Arizona Republic from Phoenix, Arizona • Page 296

Pipwyr 111 mum in i in i i i iwmrmwmmm i in ip iMi mi wptm i G2 THE PHOENIX GAZETTE May 1 0, 1 992 New district maps toss 'sure thing' races out window all it poetic justice. When three federal judges drew maps for Arizona's six 1 JOHN KOLBE THE PHOENIX GAZETTE fry 'S' District 4 but found his north Phoenix home in District 6. Zaler, with his strong ties to the Jewish community, is something of a wild card in the equation. But in a race between the affable English and the abrasive Stephens, who would have to move into the district (raising the potential carpetbagger charge) and who carries some unwanted AzScam baggage, put your money on English. Women in Democratic primaries are dynamite this year.

In turn, the likely entries of Zaler and English in District 6 have left much smoother sailing for both Stump, whose low profile makes him potentially vulnerable to a strong Democratic challenge, and Kyi, whose overwhelmingly Republican (by 21 points) district makes running against him something of a kamikaze mission. Which is too bad. The system works better when everyone runs scared. But the court did give us some excitement, at least this year. Say thank you to the nice judges.

John Kolbe comments on politics for THE PHOENIX GAZETTE. His column appears Sundays, Mondays and Wednesdays. end up dividing the anti-incumbent vote with Barnes. Mundell's shift to District 1 left the GOP race in District 6 to two unknowns with pipelines to money, Doug Wead and Michael Meyer. But this dearth of big-name hopefuls will certainly attract others such as Scottsdale freshman Rep.

David Schweikert, who is carefully pondering taking the plunge. The Mundell switch, as well as the new right-wing district with big pockets of Mormon voters, also raised speculation that longtime hopeful Tom Freestone, a veteran county official who quit the race a few days earlier for family and financial reasons, may have given up too soon. But to his credit, he isn't reconsidering. "My integrity would be questioned," he says. Across the aisle, the resulting chaos is even more promising.

Stephens, who seemed to have cleared his way to the Democratic nod, now faces probable competition from English, whose Flagstaff base was detached from District 3 and put into th2 new district, and from King holiday activist Arnie Zaler, another newcomer who had planned to challenge incumbent Jon Kyi in shuffled the dynamics of expected contests in districts 1, 3 and 4, thereby injecting a welcome bit of uncertainty into what has become a dreadfully predictable electoral process. God bless the judges. They've made punditry fun again. Mundell, who had planned to run in District 6, found himself and his Chandler base instead in District 1, home of incumbent Jay Rhodes. After a few minutes of soul-searching (i.e., adding up the numbers), Mundell decided not to move but to take on Rhodes instead.

That puts him in the deliciously awkward spot of running against his ex-dance partner, Barnes, who's in the right district, but not the right kind of district. Barnes and Mundell had plotted together to make District 1 into a right-wing haven friendly to the hard-line Barnes, and District 6 into a hotbed of moderation for the tree-hugging Mundell. Sadly for them (but not for Rhodes), the court screwed up and got it backwards. The irony is grand. Conventional wisdom says Mundell's entry hurts Rhodes, by splitting the moderate vote.

But conventional wisdom may be wrong in this strange year, and Mundell could congressional districts last week, they 'gummed up the plans (however unintentionally) of the very same three state lawmakers whose vaulting ambitions had brought us most of the callous boundary manipulation, acrimonious bickering and stalemate that created the court fight in the first place. And, not incidentally, most of the costs, too, which could reach $2 million after the lawyers stick their giant straws into the goody bowl of tax money. If you wonder where to send the bill for redistricting, here's a good place to start: Stan Barnes, Bill Mundell and Alan Stephens. It was to slake their lust for Washington glory that most of this convoluted agony was necessary. Especially Stephens.

The Senate majority leader's demand to create a new District 6 in which a Democrat (guess who?) would be guaranteed victory was, in many ways, the crux of the entire redistricting debate, since his post made him the chief Senate negotiator and most powerful single voice in all the haggling. To be sure, efforts by House Republicans Mundell and Barnes to create friendly districts for themselves complicated things. But they were strictly secondary to Stephens' demand because their uneasy mating dance was played out within GOP ranks and didn't affect the inter-party impasse that ultimately sank any hope of a legislative solution. So all three, along with Sen. Karan English, who hoped to run against U.S.

Rep. Bob Stump (but played no role in the talks), now find themselves either on the outside looking in, or inside wistfully looking out. The result in District 6 could be a gangbusters race a rarity in which primary and general elections are hotly contested. Moreover, the maps also radically OPINIONS ARIZONA-Ot6 GRAND Another THE PHOENIX GAZETTE EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR: Paul Schatt 271-8475 EDITORIALS, CARTOONS, LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. LOCAL NATIONAL COLUMNS, rep OTOM A dignified adjournment KEATING THE YiVE' Hull were immediately threatened.

If SAVINGS LOANS LETTER Auto insurance law needs flex The auto insurance laws of this state badly need to be overhauled. I am a retired male who has lived in Phoenix since 1939. 1 have never had a chargeable accident anywhere, and have never turned in a claim to an insurance company for an accident which was my fault. I have paid for insurance all my life. I probably don't drive 6,000 miles a year.

I currently own one car, which is insured under existing state laws. This minimum insurance costs me more than $400 a year to protect the other driver. I also own a camper, which I would like to keep for an occasional overnight trip to the cool country. The camper is on jacks the entire winter, and probably wouldn't be driven more than 20 times during the summer. Yet, in order to legally drive this camper a few times this summer, it would cost me another $385 a year for insurance.

I formerly had it insured at a cost of $1 25 for the entire year, as it is a limited-use vehicle. However, last America vJest Without House Speaker Jane Hull's dramatic call to shut down the current legislative session, Arizonans would have been forced to suffer a repeat of last year's dismal performance. You remember: A partisan, opportunistic, combative Senate Democratic caucus taking full advantage of bitter personal and ideological divisions within the majority House Republicans; trying to wring out a shopping list of pet projects and narrow legislative objectives; a session needlessly prolonged into June anchjuly, accomplishing few of the state's major priorities but damaging public confidence. Speaker Hull, frustrated with Senate gamesmanship and weary of her own inability to lead her fractured caucus, took some bold steps to adjourn the regular session, agreeing to develop next year's general fund budget the only thing the lawmakers have to do in a concurrent special session. Not a bad move.

The hundreds of useless bills that were still moving through the process 1 00 days after the session opened stickes to her guns, those bills will die. But so will other bills, a few dozen or so, that are worthwhile proposals, reforms or provisions that should not be lost. Lawmakers worked hard on a clean air program, for example. That should not be lost. Likewise, any part of Gov.

Fife Symington's education reform and SLIM proposals that can be salvaged ought to be. The Gazette has endorsed meaningful reforms in the property tax assessment and board of equalization activities. Those reforms should be saved. So, too, a jobs training program. There are others.

Leaders in both chambers must be willing to back off a bit. The Senate could compromise, acknowledge the special budgetary session and work in concert with the House. Hull could lift her roadblock and negotiate with Senate leaders on a reasonable list of legislative priorities. Wouldn't that be far better than the current stalemate? For Arizona's sake, that's what ought to happen. year the insurance company refused to insure it further.

They said they were no longer writing that insurance, probably due to our laws. Please give us a break on auto insurance and let us all relax a little, instead of making us break the law. The individual driver should be insured by a state-mandated liability policy, and let us keep our limited-use vehicles. Or let us choose whether to insure ourselves against loss, or assume the risk ourselves. After all, this area has a lot of students and snowbirds, not all of whom are insured, who just leave if they are responsible for an accident.

Mel Weil Phoenix WE WELCOME ALL LETTERS. Send your opinions to Letters to the Editor, The Phoenix Gazette, P.O. Box 1 950, Phoenix, 85001. Please include your daytime telephone number so we can verify your letter. The Golden Pen is awarded to a letter writer for insightful commentary or original point of view.

This is only a symbolic gesture However small, this step worth it By MARK L. GENRICH Mark Genrich's column appears Wednesdays in The Phoenix Gazette. hen Richard doesn't like something, you know it. He doesn't 101 just tell you. He shows you.

He fACE OFF By RICHARD DE URIARTE Richard de Uriarte's column appears Mondays in The Phoenix Gazette. Jlfl ey, Mark, lighten up. I'm not the Ifll What's more, on most of these gun issues, I agree with you: The council ought to abolish those city-sponsored auctions of firearms. A seven-day waiting period for gun purchases makes eminently good sense. Average citizens have no business owning assault weapons.

You don't kill deer with them. My point is that Phoenix Mayor Paul Johnson has become a master of symbolic insignificance, the magnificent public relations gesture that expends little political capital. I miss the fearless Paul Johnson who took on the oil companies in support of tough alternative fuels legislation. Whatever happened to that guy? Johnson now proposes an ordinance to make it illegal for those under 18 to carry firearms openly, except in the company of a parent. This most modest offering comes in the wake of two consecutive weekends of horrendous violence.

Four dead, two stabbed, 17 wounded by gunfire one weekend. The previous weekend 100 fled more than 120 rounds of gunfire from all sorts of weapons that erupted at Skate World in east Phoenix. And what would our intrepid mayor; propose to do? Arrest those teenagers' walking down the street brandishing a weapon. Mark, it doesn't happen that They don't hang out a yellow sticker on their windshield: "Gang banger with weapon on board." The homeboys in the 'hood don't walk up to the police and "Arrest me before I shoot somebody." But Johnson's proposal sounds good to the average person who doesn't do drive-by shootings. Hey, the mayor wants to stop kids with guns.

That's all they know. To the politician, however, the gesture is everything. The illusion of strong action is enough. As long as it doesn't offend anyone who votes. That's my problem with the that I want kids carrying guns.

It's the illusion that the ordinance would have much effect. officers will be able to seize offenders' guns, and lawbreakers could face a six-month incarceration at a juvenile-detention facility. It is not a question of logic or morality or religious belief. It is not a question of individual freedom or expression. What it is, Richard, is a city wakening from its years of stupor in ignorance.

It has taken far too many shootings and murders, but at last Phoenix is beginning to understand that allowing minors to travel around flashing firearms is not something civilized cities should tolerate. Are all 'young people likely to comply? Of course not. But one gun or 15 guns kept at home because of the proposed ordinance means that at least the bullets in those weapons will not be racing by accident or anger through a neighborhood's darkness toward an innocent's head or heart. Richard, you yourself have said that Mayor Paul Johnson "is a student of history," who "understands what is happening across urban America." He sees children killing children, Richard. He thinks we ought to begin to do what we can, however slight, to stop it.

So do I. jumps up and down and flaps his arms. His temples bulge with the emphasis. He spits, snarls and jabs the air. You never miss his point, however vapid it might be.

But this issue young people with guns is different. Richard, as you will see nearby, isn't flapping his arms or spitting and snarling. He's calm, in control and a bit self-satisfied with the humor he is able to bring to the argument. Richard needs to employ eccentric tactics to be provocative in suggesting that it is entirely proper for young people minors to be allowed to openly carry firearms in Phoenix, because there is nothing else to his argument. Certainly not the law.

In fact, Mayor Paul Johnson's proposed ordinance prohibiting anyone under 18 from carrying a firearm in public unless a parent were present or had given written consent is thoroughly constitutional. Under the law, Police Mayor Johnson, youngsters and guns The bottom line Is this any way to pick a president? 1 i -sM A Do you have a question? If you have a question you would like to see answered by our staff, send it to Letters to the Editor, The Phoenix Gazette, P.O. Box 1950, Phoenix, 85001. Please note that it is for "The bottom line." Include your name and daytime telephone number, so we can call you to verify. Look in Wednesday's Gazette for the next edition of "The bottom line." Paul Schatt Editor of the Editorial Pages Of course not.

This system is crazy. We need to differentiate the nomination process from the election, meaning we need to reinvigorate the parties to do what they used to do: Cull the candidates to weed out the weirdos and build a ticket. Marcia Sielaff Editorial Writer I'd like to see it easier for third parties to field challengers. An alternative to the Republicats and the Democans could provide a real choice. Failing that, let's add "none of the above" to the ballot and make them keep trying until they get it right.

Mark Genrich Deputy Editor of the Editorial Pages Start with modest adjustment to the extraordinary compromise crafted in 1787, the Electoral College. That is, implement state Sen. Chuck Blanchard's remedy, wherein each congressional district elects one delegate while two delegates are elected statewide. It's worth trying. John Mark Editorial Pages Coordinator We've been electing them for 200 years, so let's not panic.

But let's do ease the two-party stranglehold on the ballot. Let's rethink the primary system, itself a reform. Finally, let's return to more limited government so these darned elections aren't so important. Richard de Uriarte Editorial Writer I'd like a primary system that would keep more candidates in the field longer. We have front-loaded the campaign and given too much clout to Iowa, New Hampshire and the South.

A campaign ought to be a gradual learning experience for both the candidates and the public..