Sotomayor is right person for this important job

My op ed in the Arizona Republic today, as it originally appeared:

Of all the decisions a president will make during his or her time in office, the selection of a new justice to serve on the Supreme Court is a decision that may well have the longest impact on our country. The presidency changes hands every few years, but federal judges hold their jobs for life. The decisions they make from the bench will affect us in more ways that we can imagine.

Because this position holds such sway over the course of our country, it's good news that President Obama chose Sonia Sotomayor as his first nominee to the court. And we should be proud to support her.

As a former constitutional lawyer, President Obama has a real understanding of the importance of the court and the way it operates. He knows what it means to be an excellent jurist; therefore, was able to clearly lay out the kind of person he was looking for to serve the United States.

President Obama said he was looking for someone with a sharp and independent mind and a record of excellence and integrity. He wanted a nominee who would uphold core constitutional values through a common-sense understanding of how laws affect the daily realities of people's lives.

Consequently, it shouldn't be much of a surprise that Judge Sotomayor rose quickly to the top of his list. Not only does she have impeccable academic credentials, (Phi Beta Kappa at Princeton as an undergraduate; editor of the law journal at Yale after that) but she also has an inspiring life story and experience with how court rulings can affect the lives of real people.

Sotomayor grew up in a housing project in the Bronx. She was encouraged by her mother's belief in the power of education and her own strong work ethic, and she excelled in school, going on to attend two Ivy League universities. When she graduated from law school, Judge Sotomayor became an assistant district attorney in Manhattan, and tried scores of serious criminal cases over five years. It was practicing real law in front of a judge and jury that Sotomayor got firsthand knowledge of how our justice system works.

She was nominated to be a District Court judge by President George H.W. Bush, and then to be a Circuit Court judge by President Clinton. If confirmed for the Supreme Court, Judge Sotomayor would bring more federal judicial experience to the Supreme Court than any justice in 100 years and more overall judicial experience than anyone confirmed for the Court in the past 70 years.

The most important issues of our lifetime, from education to the environment and consumer safety to civil rights for all Americans, will come before the Supreme Court in the coming years.

It's difficult to overstate the importance of the Supreme Court, and we cannot forget that this branch of government is co-equal to the executive and legislative branches. We need justices who possess excellent qualifications, a real understanding of the law, and a record of open-mindedness on the bench. We need Judge Sonia Sotomayor.

Michelle Rhee : Has the conquering down, but needs to work on the uniting

In this TIME video, Michelle Rhee’s very controversial tactics are highlighted. She has been getting mixed reviews, everything from being called a witch to being called a savior. Regardless of your opinions of her tactics, she is ensuring that all of her efforts are focused on the success of the students.

At first listen, it sounds harsh. Hundreds of employees have been terminated, schools have been shut down, but a closer look shows children are benefitting.

While, I agree with Rhee’s passion for making sure each student can reach their full potential, her strategy could use a little fine tuning. She is, without a doubt, working for a better educations system, but she doesn’t seem to be working with people. Teachers, administration and parents are obviously frustrated with her tactics, closing schools and firing people, leaving schools understaffed (if only if it’s for a short time) – and as far as I can tell, she’s leaving them out of the conversation.

The best way to include them? Focus on the values they all can relate too. A better future, equality, and opportunity. These are all values that people can agree on—and will also agree that certain sacrifices (especially short term) are worth the end goals.

Report card for ONE: A+

ONE does an amazing job of appealing to all kinds of different people. How do they do this? They screaming from the podium that we need to pour all our resources into education—they’re promoting values that we all can share. Like equality, hope, life, health and economic stability.

For instance, while the offer shocking stats, like “75 million children are out of school around the world, a figure equivalent to the entire primary school-aged population in Europe and North America,” they always bring it back to what these statistics truly mean. In the case of education, it allows all these children a better way of life and the ability to escape poverty—and it also helps out future generations by positively affecting health care and the economy.

Another example is with the issue of Water and Sanitation, they let people know that, “Across the world, 884 million people do not have access to clean water and 2.5 billion do not have access to adequate sanitation,” but they also focus on the fact that safe drinking water and sanitation prevents thousands of child deaths, but also allows children to go to school (because they aren’t spending hours each day getting water).

All in all, ONE does an excellent job creating awareness of the urgency of these issues, but they also always bring it back to values—which makes it a lot harder to argue.

America is the land of opportunity, so why be selfish?

DJ Boo: Product of Immigrants.

In this video DJ Boo talks about the true meaning of being an immigrant and the implications it has on the world.

As he points out, allowing immigrants to come and pursue their dreams in America, often means that they can better help out their family and community members that they left behind. As DJ Boo says, and I’d have to agree, a common argument that many people against immigration make is that the immigrants steal jobs. Well, often these people are coming with a less than equal education to those of us in the United States, which often places them in the jobs that most Americans don’t want to work.

Certain values that should be promoted when talking about the benefits of immigration include equality, fairness and opportunity. The more diversity within the United States the more varied views there are that are brought to the table, which creates immense opportunity in all arenas—health care, the economy, the environment, etc. As a country founded by immigrants, it would be selfish of us not to allow others looking for a better opportunity in. 

Arizona Budget Update: What Happened and What Comes Next?

So many of you have asked me for more details about our state budget situation, wanting to know what happened yesterday, what it took to get there, and what comes next. 

This will tell you all that I know - please feel free to post it and pass it along as you see fit.

January 20 - June 30: Brewer refuses to negotiate with Democrats, and Republicans ignore Democratic calls for a bipartisan process. Democrats ask Brewer repeatedly to call all 4 leadership teams to her office to start a 5-party negotiation process to solve the largest budget crisis in our state's history. Those calls go completely unheeded - we don't even get a response to our letters! Democrats create and publish a budget solution, available at www.strongerarizona.com. Democrats oppose Brewer's call for a sales tax increase because it's too expensive for middle class families and isn't fair. Instead, we offer several other ways to increase taxes in a fair way that spreads the burden fairly across the state. Democrats continue to call for comprehensive tax reform to prevent future crises.

June 30 - Republican leadership and Governor Brewer had an agreement to (1) pass that horrid budget containing deep cuts to education, health care, social services, and public safety; and (2) pass a one cent sales tax referral to the ballot that, if approved by the voters, would somewhat lessen the severity of the cuts mentioned in (1) above. The Speaker and President vowed to get as many R votes for this package as possible, the Governor committed to getting Democrat votes for the tax increase referral. The Speaker collected 29 votes for the tax increase, the President collected 13. The Governor was unable to deliver the 2 votes needed in the House and the 3 votes needed in the Senate, despite attempts to buy off Democrats (we don't work like that!). So, the budget passed without the sales tax increase.

July 1 - Brewer vetoes about 70% of the budget, saying that legislative leaders didn't fulfill their end of the deal because the sales tax referral didn't pass. Her vetoes place Arizona out of compliance with all federal requirements for stimulus money, jeopardizing about $2.7 billion in federal money. She also vetoes the entire K-12 education budget, which means no funding for schools as of July 15.

July 2 - Legislative leaders, Republican and Democrat, come together to discuss: (1) how to solve the immediate crises created by Brewer's vetoes - no stimulus money and no public education system; and (2) working together to create a new budget for 2010. We agree to act on July 6th, the first day of special session. Nothing was "given" on either side to make this agreement - we just all recognized that this had to be done to save public education in our state, and to save our chances to get stimulus money from the federal government.

July 6th - 4 bills are passed unanimously by the Legislature. #1 - we fund K-12 education at the 2009 level, plus a 2% inflationary rate required by state law. This means schools stay open, class sizes stay reasonable, and teachers are rehired. #2 - we agree to negotiate on 5 smaller "chunks" of funding for K-12 education, with resolution required by October 1st. Until we negotiate an agreement, schools can spend what they've already budgeted in these areas: soft capital, desegregation, career ladder, early kindergarten, excess utilities. The October 1st deadline was self-imposed - if we don't have an agreement by then, schools automatically get full funding in each of these 5 areas. #3 - we make a technical change to state law regarding how local governments pay the state for health care. This was a federally required change in order to qualify for stimulus money to pay for health care. The Governor's veto last week eliminated this "fix" - so we put it back in law. Now we meet the federal requirements for stimulus money. #4 - we adjourned the special session so that "rank and file" members don't have to come to work every day while no formal action is taking place. To have them come to work every day when we don't have an agreement yet simply wastes state money. This change says that legislators will only get paid on the days that we come to work (duh, right?).

Tomorrow - Republican and Democrat leaders in the House and the Senate will meet to set a schedule for our work. We have to negotiate about 70% of the state budget from scratch, and that takes time. We have to redo the budget in several key areas: higher education, health care, social services, and some portions of k-12 education (see above). These areas are the top concern for Democrats, so this is very important to us. This is going to be hard - we have a deficit of about 2 billion right now, and that's a hard hole to fill. So leadership will work on crafting an agreement that everyone can live with. I anticipate that this will be the hardest thing we've ever done at the Legislature.

In the coming weeks - As we work, House Democratic leadership will communicate with our "rank and file" members via phone conferences to make sure that everyone agrees with what we're working on. Once we have a resolution to this budget shortfall, all members will be called back to the Legislature by the Speaker of the House and the Senate President and we'll vote on a budget package.

House Democrats are happy that - finally - we are working in a bipartisan manner to solve this massive problem. We have always said that this problem is too big for partisan games, and we have always called for all 5 parties to work together to solve this problem. I am sad that it took 6 months of failed leadership by the Governor and the Republican leadership to get to this point - the Governor would have made things a lot better for the state if she'd called us all together months ago, like Democrats repeatedly asked. But we can't change the past. Instead, we have to focus on the present and the future. 

The coming weeks are very important - the four leadership teams in the Legislature will have to continue working together to get this done. It won't be easy. In fact, it'll be incredibly hard. But our state depends on our ability to get this done.

House Democrats commit that we'll negotiate in good faith, holding true to our values and priorities. We believe that we must protect our state's vital infrastructure for the future - education, health care, and programs that serve and protect middle class families. This is the frame of mind that we take into this process.