racked up a half-million dollars in campaign debt to self-fund another congressional run. Not only are the profits from Schweikert's foreclosure investment scheme lining his own pockets, they are lining the pockets of his business partners, who in turn, are contributing heavily to his third, debt-ridden congressional campaign. [Source: The Federal Elections Commission, August 12, 2010]

“Unfortunately, it’s not the first time shady real estate dealings and shell games have ensnarled political officials in Arizona – just ask Rick Renzi or Fife Symington,” Heredia said. “While David Schweikert says he wants to clean up Washington, it’s clear that his clean-up exercise should start in his backyard(s). He should start by disclosing the size and nature of his predatory scheme, who his investors are and how much they’ve already made off the backs of Arizona families.”

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Aug. 25, 2010

Don Bivens, Arizona Democratic Party chairman, issued the following statement in response to Tuesday’s Democratic primary results:

“We congratulate the slate of strong Democratic candidates who are now heading into the general election. They represent the best hope for getting our state back on track. Too many Arizonans are losing their jobs and their homes during this economic crisis. Republicans have failed to solve our most pressing problems or focus on the right priorities. But in November, voters will have a clear choice: Vote for Democrats who put middle-class families first and share their values on jobs, schools and public safety. Or vote for Republicans who protect corporate special interests and make drastic and unnecessary cuts to education and health care. We will work tirelessly to tell voters about this critical choice in November.”

In the last nine days, Brewer has tried to do this at least five times -- and she's hoping nobody will notice. Most recently was on Thursday at the Gilbert Chamber of Commerce luncheon, where Brewer listed several companies that are coming to Arizona, but she failed to disclose which ones were coming as a result of federal help such as stimulus tax credits.

Brewer's press-releases use the same strategy. Here is a sample of headlines from the past nine days:

Aug. 11
Headline: “Governor Jan Brewer and City of Surprise Welcome Rioglass Solar to Arizona”
Not even mentioned in release: Rioglass Solar received $10.6 million in federal stimulus tax credits to locate its facility in Surprise.

Aug. 16
Headline: “Governor Jan Brewer Announces Energy Innovation Grants”
Buried at end of release: The grants are funded through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). (Pssst, ARRA is the federal stimulus program).

Aug. 17
Headline: “Governor Jan Brewer Announces Success in Obtaining College Access Challenge Grant to Aid Low-Income Students”
Barely noted in release: The program (CACG) is a federally funded formula grant.

Aug. 17
Headline: “Governor Jan Brewer Hails Success in Securing Funding for Arizona Forest Restoration Initiative”
Sort of noted in release: The $2 million in funding comes from the U.S. Forest Service. (yep, they’re the feds.)

"Jan Brewer is trying to have it both ways by bashing the feds when it helps her politically but taking credit for any help they send to Arizona," said Luis Heredia, Arizona Democratic Party executive director. "Arizona families need jobs, not a marketing campaign."

###

By D.M. Levine, contributor

August 18, 2010: 12:17 PM ET

FORTUNE -- Early this month, three convicted murderers escaped from a prison in Kingman, a small town along Route 66 in northwest Arizona. According to reports, the inmates had broken free from the facility by using a pair of wire cutters. They'd escaped from a medium-security facility operated by Utah-based Management & Training Corp, a private corrections company.

The incident set off a political furor, not over the fact that the three violent criminals were being held in a medium-security prison, but over the security of the facility itself, and, ultimately, over Arizona's widespread use of private correctional facilities.

Arizona's attorney general, Terry Goddard, a Democrat running for governor against incumbent Republican Janice Brewer, took the opportunity to indict the state's infatuation with privatization.

"I believe a big part of our problem is that the very violent inmates, like the three that escaped, ended up getting reclassified [as a lower risk] quickly and sent to private prisons that were just not up to the job," Goddard told a local TV news station.

In recent years, the trend toward privatization, both among state governments and at the federal level has been part of an attempt to address serious budget troubles and crisis-level prison overcrowding by outsourcing more and more corrections operations to private companies.

The move has translated into big business for industry leaders like Corrections Corporation of America (CXW), The Geo Group (GEO) and Cornell Companies, Inc. (CRN) (just last week, The Geo Group and Cornell finalized a merger valued at $730 million).

According to research firm IBISWorld USA, private corrections is a $22.7 billion industry with an annual growth rate in the last half-decade of 4.7%. While growth slowed from 2009 to 2010, projections for the industry remain largely optimistic.

"The prison population continues to grow regardless of what the economic conditions are," says George Van Horn, senior analyst at IBISWorld.

According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the number of federal inmates housed in private facilities jumped nearly 14% between 2000 and 2007, and nearly 6% between 2007 and 2008.

Even so, the federal government nor any other state has gone as far as Arizona has in the march toward prison privatization. Last fall, Governor Brewer signed a law calling for the privatization of all the state's prisons, should a private contractor offer an upfront bid of $100 million. This March, the law was repealed because no private company made a bid.

A prison too far?

But with the recent escapes, officials in Arizona and elsewhere have started to question the use of private correctional facilities. When Arizona's privatization bill passed, the state's director of corrections, Charles L. Ryan, took the unusual step of writing a letter to Governor Brewer expressing concern.

"[The bill] seeks to attempt something never experienced in the nation: Privatizing a state's entire prison system. This is bad public policy," the letter read.

"This escape has put everything in stark relief," says Goddard. "A private company has an acceptable level of loss. In the case of violent offenders, I don't believe the public does or should tolerate any incidence of failure."

At the heart of the widespread use of private correctional facilities in the U.S. is the industry's promise of much lower costs to governments than public facilities are able to provide.

"States have had challenging situations where they have to look at operating costs. We provide savings of anywhere between 5 to 15% or more [versus a public correctional facility]," says Damon Hininger, chairman and CEO of Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), the industry's leader.

Private facilities can offer these savings, in part because they don't have to contend with the hefty employee pension and wage obligations that government agencies do.

"Private corrections companies can pay a lower wage or pay fewer benefits, particularly no pensions," says John Roman, senior researcher at The Urban Institute.

Arizona has proven to be a particularly sympathetic ground for private prisons, and a less than friendly place for public employees, as it grapples with significant budget woes.

"Public employees, unfortunately, are pricing themselves out of the market with outrageous benefits," says John Kavanagh, a Republican state representative in Arizona who favors prison privatization. It was also recently revealed that two of the Arizona governor's advisers have close lobbying ties to CCA.

Private companies like CCA also generally promise to build prisons in 18 to 24 months roughly half the time it takes to build a public prison, another appealing quality to governments dealing with swelling prison populations.

Private contractors can also cut costs by building facilities for one state's prisoners in another, less expensive state. CCA operates the Saguaro Correctional Center in Eloy, Ariz., which exclusively houses inmates from Hawaii, because construction and labor costs are much cheaper in Arizona than Hawaii.

Law enforcement locked out of prison?

Arizona Attorney General Goddard says that his state Department of Corrections has nearly zero oversight over the prisons that house out-of-state inmates in his state.

"They don't have to show proof of financial responsibility, they don't have to comply with Arizona prison construction standards, they don't have to report disruptions. . .and both the training and staffing is up to the private operator," Goddard says. "There were a couple of private prisons that went on lockdown and refused to allow the Department of Corrections to come in."

Despite claims from companies like CCA, the jury seems to be out on whether private prisons end up saving governments money. An audit by the accounting firm MAXIMUS conducted for Arizona compared the cost of public and private corrections facilities in 2007 and found that, on average, private facilities ended up saving the state $5.49 per inmate per day.

But more recently, an internal Arizona Department of Corrections report released in February 2010, found that, in 2009, those savings narrowed to around $2.75 per inmate per day, and in certain instances, private facilities were found to cost even more per day than public ones.

"There's nothing definitive saying publics are better or privates are better. There's a lot of propaganda," says Michel Jacobson, director of the Vera Institute of Justice, a non-partisan research organization.

The Urban Institute's John Roman argues that at times private prisons also lack the incentive to help prepare inmates to return to society, leading to a higher rate of recidivism (inmates returning to prison) and a higher overall cost to the prison system.

Whether the prison provides rehabilitation services depends on the company's government contract, which is largely dictated by politics.

"We will offer whatever the public customer wants us to offer," says Hyman of Cornell Companies Inc., the third largest private corrections company in the country, which on Thursday finalized a merger with the second largest, the GEO Group.

But even Hininger, CCA's CEO, admits that many states are asking for a reduction in prisoner rehabilitation services. "That does have a negative impact on potential recidivism," says Hininger.

The private corrections industry has managed to weather the economic storm better than many other industries, and it's gearing up for what it sees as a lucrative future. The unavoidable reality is that the U.S. prison population continues to grow, leading more governments to look at creative ways to solve both its economic and prison system's challenges.

While most states may not have gone as far as Arizona, governments are starting to look more favorably at outsourcing their prisons. And CEOs like Hyman sound a little like hoteliers during the economic boom: "I cannot think of an industry that has such strong medium-to-long term growth potential behind it, driven by a need for beds."