In this week's Skinny, our scribe Jim Nintzel describes Arizona House Speaker David Gowan as dumber than a bag of hammers, or sack or backpack ... or whatever.
Basically, it didn't take long for the journalism community covering Crazyland to recognize that this guy missed out on some remedial tutoring. Too bad for us as we continue in this adventure called Arizona politics. The latest, as you likely know by now, is Gowan implementing a new policy that requires reporters covering the legislature from the House floor to pass a background check—criminal, civil and even our driving records. Gowan and company even listed specific offenses that will bar reporters from the floor and from doing their job. Someone, like Hank Stephenson (a former Tucson Weekly intern and contributor) who works as a kickass reporter for the Arizona Capitol Times. He's so kickass that Gowan decided to start this new policy after Hank wrote about Gowan's misuse of state vehicles during his campaign. Oh, it's just another day in Crazyland, our beloved state and one we can brag about to our friends in saner places. There's the typical social media outrage taking place right now. I think I remember that same social media outrage when Ducey took his ice cream machete to the state budget and education. Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems like citizen outrage never goes further than Facebook or some stupid-as-hammers online petition. Doesn't anyone out there know how to rent a few buses to take some of that rage up to Phoenix? Perhaps if you include an Ikea pit stop we can get something going. Perhaps not. I'm not cynical, I'm just waiting to see how much more folks are willing to take. Wake me when the bus arrives.
— Mari Herreras, mherreras@tucsonweekly.com
