Even Though Citizens Oppose Invasion . . . Open-Borders Powers Again Throw Their Weight Around

By DEXTER DUGGAN

PHOENIX — After Tucson voters decisively rejected a sanctuary-city ballot measure last November, it seemed plain that even more-liberal areas of the Grand Canyon State showed their opposition to the dangers of massive illegal immigration, despite unauthorized entry being promoted everywhere in the establishment from secular Democratic Party leftists to Catholic Church bureaucrats.
Tucson’s liberal-inclined Arizona Daily Star posted on Wednesday, November 6, “Tucson voters overwhelmingly opted against the ‘sanctuary city’ initiative, which would have limited the circumstances in which police officers could ask about immigration status.
“Partial results for Proposition 205, also known as The Tucson Families Free and Together Initiative, showed 58,820 voters, or 71 percent, voted ‘no’ on the proposal compared to just 23,562, or 29 percent, who voted ‘yes’,” the Star added.
The Associated Press posted the evening of November 5, “Voters in one of Arizona’s most liberal cities rejected an initiative Tuesday that would have made Tucson the state’s only sanctuary city amid concerns that it went too far in restricting police officers.
“The measure drew fierce opposition from the mayor and city council, all of them Democrats, who said the initiative risked public safety and millions of dollars the city gets from the state and federal governments,” the AP said.
Tucson, with a metropolitan-area population of just under one million, is about an hour’s drive north of the border with Mexico, while the more-conservative Phoenix metropolitan area, with a population greater than 4.5 million, is about two and one-half hours north of the border-straddling city of Nogales.
With this resounding affirmation of border security, it shouldn’t have been too surprising that the moderately conservative Republican governor of Arizona, the Catholic Doug Ducey, made a border-security initiative part of his State of the State address to the legislature at the state capitol of Phoenix two months later, on January 13, 2020.
The governor’s office posted this part of his speech in a January 13 news release under the headline, “Let’s give all Arizona voters the opportunity to say yes to the rule of law and no to sanctuary cities.”
The release quoted Ducey on the Tucson vote: “There, in our state’s second-largest city, a troubling proposal to defy federal law was soundly and overwhelmingly rejected by Democrats and Republicans alike. It wasn’t even close.”
He went on to recommend that Arizona voters “enshrine” prohibition of sanctuary cities in the state constitution at the upcoming November election.
It appeared that official support for the restriction was a done deal. However, the Grand Canyon State isn’t merely one of the major entryways for illegal immigrants into the United States but also the home of a strong open-borders establishment that includes the Democratic Party, illegal-alien activists, dominant media, big-business labor-seekers, and Catholic Church bureaucrats.
On February 19 the fiercely open-borders Arizona Republic, the state’s largest daily, warned in an editorial against putting the ballot referral to voters. The editorial, across the top of the opinions page, was headlined, “Do not tempt immigration whirlwind.”
Although the proposal “is not wild-eyed legislation,” the editorial said, it’s “designed as a ballot magnet to draw more Republicans to the polls.”
Even while acknowledging that liberal Tucson recently had rejected a sanctuary-city push, the Republic nevertheless insisted this measure would stir up immigration furies.
Well, no doubt liberal editorial writers, left-wing politicians and illegal-immigrant activists were furious that state voters might get a chance to have a say on the measure. But that certainly wasn’t synonymous with the Republic’s assertion of a statewide whirlwind.
However, Ducey had been put on notice that he was in the crosshairs of the establishment.
What is the well-being of Arizonans and other Americans worth, as contrasted with the tantrums of border lawbreakers and business millionaires? Ducey could have stood up for all Americans being plagued by the flood of border jumpers funneling through here. Too much to expect, apparently.
The Associated Press soon reported that Ducey and GOP legislators pulled the proposal.
“The decision announced late Thursday (February 20) comes on the eve of a House hearing on the proposal the Republican governor asked lawmakers to send to voters,” the AP said. “A Senate hearing last week erupted in shouting and resulted in the removal of activists who called the proposal racist.”
But capitulation only emboldens the open-borders warriors.
Quickly after Ducey and GOP leaders surrendered, writer Howard Fischer, of Capitol Media Services, reported the delight of “Hispanic activists and their Democratic allies,” as well as big business.
Fischer wrote that “Glenn Hamer, president of the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry, praised Ducey’s ‘prudent leadership’ which he said fits in with the governor’s desire for Arizona to have a ‘welcoming business environment and its excellent relationship with Mexico’.”
Democrats worried, Fischer reported, that if the Arizona Republican base was encouraged to come to the polls in November, “they would vote to reelect President Trump and provide support to keep Martha McSally in the (U.S.) Senate seat to which she was appointed last year by the governor.”
The “Seeing Red AZ” conservative blog fumed on February 22 that by removing the question from the voters, “Gov. Ducey doesn’t trust us with that task, though he allows our tax dollars to pay for countless benefits directed to illegal invaders, including but not limited to, health care, housing, food assistance, education — including in-state tuition at the state’s colleges and universities.
“The criminal-justice system is reeling under the weight of criminality,” the blog added.
Northern California conservative commentator Barbara Simpson told The Wanderer on February 24: “Gov. Ducey proved with this decision that he’s a politician of the old school: take a position on a controversial issue and then cave to rabble-rousers and change everything. In this case, as soon as charges of ‘racism’ were hurled at him by migrant advocates, he clammed up and then dropped the proposal.
“Talk about a betrayal of his supporters and his party. This will cause him and the GOP problems, but he clearly doesn’t care since he’s in his last term,” Simpson said. “However, it won’t sit well with President Trump, even though Ducey just shared a stage with Trump (in Phoenix on February 19), and his loyalty to the party was touted.
“It seems to me he’s a two-faced double crosser — a traitor to the party, the president, and especially to the voters of Arizona who supported and believed him and who are fed up with the problems with illegals in their state,” she said.
An Arizona Capitol observer who didn’t want to be named told The Wanderer on February 25 that an open-borders Republican in the narrowly divided state House of Representatives bore ultimate blame for the collapse.
“The bill died when Rep. Tony Rivero said he would vote no,” the observer said. “That left the bill at 30 (in favor) since the Democrats were all claiming the bill was the return of SB1070 and racist.”
SB1070 was the 2010 Arizona border-protection law that drew the fury of open-borders proponents nationally who recognized its potential to disable the illegals’ invasion.
The Capitol observer continued: “If you want to be down on Ducey, you can get down on him for not pushing on Rivero, but Rivero has been an open-borders legislator since he first ran for office. Look at how much Rivero does involving Mexico and you’ll see that he was never going to support the bill.
“Could Ducey have tried harder? For sure, and no doubt his backers didn’t want him to, but the ultimate responsibility is with Rivero,” he said.

All Hat And No Cattle

Rob Haney, a retired chairman of the Phoenix-based Maricopa County Republican Party, told The Wanderer on February 25: “Gov. Ducey can never claim the title of a fighting conservative like President Donald Trump. Any puff of wind from the big, bad establishment will blow him over. All show and no substance is how Arizona faithful Republicans have come to view Ducey.
“In recent years, he has spoken against sanctuary cities, gun-control measures, and unreasonable demands from teachers’ unions,” Haney said. “He then embarrassingly reversed course when establishment forces opposed him. He learned this ‘all hat and no cattle’ technique from John McCain, his political guru. . . .
“The Arizona Chamber of Commerce long ago abandoned ‘making America great’ for making their bank accounts larger,” he said. “Twenty years ago, Glenn Hamer was executive director of the Arizona GOP. He left that position to become the director of the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and, shortly thereafter, endorsed ultra-liberal Democrat Janet Napolitano for governor of Arizona.
“Readers may recall that Napolitano was Anita Hill’s lawyer in the Clarence Thomas Senate hearings for his appointment to the Supreme Court,” Haney continued. “During her reign as governor, Napolitano took Arizona from a billion-dollar surplus to a $3 billion deficit and was the most anti-life governor in our recent history.
“Hamer still directs the Arizona Chamber of Commerce, and I suspect the chamber’s influence is why Arizona is turning blue,” Haney said. “The Chamber of Commerce, through their candidate-financing efforts and legislative lobbying, supports a left-leaning approach to politics, the economy and culture.
“Conservatives should continue to expect to be disappointed by lame duck Ducey. If Republicans win the majority of the Arizona races this November, it will be because of President Trump’s coattails, and no thanks to our betraying governor,” he said.