State Representative Ethan Orr could have taken a walk. Everyone expected him to; it was politically the safe thing to do.
Tucson City Councilman could have taken the high road. No one really expected him to; it wasn’t the politically charged thing to do.
Instead of turning Tucson’s tragedy, the January 8 shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, into an opportunity to have a real conversation about mental healthcare, like Orr did, Kozachik didn’t.
On Wednesday, the House overwhelmingly passed HB 2570, a bill that provides $250,000 to the Department of Health Services for Mental Health First Aid, a program that helps the public identify, understand and respond to signs of mental illness and substance abuse disorders. Rep. Ethan Orr co-sponsored the bill.
The training might have been and will certainly be a game changer in light of the fact that the January 8 shooter was mentally ill and the signs were ignored.
The House passed the bill with a 54- 4 vote. It will now go to the Arizona Senate.
Also this week, Steve Kozachik was begging for headlines about his crusade against guns. It is an election year for Kozachik and fear mongering is a better bet for media attention than real solutions that don’t anger anyone.
This week, while republicans conducted a witch hunt for RINOs in their midst, democrats were doing whatever they could to pick off any and all members of the herd. To wit; Representative Gallego did what any smart strategist does, he identified a chance to force a tough choice on his enemy; a potentially re-election damaging choice for a republican.
The Yellow Sheet reports, “Gallego offered a pair of floor amendments to Barton’s H2455 (unclaimed property; firearms; disposition) yesterday, only to have the House shoot them down. The first amendment would have exempted Pima County from the proposed prohibition on government agencies destroying unclaimed or forfeited firearms. His second amendment would have allowed government agencies to destroy firearms if the destruction was privately funded and the owner of the firearm voluntarily transferred the gun to the destroying entity.
Though the amendments failed, Gallego later moved to amend the COW report to include his amendments and called for roll-call votes, thus putting lawmakers on record as voting against his amendments. “I’ll bet you $5 that when we do a roll call vote, Orr walks off the floor,” Gallego told our reporter.”
Gallego lost his bet. According to the Yellow Sheet, “Orr could have left the floor and avoid a vote. He had permission from Tobin to take a walk during the vote, but decided to tough it out, voting against the amendments. “
Orr says he knows the vote will lose him the support of some democrats in his heavily democratic district, and maybe cost him re-election, but he says it doesn’t matter. He is going to act on principle no matter what.
Kozachik is betting on the hope that the residents of Tucson would prefer pandering over principle. He is betting on the fact that democrats don’t own guns.
Kozachik will lose those bets too.