Times are tough in Tucson. Everywhere you go, from the street vendors in the medians trying to hawk the Arizona Daily Star, to hard pressed school teachers holding yard sales to raise enough money to pay their bills.
One such Tucsonan, Priscilla Teran, the Co-chair of Pima County Democrat Party’s Registration and Hispanic Vote Committees, held a yard sale recently. Nothing unique about it, but it did get attention; just not the kind she wanted.
Volunteers for the Ben Buehler campaign, who happen to be walking for the popular Tucson City Council candidate, noticed something interesting about the signs Teran used to advertise her sale. They were made of Buehler-Garcia’s campaign signs. Messy scrawl on paper covering up his signs. You know those big glossy signs that contributors pay for with their hard-to-come-by pennies. The large signs that are one of the few chances for voters in town to even know that there is a choice coming to a ballot box… or in the case of Tucson’s mail-in election… to a mailbox near them.
ARS 16-1019 makes it a class 2 misdemeanor to “knowingly remove, alter, deface or cover any political sign of any candidate. Persons found guilty could be fined $750.00 and punished by incarceration for 4 months for their actions.”
Road signs are one of the most effective and least expensive advertising methods for candidates. Candidates and volunteers work long hours putting up signs that are often one of the only affordable ways to get a candidate known to the public. Incumbents generally can afford the more expensive radio and television ads.
Experienced campaign operatives find it hard to believe that an official with he Pima County Democrat Party did not know that tampering with Buehler-Garcia’s signs was not a violation of law. They also question why someone responsible for getting out the Hispanic vote and hopefully growing Latino involvement in the political process would use the signs of a Hispanic candidate. They do appreciate the irony though.
Those who know Buehler-Garcia say that he would have happily helped Teran out and provided cardboard to advertise her event. He understands the plight of the residents of the sixth poorest metropolitan area in the country. They say that is why he is running: because he does see the residents’ struggles as they try to survive in the currently anti-business environment created by his opponent, Tucson City Councilmember Karin Ulich.