Arizona: Can Our Know-Nothing Leaders Understand English?

jan brewer

Governor Jan Brewer today announced that she “decided” not to run for an illegal third term. SB 1062 was just plain stupid.?Are the leaders of the?United States’ most anti-immigrant state deficient in their native tongue?

Today, Governor Jan Brewer announced what should have been a foregone conclusion: that she would not seek a third term as governor of Arizona. Brewer maintained for a couple of years that the language in the Arizona Constitution forbidding a third term as governor is ambiguous. Here is the constitutional provision in question:

“No member of the executive department shall hold that office for more than two consecutive terms. This limitation on the number of terms of consecutive service shall apply to terms of office beginning on or after January 1, 1993. No member of the executive department after serving the maximum number of terms, which shall include any part of a term served, may serve in the same office until out of office for no less than one full term.”

Brewer served out the remainder of Janet Napolitano’s term as governor when President Obama selected Napolitano to run Homeland Security. Then Brewer was elected to a full term on her own. Brewer got a full term and a part of a term, which is all the Arizona Constitution allows. Any part of a term counts as one term. There was nothing unclear about that. Yet today it is big news that Governor Brewer has conceded the obvious. Obvious to anyone fluent in the English language.

Governor Brewer has proven to be a sometime pragmatist, as she has made decisions that were good for Arizona, despite trends among Republican governors nationwide: like accepting Medicaid funds and vetoing SB 1062.

Yet Brewer has been derided as “G.E.D. Jan” because she is not very educated. While it appears that she did graduate from?high school in 1963,?”Brewer has never earned a college degree, only attending Glendale Community College where she received a radiological technologist certificate.”

SB 1062 was so badly written that it allowed everybody to discriminate against everybody else, as long as that discrimination was based on a “sincerely held religious belief.” Yet the authors and proponents?of that bill, which a reasonably intelligent child could have understood, complained both that it was just a minor tweak of an existing bill, and that they did not have time to read and understand?it. It took this author (okay, an attorney with a?couple of English degrees)?an entire ten minutes to read and understand that garbage legislation.

To paraphrase former President George W. Bush, “Is our politicians learning?” For a state with so much hostility toward Hispanics, not?enough of the people running Arizona seem particularly proficient in English. It took Brewer two years to decide the obvious (that she was not eligible to run for an unconstitutional third term). It?took her just a week (albeit with help from staff) to understand that SB 1062 was going to make the food fight in “Animal House” looked like the embodiment of the principles of well-ordered liberty.

Will the know-nothingism that has become entrenched in Arizona politics continue? The Know Nothing Party of the 1840s was nativist and anti-immigrant; which 150 years ago meant anti-Catholic, anti-Irish, and anti-German. Today’s Know Nothing Party (a.k.a. the Tea Party or conservative Republicans or political Evangelicals) seems insanely proud of the fact that they know almost nothing. They censured Senator John McCain despite his years of demeaning and cringe-worthy pandering to their blatant stupidity. Can the Tea Party last much longer?

Edited/Published by: SB