September 08, 2009 Goldwater vs. Goldwater vs. Sheriff Joe Arpaio
Also by Peter B. Gemma:
Abolishing America (contd.): Supremes Hear Indiana
Anti-Illegal Voter Case By
Peter B. Gemma
The
Goldwater Institute,
an Arizona public policy research organization
professedly devoted to reducing the size, scope, and
cost of government, now has Maricopa County
Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s
job on its agenda. The popular personality—“America’s
Toughest Sheriff”, as he likes to be called—is known
nationwide for his tough and
innovative
policies that
deter
illegal immigration
The September 2009 issue of the glossy lifestyle
Phoenix
Magazine has a feature entitled
Goldwater’s Group Goes After Arpaio (By Jana
Bommersbach—email
her).
It opines:
“Something’s amiss when even the most conservative think
tank in Arizona is calling on Sheriff Joe to get his act
together”.
The Goldwater Institute recently issued a report [Mission Unaccomplished: The Misplaced Priorities of the Maricopa County
Sheriff ’s Office, by Clint Bolick,
PDF]
saying Sheriff Arpaio’s department
“has diverted
resources away from basic law-enforcement functions to
highly publicized
immigration sweeps,
which are ineffective in policing illegal immigration”.
The report goes on to claim that the Maricopa Sheriff’s
department’s
“effectiveness has been compromised for the past several
years by misplaced priorities”.
Significantly,
Bolick,
the libertarian lawyer who seems to have emerged as the
driving force at the Goldwater Institute in the last
couple of years, even got to write an MSM Op-Ed in
support of his own report:
MCSO's flaws result in misguided mission,
By Clint Bolick, December 6, 2008.
The Sheriff responded to Bolick’s criticism by
commenting: “When you talk about the
Civil Liberties Union
I think they treat me better than this guy
[Bolick] does I
never had any trouble in 14 years with the Goldwater
Institute [until now]
and I’ve done a
lot of controversial things.”[Think
tank condemns Arpaio's priorities,
by JJ Hensley, The
Arizona Republic, December 2, 2008]
So why are the free market advocates at the Goldwater
Institute picking a fight with Sheriff Arpaio?
Might it have something to do with political power and
the financial clout of Arizona’s elites?
We’ll get to that speculation in a moment. But first,
some background.
Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater
was the
Republican nominee for President in 1964,
45 years ago. This
“conservative”
icon passed away in 1998 but his name and political
legacy still have weight in some circles.
I use conservative in quotes—and assert his legacy has
influence only in some circles—because the
meaning of the term
“conservative”
is useless (i.e.,
National Review
vs.
Pat Buchanan).
The impact of Goldwater’s politics and positions is
lauded by some libertarian-leaning GOPers, but
exasperates others on the front lines of public policy
fights.
The immigration issue is the prime example.
Senator Goldwater’s record on immigration was, at best,
mixed. He voted for President Reagan’s
amnesty
for illegal aliens legislation in 1986.
However, in 1978 he summed up his stance this
way: “Don’t offer
amnesty to those already here illegally. Sanctions
against employers who hire illegal immigrants are
unfair; it is the government's responsibility to
determine who is
here legally.
Start a guest worker program to ‘channel the flow’ of
illegal immigrants through a legal mechanism.”
[quoted in
Immigration: What
would Barry do?,
By Mark Kimble,
Tucson Citizen, June 04, 2008]
We can best see the late Senator’s legacy on immigration
by looking at his politically active progeny.
Barry Goldwater, Jr.,
a
former Congressman (R-CA), asserted in 2007 that “This hysteria [about immigration reform] has to stop. We all walk this world as human beings, and we should all
seek to understand and help one another. We need to urge
our lawmakers to practice tolerance and fairness, to
become more involved in working for a comprehensive
solution that will be just to all.”
Hysteria over illegal immigrants must stop,
by Barry
Goldwater Jr.,
Arizona Republic, November 25, 2007,
In contrast, Don Goldwater,
nephew of the late Senator and a
2006 GOP candidate for Governor of Arizona—is
forthright in his opposition
to lax and non-existent immigration controls.
“It
[immigration] encompasses everything. A lot of these people coming across [the
border] are
entering into the
gangs.
A lot of the women coming across are going into
prostitution”.
In support of a
proposal
to add 700 miles of fences along the U.S.-Mexico border,
he proclaimed: “I
have a message for Mr. Bush: build us that wall now!”
[Goldwater
gets tough on immigration,
by Chip Scutari,
Arizona Republic,
April 12, 2006] Don Goldwater was also active in the Minuteman movement. He promised that if elected he would use illegal immigrants to build the wall before deporting them. (Curiously, Don Goldwater also served on the board of the Goldwater Institute for a time.)
In response, Barry Goldwater, Jr.—a fund raiser for the
Goldwater Institute—claimed in the
Arizona Republic
Op Ed cited above that his cousin’s bid for Governor had
“become ensconced in the polarized political spectrum” and was
“rapidly losing
the respect of the business community and most
rank-and-file Republican contributors”. He asserted
that Don Goldwater and other immigration reform patriots
“have tarnished the image of the Republican Party with the extreme
hysteria and rhetoric they represent”.
The Goldwater vs. Goldwater controversy had its effect:
Don Goldwater scored only40%
of the vote in the GOP’s four way primary.
The winner, Len Munsil, a
religious right candidate,
went on to
capture only 35%
against incumbent
Governor Janet Napolitano
in
the general election. Subsequently, Munsil
endorsed
Senator
John McCain
(who had
endorsed him)
as “worthy of the
enthusiastic support of every thinking conservative.”
So there are two kinds of Goldwaterites in Arizona. And
the Goldwater Institute is certainly in one camp.
The Institute’s report on Sheriff Arpaio has received a
lot of attention from the media. The leftist Phoenix
New Times
is
ecstatic in its assessment of the results:
“What makes the
report so remarkable is its very existence: While
libertarian in its orientation, the Goldwater Institute
is enormously influential among Arizona Republicans of
all stripes”.
Well, not exactly all stripes. The Institute has
such allies as those who are seeking cheap labor (the
Home Builders Association of Central Arizona),
promote amnesty for illegal aliens (Congressman
Jeff Flake,
a former Executive Director of the Institute) and media
elite types like Robert Robb, now a
columnist
with the Arizona Republic newspaper and who
previously served on the executive committees of the
Phoenix Chamber of Commerce—and
the Goldwater Institute itself.
There can be no doubt that Clint Bolick, [Email
him]
is a sincere if dogmatic Establishment libertarian. He
has done brave work in opposing Affirmative Action—he
helped kill
Lani Guinier’s nomination as Assistant Attorney General
For Civil Rights in the Clinton Administration by
labeling her
a “Quota Queen”—but
he has been quick to recoil
in horror
from any hint of
Racial Incorrectness
and he wrote a
silly
article for the
Arizona Republic [GOP runs a big
risk of losing Hispanics,
June 17, 2007] supporting the Bush amnesty.
All of which just happens to fit the agenda of Arizona
big business, the liberal media and the
neoconservative
grant machine (Bolick received a
Bradley Prize
in 2006.)
In her Phoenix magazine article, Jana
Bommersbach
refers to the Institute as “the bedrock of Republicanism in Arizona” and gleefully declares:
“The report sent
shockwaves through the state’s political structure. The
anti-immigration crowd went berserk; the rest of us let
our mouths drop in astonishment. The very same words had
been coming out of other mouths for months—Democrats
such as former
Governor Janet
Napolitano,
Attorney General
Terry Goddard,
Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon, former state Senator Alfredo
Gutierrez—but to hear them come from the Goldwater
Institute was amazing.”
Amazingly confusing and inconsistent.
The Institute’s report admits:
“There is no
question that Sheriff Arpaio
is ‘tough’ on
people arrested for or convicted of crimes—and that a
large majority of Maricopa County voters applaud that
toughness as evidenced by polls and past elections. But
toughness is only one ingredient for a successful
sheriff’s department, and by itself is far from
sufficient.”
The report states Arizonians should have a sheriff that
isn’t “diverting precious law-enforcement resources” on immigration
sweeps. Yet it concedes:
“no question
exists that a large number of illegal immigrants reside
in Maricopa County and that they are disproportionately
associated with crime ... in 2007, illegal immigrants
made up 18.7 percent of those who were actually
convicted of felonies—including 33.5 percent of drug
convictions, 20.7 percent of crimes with weapons ...”
Huh?
Many points in the Goldwater Institute study were simply
culled from newspapers and other media outlets (at least
52 out of the 81 footnotes), who in turn praised the
report. The report recommendations call for additional
laws and regulations, a surprising stance for a
self-described libertarian think tank. As Sheriff Joe
Arpaio
observed:
“We don’t need
new laws. [The Goldwater Institute]
wants new legislation over and over again—we’re too big
now, with too many laws.”
The ultimate assessment of Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s job
performance comes from his
constituents.
Maricopa County voters have re-elected him sheriff by
double-digit margins in 1996, 2000, 2004 and 2008. In
2007, a petition to recall Arpaio from office failed to
gain enough signatures to get on the ballot. In a
survey
taken by the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism while
the petition was in circulation, nearly two-thirds of
respondents opposed the recall, and 65 percent of those
polled held a positive opinion of Arpaio.
Proving the adage that he who laughs last laughs best,
Fox television network has awarded Joe Arpaio his own
reality TV show:
“Smile ...
You’re Under Arrest!”
Peter B. Gemma (email him) is a columnist with Middle American News and a Contributing Editor to The Social Contract. |
