LD 29's Dan Patterson at the state Dems' winter meeting...
Videographer Dennis Gilman and I drove down to Tucson on Saturday to check out the Arizona Democratic Party's winter meeting, held at a local high school there. Among those we chatted with was state Representative Daniel Patterson of Legislative District 29.
Patterson spoke of efforts by Dems in the state Legislature to repeal both Sand Land's breathing-while-brown-statute Senate Bill 1070, as well as House Bill 2281, the state's ethnic studies ban.
Today, state Senator Steve Gallardo held a press conference at the Capitol to announce Senate Bill 1218, which would strike 1070 from the books if passed. Patterson was there with other Democrats to support the effort.
Patterson used to go head-to-head with ex-state Senate President Russell Pearce in committee back in the day. Indeed, Patterson's questioning of Pearce was once so intense that Republicans stripped him of his committee assignment in retaliation.
Of the mean-spirited anti-immigrant insanity the state GOP continues to foist on Sand Land, Patterson had this to say in the video:
"People want us focused on what matters. They want better jobs. They want better opportunities for their kids. They want better schools. There's no real broad interest, at least not here in southern Arizona, to try to attack migrants."
He continued:
"SB 1070 really missed the mark. It hasn't done anything to help public safety in Arizona. But it's done a lot to harm our economy. It's done a lot to harm tourism. It's done a lot to harm our relations all over the world, especially in Latin America, which is very important to us economically.
"Our number one trading partner is the state of Sonora in Mexico, so why are we flipping off our neighbors, when we are directly related to each other in quality of life? It doesn't make any sense."
Look for more on the Dems' winter meeting in my column this week, and from Gilman in his YouTube channel HumanLeague002.
