Prosecutor vows to stand up against Arizona’s “Abracadabra” governor
by Dexter Duggan | View comments |
Print This Post
Throwing Arizona's governor out of office for threats against Arizona's toughest prosecutor Andrew Thomas for cracking down on crime, and other scams may be difficult unless the mainstream media stops covering up for her.
Just after Christmas, local blogger Greg Patterson recalled Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano's creation in 2003 of the state's Homeland Security Department by verbal executive order.
"Is that cool or what?" Patterson asked at www.espressopundit.com . "…Not only can the governor create a state agency ex nihilo, but also she can do it by merely speaking. Does she at least have to wave her arms and say Abracadabra?"
State auditors in 2006 found that officials of this agency without statutory authorization didn't do enough to supervise more than $175 million in grants, the Espresso Pundit, Patterson, continued.
Napolitano's highhanded conduct was emblematic of the way the liberal Democratic governor wants to run the state.
Groomed by local leaders who think Napolitano deserves a national role, the governor has been fast-tracked since she joined the politically powerful Phoenix law firm Lewis & Roca in the 1980s. As a strong pro-abortion liberal who pops up as the honored guest at homosexual-rights dinners, Napolitano would fit right in on a national Democratic ticket.
She was easily re-elected last November to a second gubernatorial term after the state's largest daily paper, The Arizona Republic, became addicted to boosting her image while ignoring or burying unfavorable facts. In the Republic's hands, the radical feminist was remodeled into a "problem-solving pragmatist."
Although the Republic has dropped to less than 400,000 daily circulation in the nation's fastest-growing state, the newspaper is nearly four times as large as any other Arizona daily paper. While directly reaching only a portion of the state's six million-plus residents, it still tends to set the tone for coverage by electronic media coming out of this state-capital city.
If people tend to get their news from television, the Republic serves to tip TV to what's reportable.
But when a newly re-elected Napolitano tried more of her conventional pushiness, the chief prosecutor of Maricopa County, Andrew Thomas, a Republican, pushed back in December.
With Phoenix as county seat, Maricopa has more than half of the entire state's population, and Thomas heads one of the nation's largest district attorney's offices.
As a sidelight, while Napolitano's allies roost with Planned Parenthood and the ACLU, Thomas is a practicing Catholic who previously served as a lobbyist for Arizona Right to Life.
On December 12 Thomas's office issued a press release headlined, "County Attorney Vows to Fight Governor's Threats - Stands firm against public, private ‘intimidation tactics' regarding new repeat-offender policy."
The statement said Thomas "announced today that he will not ‘cave in' to threats coming from Gov. Janet Napolitano and her office, who are attempting to shift the costs of incarcerating Maricopa County felons from the state prison system to Maricopa County taxpayers."
At the end of November Thomas had said his office soon would require prison time instead of probation for most criminals with prior felonies. This apparently conflicted with Napolitano's desire to free up state money for other priorities of hers.
The press release said Thomas's office "recently received information that a high-ranking person in the governor's office has threatened to punish Maricopa County in the state budget process."
The statement quoted Thomas, "These tactics are very disturbing, but they will not work… This new repeat-offender policy is essential for the fight against identify theft, auto theft and other crimes.
"These threats will be looked into, and further, more specific information will be given as events warrant," Thomas said. "In the meantime, the only way to put an end to these threats is to expose them publicly. We also must closely monitor the state budget process to ensure that these threats are not carried out in the next legislative session."
Thomas presumably knew how displeasing his courage would be to some of the most powerful figures in the state, and the pressures they'd exert to rein him in.
When The Wanderer asked Thomas in mid-December for an update on developments, he replied, "I have no further comment to make on this issue at this time. Further information will be provided as events warrant." His spokesman, Barnett Lotstein, provided no further information to The Wanderer when asked for an update by January 2nd.
The Republic tried to pass the controversy off as a minor she-said/he-said disagreement between the governor and the prosecutor.
To the Republic, potential controversy that would harm its careful cultivation of the gubernatorial image is just about off-limits. A powerful recent illustration was its burial of a student-loan scandal.
Shortly after the November 7 election, the November 16 issue of Phoenix New Times, the major alternative local weekly, dropped a blockbuster by revealing that two years earlier, Napolitano "gave sole rights to tens of millions of dollars in bond business to a group of politically connected retired firefighters with zero experience in the field…. And then she vetoed a plan that would have given them competition.
"Although the group is charged with making student loans, not one of its officers is involved with higher education, college financial aid, or even bonds," the New Times story by Sarah Fenske continued.
Also hot on the story, the Phoenix-area daily The Tribune front-paged an investigation November 19 that began, "Two years ago, Gov. Janet Napolitano signed an order that granted a newly formed corporation the power to oversee state-authorized, low-interest student loans.
"Now, the governor says, she didn't know that the company, the nonprofit Arizona Higher Education Loan Authority, or AHELA, was headed by two of her closest political allies, Billy Shields and Pat Cantelme, the current and former heads of the Phoenix firefighters' union, the United Phoenix Firefighters' Association, when she signed the order in December 2004," said the Tribune, which circulates mainly in Phoenix's eastern suburbs.
The Republic continued to avoid publishing this story, although its "Plugged In" blog site on November 20 acknowledged the New Times and Tribune revelations, illustrated with a picture of Napolitano laughing.
However, the hard-copy version of the Republic found space for a November 21 front-page post-election article mentioning "the popularity of incumbent Gov. Janet Napolitano" in the first paragraph.
By November 24, even Tucson's liberal morning Arizona Daily Star took notice, headlining a hard-copy article, "Student-loan deal with state under scrutiny - Napolitano's staff says she didn't know 2 of her closest allies ran nonprofit company."
Finally, on November 30, two weeks after New Times broke the story, the Republic ran an article on the bottom of Page B-10, the last page of the second section, under the modest one-line, three-column headline, "Governor defends pick for loan authority."
The Republic used the governor herself as the major source for comment as to the propriety of her executive order, although it acknowledged there were critics, including Republican state Treasurer-elect Dean Martin.
Although Napolitano is characterized as a political genius by the Republic, a "whip-smart" governor who can even remember the combination to her high-school locker, she is excused for being out of the loop whenever a scandal like this erupts because, after all, a person can't keep up with everything.
Another eyebrow-raiser broke at the "Hot AZ It Gets " blog site in October. (AZ is the postal abbreviation for Arizona.) This blog reported that Napolitano was "furious" that the Arizona Chamber of Commerce hired as its president and CEO the executive director of the state Republican Party, Glenn Hamer.
The blog said Napolitano told an aide to call the chamber to "let them know that this will cause them big problems in the next legislative session. In order to get back in her good graces, she demanded three things:
"1) Hamer cannot say anything bad about her" as he finished up his term as a GOP official, 2) The chamber must endorse her for governor — even though it hadn't made statewide endorsements in the past, 3) The chamber must consult with the governor when hiring lobbyists.
The Hot AZ It Gets blog said half of the chamber's board wanted to interview all the gubernatorial candidates before endorsing, while the other half "wanted to accede immediately to the governor's demands." By a narrow margin, the pro-Napolitano members prevailed, then phoned Napolitano staffers to let them know who voted against acceding, the blog said.
The gubernatorial staffers in turn called employers of those board members and threatened them, "saying that their employees' votes will create problems for them in the future," the blog said.
The Republic ignored this story, too, although Howard Fischer, who covers Arizona politics for Capitol Media Services, got around to reporting it December 14, writing:
"The chamber's vote was supposed to be confidential. Several board members said they would now be reluctant to speak frankly at board meetings if they believe that one or more of their colleagues are going to report their comments to Napolitano."
Even the Republic occasionally has acknowledged that Napolitano has a table-pounding temper. And this temper brought forth a recollection from Espresso Pundit blogger Greg Patterson after the Republic editorially criticized a local Republican Congressman during the recent election season for allegedly being a bully.
When Napolitano threw the president of behemoth Arizona State University out of her office and then forcefully slammed the door behind him, Patterson recalled, her security guards came running, thinking the sound was a gunshot.
If Napolitano herself is to be thrown out of the governor's office, it will take more reportorial candor than the Republic has shown to date.
Originally published in the Jan. 2007, Wanderer National Catholic newspaper
Read more articles by Dexter Duggan
