Protect 21: Arizona astroturfing

I received a mailing today from the "Protect 21 Coalition" asking me to contact my legislators to tell them to oppose Senate Bill 1276, which it describes as "alcohol deregulation." The bill actually legalizes Internet-based sale of wine by Arizona wineries in the aftermath of the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Granholm v. Heald (which was combined with two other cases, including the Institute for Justice's case from NY, Swedenburg v. Kelly), which held that state regulation of Internet-based wine sales must be the same for in-state and out-of-state wineries. A 1982 Arizona law permits only in-state wineries to ship wine to restaurants and retail stores, and so is unconstitutional under that decision.

The Protect 21 website argues for a three-tier model of alcohol distribution (manufacturers, distributors, and retail sales) on the grounds that it is somehow better able to protect communities and prevent underage drinking. Actually, this model is an anti-competitive model held in place by regulations which benefit the middleman, whose role would otherwise disappear.

Their main argument is that allowing wine sales over the Internet will lead to underage drinking, despite the fact that purchases require credit cards and deliveries require a signature and ID verification, same as a retail store purchase. (For more on this argument and discussion, see this Jacob Sullum post at Reason magazine's blog.)

And who would you guess is behind the Protect 21 Coalition?

The two people who testified against Senate Bill 1276 on February 15 were Howard Romm, the president of Republic Beverage Company, and Marcus Osborn, the "Manager of Governmental and Public Affairs" of the Protect 21 Coalition. Actually, Osborn's title is for his position at the Phoenix office of R&R Partners, a Las Vegas-based advertising and lobbying firm. Osborn is a busy lobbyist, who also testified on behalf of the "PACE Coalition" in favor of H.B. 2383, a bill for a "Program for All-inclusive Care for the Elderly" at taxpayer expense, on the same day. He's also lobbied the Arizona legislature for Jack-in-the-Box restaurants and YUM brands. You can see Osborn's lobbyist record with the state of Arizona here.

The protect21.org domain was registered by R&R Partners, and the group's mailing address listed on its website is a commercial postal mailbox at a branch of The UPS Store in downtown Phoenix.

And who is a client of R&R Partners (though not listed on their website)?

Republic Beverage Company, of course.

If you're in Arizona, contact your legislators and let them know that you'd rather not have your tax money spent to funnel money into the pockets of middlemen through archaic regulations, especially not to middlemen who hire lobbying firms to create fake grassroots efforts to promote their positions to the legislature.

In 2004, expenditures by lobbyists had grown by 30% from 2003 to over $3 million, according to a study by the Center for Public Integrity.

Dirty Politician: The Katherine Harris campaign implosion

Apparently she had some staffers leave because she lied about whether Mitchell Wade (the briber in the Duke Cunningham scandal) had bought her a very expensive ($2,800) dinner at a fancy restaurant. She ended an interview last week when the subject came up, after saying that her campaign had "reimbursed" the restaurant (which makes no sense, since Wade paid the bill). Her spokesman called the reporter and asked that the subject not be published. The following day, her campaign released a statement saying that "I have donated to a local Florida charity $100 which will more than adequately compensate for the cost of my beverage and appetizer."

It turns out that the "local Florida charity" is Global Dominion Impact Ministries, a Charismatic Christian group run by Bishop Lewes and Pastor Sandra Jones. The group's website says:

"Pastor Sandra has an inspiring testimony of her deliverance from being sold to devils as an infant. She also shares her miraculous healing from her breast cancer as well as being raised from the dead."

Another wannabe politician with a bogus photo

What is it with people running for office using bogus photos on their websites? First Howard Kaloogian, running for Duke Cunningham's seat, used a photo from Istanbul as a stand-in for Baghdad to support his claim that things are going well in Iraq. (He also lied about endorsements he had received--and came in fourth in the primary.)

Now Kimberly Williamson Butler, running for mayor of New Orleans, has a photo of herself in front of the French Quarter at Disneyland. When Disney's attorneys objected, her response was not to replace it with a photo of herself in the real New Orleans, but to modify the photo to remove the Disneyland garbage can.

U.S. counties by percentage of religious adherents

Arizona doesn't look so bad... (from Pharyngula).

Abu Ghraib whistleblower blacklisted from military contracts

Torin Nelson, who was working as an Army interrogator when he helped document abuses at Abu Ghraib in 2004, has been blacklisted from further work in that role, for fear that he might "cause an adverse circumstance at some point in the future." (More at TPM Muckraker.)

Two noncombatants held at Guantánamo Bay for their own good

Abu Bakker Qassim and Adel Abdu al-Hakim have been held at Guantánamo Bay for nearly a year since a military panel ruled that they were noncombatants, not terrorists, and no threat to the United States. They are being held because they are members of the Uighur minority from western China, a religious and ethnic group that has been the subject of abuses by the Chinese government. If they were to be sent home, they could be abused and tortured.

But they cannot be allowed to enter the United States, either, because that would set a bad legal precedent. A U.S. federal court judge "ruled that they were being held illegally, but he said he was powerless to order their release." The Supreme Court has declined to hear the detainees' appeal, but on May 8 an appeals court panel will determine whether federal judges have any power to intervene.

So they remain imprisoned indefinitely at Guantánamo Bay.

(More detail at Sheldon Richman's Free Association blog.)

Timeline of the earth

Here's a nice Flash-animated timeline of the earth's history, with sliders you can move back and forth to see continental drift and animals appear and disappear. (Via Pharyngula.)

Cheap parking may hurt light rail--the story behind the story

Today's Arizona Republic has a story reporting that the large supply of cheap parking downtown may hurt the light rail project, as people would prefer to drive their cars than use mass transit.

The real irony here is that it was deception by the City of Phoenix that allowed it to build a massive parking garage across the street from Bank One Ballpark (now Chase Stadium). By falsely claiming that the 3,000-space parking garage was necessary for the Arizona Science Center and the Civic Plaza, the city effectively gave a $40 million gift to Arizona Diamondbacks owner Jerry Colangelo. The ballpark did not have sufficient parking for itself, but because it would require voter approval for any additional spending under Proposition 200, the city hired Kaku Associates to conduct a study to determine the need for spaces for the Arizona Science Center, and jiggered the assumptions of the study until they got the result they wanted for the ballpark. The February 1994 draft report from Kaku stated that "If the baseball stadium is not built, it would be difficult to justify a parking garage of any size within the study area in general." The City then told Kaku to change its assumptions, by disregarding existing parking spaces outside a two-block radius from the Science Center, assuming that crowds to the Civic Plaza convention center would double, and pretending that the city would also build a downtown aquarium. Adding these assumptions led to the conclusion in June 1995--in the seventh draft of the study--that there would be 1,300-1,600 space parking deficit, and therefore the city could go ahead and build a parking garage without voter approval.

Oh, but there was one more catch--the land where they wanted to build the garage was the site of the Greyhound bus terminal, on land owned by the Dial (now Viad) Corporation. The city condemned the Greyhound site and passed a zoning change to prevent Greyhound from relocating to another site downtown. In Greyhound's legal response, they pointed out the obvious fact that the city was cheating in its argument for the parking garage, stating "The city's arrogance in proceeding to do whatever it damn well pleases by pretending that the garage is for the Civic Plaza and not the baseball stadium ought to offend the sensibilities of any honest thinking individual." They further pointed out that the city's action was a violation of Proposition 200 whether the parking garage was for the ballpark or for the convention center--to which the city responded that the Civic Plaza and Convention Center is not actually a convention center, because only 5.8% of attendance at Civic Plaza events between 1988 and 1995 was related to conventions.

In the end, the city offered Greyhound a settlement that it accepted, and got its parking garage on the site, which loses an average of $283,000 a month, paid for by the city (and indirectly by its residents).

The city has continued to engage in deals which largely supply private benefits directly to Jerry Colangelo, most recently with a similar deal for the city to spend millions to build a hotel downtown--even though similar projects in other cities have lost money.

Phoenix City Manager Frank Fairbanks and former Deputy City Manager Sheryl Scully (now City Manager of San Antonio, Texas) are two of the main people to thank for these boondoggles.

(Most of the above is derived from the excellent reporting of John Dougherty of Phoenix's New Times weekly newspaper. For some reason, the Arizona Republic can almost never be counted on to dig up and provide such information.)

The library of airplanes

A proposal to build a library out of the discarded fuselages of Boeing 727 and 737s in Guadalajara, via BLDGBLOG.

A story about eggs suitable for Easter

Alonzo Fyfe has a parable on "The Meaning of Life" at the Atheist Ethicist. (Via the Carnival of the Godless #38.)