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Tucson Voters Say No
From the AP:
TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) — 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 measure was pushed by activists who wanted to give a voice to Tucson’s Latino community. They said it would have sent the message that immigrants are safe and protected in Tucson at a time when many are fearful of President Donald Trump’s immigration policies.
The initiative, known as Proposition 205, would have put new restrictions on when police can inquire about immigration status or cooperate with federal law enforcement.It explicitly aims to neuter a 2010 Arizona immigration law known as SB1070, which drew mass protests and a boycott of the state. It prohibits sanctuary cities in Arizona and requires police, when enforcing other laws, to verify the immigration status of anyone suspected of being in the country illegally. Courts threw out much of the law but upheld the requirement for officers to check immigration papers.
The Arizona State Constitution limits the powers of counties, cities, and towns to enact or legislate laws. Tucson may be considered by some as one of Arizona’s most liberal cities, but it is not Portland, Seattle, or San Francisco. Tucson is located in Pima County, and Pima County is not King County, WA, nor is it Multnomah County, OR.
A handful of Republican state lawmakers have said they will pursue legislation to punish Tucson. Prior legislation approved by the GOP Legislature to tie the hands of liberal cities, including Tucson, allows the state to cut off funding for cities that pass laws conflicting with Arizona laws.
Tying the hands of local governments is not a bad idea when it comes to enacting laws that conflict with state laws. At one time the Tucson City Council considered a proposal on more restrictive gun laws on Tucsonans than state law allowed. That proposal went nowhere because under state law the city council did not have the authority to restrict the gun rights of the citizens of Tucson.
A two-tier system of state government that allows cities and counties to deny its citizens rights and protections that they would have in other counties, or cities within the same state fractures a state into balkanized groups of city and county states.
Article 7 of the Arizona State Constitution:
Charter counties continue to be political subdivisions of this state that exist to aid in the administration of this state’s laws and for purposes of self-government. Except as otherwise provided in this article the powers of the legislature over counties are not affected by this section and sections 5, 6, 8 and 9 of this article. Charter counties shall provide the same state mandated services and perform the same state mandated functions as non-charter counties. Charter counties may exercise, if provided by the charter, all powers over local concerns of the county consistent with, and subject to, the constitution and the laws of this state.
Published in PoliticsMeanwhile, Tucson voters elected their first Latina mayor. Regina Romero will be the first woman to lead Arizona’s second-largest city after Phoenix, with a population of about 546,000 people.
Tucson’s last Hispanic mayor was Estevan Ochoa, who was elected in 1875 — nearly four decades before Arizona became a state and just 21 years after the United States bought Southern Arizona, including Tucson, from Mexico in the Gadsden Purchase.
Romero, who is on the city council, opposed the sanctuary city initiative, saying it’s unnecessary given Tucson’s welcoming attitude and policies toward immigrants.
I was surprised the vote was so strong on NO. We live outside the city limits, so did not get a vote.
I do wonder if the incident of the 9 murdered in Mexico not that far from us affected the vote.
My perception of Tucson, and the surrounding area was that there was not really a huge ethnic divide between Hispanic, Latino, and Anglo-American culture. That may be due to the fact that the Tucson area has been a melting pot since the late 1600’s. Although American citizenship was a result of the Gadsden Purchase for the established Hispanic, and native Americans southern Arizona had the advantage of benign neglect from Mexico City, and later as a territory of the United States they enjoyed a measure of benign neglect from Washington DC.
The first Anglo-Americans came in the 1840’s and 1850’s. Some of them married into Hispanic families. I like to joke that the Apache’s who were indiscriminate raiders who did not care about your ethnicity made intermarriage palatable. In other words every gun mattered, so welcome to the family.
< devil’s advocate mode = on >
On the other hand, it’s easier to vote with one’s feet at the city/county level than to do so at the state level. Letting cities legislate for themselves becomes really problematic when cities get so big that it becomes logistically difficult to live outside the city and still commute into the city for work. e.g. New York City, Detroit, Los Angeles, etc.
Up here in the Great White North (where, constitutionally, cities are pretty much vassals of the provincial governments) I might be sympathetic to the idea of granting cities more legislative authority as long as the provincial governments also put strict limits on how big individual cities are allowed to get (in terms of geographical size, not population).
For example, my city annexed nine of its neighbours in 2000 and is now over 1077 square miles in size. That’s more than double the size of Los Angeles and seven times the size of Detroit. Voting with one’s feet when council passes dumb laws is nigh impossible if one wants to continue working in the city.
< devil’s advocate mode = off >
I wonder what type of “immigrant” they are talking about that wouldn’t feel safe and protected.
I’m going to go out on a limb that cutting off access to tax livestock is motivator numero uno.
The sanctuary city proposition in Tucson failed by a wide margin — about 71% against, 29% in favor. This was surprising to me, as the city of Tucson itself is significantly Left-leaning.
Like Michael, I live outside the city limits, so I didn’t get to vote on this one.
I admit being surprised by the vote as well; MECHA and reconquista are big there.
Had it been close, or had it won, we would have far more serious concerns about the state being Califorincated in 2020.
That AP story has it wrong. I grew up in Tucson where the Hispanics have always outnumbered the Anglos. As far back as I can remember they have had a very prominent role in the city socially, business wise, and in politics. To pretend that they needed to be given protection by some law is ridiculous. They are, by this vote, clearly discouraging illegals and voting for safety.
I have a map of the territory that dates to about 1860 which shows Tucson but no Phoenix.
As for the Apaches, I have friends whose family owns an enormous ranch south of Tucson. Before statehood it was even larger. In the eastern part of the ranch are the ruins of a ranch house burned in an Apache raid. The ranch has a guesthouse near the main ranch house that still has rifle slits for the days when it was the ranch house.
finally some sanity prevails
Is the tide turning? Do libs now see some of their policies create havoc instead of Utopia?
I wonder . . .