Crazy Gov of Az now considered "RINO"

[Crossroads Inc.]

So remember when Gov Jane Brewer showed a rare moment of sanity and Vetoed the Birther bill? Well the judgment of the far right has been swift and terrible

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer's vetoes of a half-dozen bills sponsored by fellow Republicans are raising eyebrows, with some conservatives questioning whether she is still one of them.

Never mind that she has signed more than 200 other bills from the GOP-led Legislature.

They wanted her to OK bills on school choice and religious rights, among others, as well as one that would have made the state the first to require presidential candidates to prove their natural born citizenship to get on the ballot.

That last one has become a pet cause to some conservatives who believe that President Barack Obama was not born in the U.S. and therefore ineligible to hold the nation's highest office.

It was too much even for Brewer, a Republican who last year became the public face of the state's controversial immigration law and used it to help her win election.

The so-called birther bill was a "huge distraction" that would have tarnished the state's reputation and hindered efforts to turn around the state's ailing economy, she told The Associated Press on Tuesday.

"From my perspective, knowing what I believe the Constitution says and the information that I had, that it would be something that wouldn't reflect well on our state," she said.

Brewer said she based her sign-or-veto decisions on a standard of what's right for the state.

One example was her veto of a bill that would have allowed guns on college campuses.

Brewer, who in the past two years signed major bills championed by gun-rights advocates, said in her veto letter that the bill was poorly written and might have been interpreted to also apply to K-12 schools.

A school-choice bill and two tax-cut measures were vetoed because the price tags would have undermined the cash-short state's just-approved budget, she said.

Republican Sen. Ron Gould, a Republican who sponsored the guns bill, said Brewer tacked to the right in the run-up to the 2010 election by signing the immigration law, known as SB1070, last spring. But now she's showing her true colors with her vetoes, he said.

"It's kind of disappointing because we're going to see this year that Brewer is not a conservative," he said.[/b]

By the numbers, Brewer's seven vetoes through Tuesday are far short of the total bills she signed.

"We've had a lot more signed than we've had lost," said Republican Rep. Andy Tobin, the House majority leader.

Brewer has signed bills creating a new voucher program for special education students, easing requirements to get a concealed-weapon permit, giving a tie-breaker adoption preference to married couples and restricting union activities.

Brewer also has yet to get an anti-abortion bill she won't sign.

Last month, she worked with Republican fiscal hawks on a budget-balancing plan that included deeper spending cuts and less gimmickry than she originally proposed.

"I don't think her overall politics have changed that much," said Rep. Daniel Patterson, a Tucson Democrat. "We've seen her sign far more bad legislation this year than we've seen her veto."

Patterson cited the new $8.3 billion budget.

The budget is largely built on a Medicaid spending cut that Brewer has proposed be accomplished by reducing enrollment by approximately 140,000 people through freezes on new signups for certain categories of low-income adults.

Brewer's relations with the Legislature's majority Republicans haven't always been smooth.

Brewer was Arizona's elected secretary of state when was elevated to the governor's office in January 2009 when Democrat Janet Napolitano resigned to serve in the Obama administration.

Brewer vetoed key parts of a Republican budget that year, and it took her nearly a year to get enough lawmakers to agree to hold a special election on her proposal for a temporary sales tax increase to help bail out the state's finances.

More recently, sponsors of several of the bills she vetoed this year complained that her office didn't telegraph any concerns or objections in time for the bills to be adjusted.

Some lawmakers and others said they don't see Brewer changing her ideology and that more likely her vetoes partly reflect that she's emboldened by winning a full term last November.

Add in that term limits bar Brewer from running for re-election as governor and that she's said she won't run for Arizona's open U.S. Senate seat in 2014.

"You can be somewhat less compromising or alternatively more focused on your own plans, your own vision when there's no subsequent election to worry about," said lobbyist Lee Miller, a state Republican Party activist.

Brewer said it is simpler: Her vetoes show her willingness to make unpopular but correct decisions.

"I'm a straight-shooter, I'm a truth-teller," she said. "I made some tough decisions."

It really is becoming hard to know weather these people are becoming parodies of themselves at this point.

[TheHammer]

Its ok, once the public sees that all this new breed of Republicans do is slash government services and cut taxes on the rich you'll see the Tea Party bitch slapped out of relevence in the next election.

The Republicans are in the same boat now that Democrats were before - Many diverse points of view within their own party so that they don't even have a true "majority" and can only truly agree on a few key issues.

[Eframepilot]

Its ok, once the public sees that all this new breed of Republicans do is slash government services and cut taxes on the rich you'll see the Tea Party bitch slapped out of relevence in the next election.

The Republicans are in the same boat now that Democrats were before - Many diverse points of view within their own party so that they don't even have a true "majority" and can only truly agree on a few key issues.

And the general public doesn't like those issues, since cutting Medicare and cutting taxes on the rich are almost universally unpopular.

[Broomstick]

Brewer said she based her sign-or-veto decisions on a standard of what's right for the state.

Oh, heavens - a governor doing what's best for her state rather than voting strictly on ideology? Oh, lawdy, how unheard of!

Nice to know she has limits. Wish her viewpoint was closer to mine, her politics more centrist (leftist too much to hope for), but hey, at least she has limits.

It really is becoming hard to know weather these people are becoming parodies of themselves at this point.

Problem is, their are still whackos in public office. Enough of them, with enough power, to do some actual damage.

[Panzersharkcat]

Barry Goldwater is rolling in his grave so fast that if we wrapped him in copper wire and replaced his tombstone with a giant magnet, he'd generate enough electricity to power the entire west coast.

(Oh, and that joke was swiped from Dilbert. I am not funny enough to make my own jokes. Link.)

[Lonestar]

Barry Goldwater is rolling in his grave so fast that if we wrapped him in copper wire and replaced his tombstone with a giant magnet, he'd generate enough electricity to power the entire west coast.

(Oh, and that joke was swiped from Dilbert. I am not funny enough to make my own jokes. Link.)

How do you figure Barry "You don't have to be straight to shoot straight" Goldwater is rolling in his grave?

[Panzersharkcat]

How do you figure Barry "You don't have to be straight to shoot straight" Goldwater is rolling in his grave?

Uhh... I was just trying to cram in a politician from Arizona who I'm ok-ish with into the power generation joke. Ok, yeah, that was dumb of me. I'll stick to the fiction, off topic, and gaming areas of this board. Any flaming of me for this is deserved.

[Eris]

You may want to pick a new one, honestly. Goldwater was an archconservative anti-communist, who some republicans worried would instigate a nuclear war with how aggressive he was about it. He also pioneered the Southern Strategy, laying the groundwork for Reagan and his successors up to the present. He did this by his vote against the Civil Rights Act, something which killed him outside the South when he ran for president. Reagan refined the tactics, especially with brilliant inventions like the various welfare dog whistles, but it was Goldwater who started much of modern conservatisms standard racist tactics.

Granted, if you like Reagan and the modern Republican party, I may be wrong. But Goldwater generally has much better press amongst moderates and liberals than he deserves. If you want good Republicans from the era, although not Arizonans, check out people like Nelson Rockefeller.

[Alphawolf55]

It's a common story that before Goldwater retired and during a time he was relatively standing up for abortion ad gay rights, that he and Bob Dole were having a discussion about the new Republicans coming through and Goldwater admitted that in the past they were the radical and now they're considered the moderates, it kind of worried them.

My mistake it was in 96 and in reference to the new Republican revolution saying 'we're the liberals now, can you imagine that?"

[SirNitram]

She's a far righty who does not embrace guns-on-campus(Cause we really, REALLY need the most drunk, stressed out portions of our population armed!), and 'Show us your foreskin!'. But it's not about far-right anymore. It's a cult. Deviation from the Gospel Of Retards is an excommunicatiable offense.