Congresswoman Martha McSally was among 17 Republicans who voted against the GOP budget in Congress this week. (Read TPM's takeaways on the budget here and Slate's here.)

McSally's full statement on her vote:

"I appreciate the ideas put forward by my colleagues, but I was elected to represent the voices of Southern Arizonans and their priorities. I’ve continually heard from them that we need to protect retirement programs and ensure we have a military capable of defending us against growing national security threats, and I have concerns that this budget does not meet those priorities.

“The Federal Government’s number one function is to protect American citizens and our interests. From an extremely sophisticated and well-resourced terrorist group in ISIS, to Russia’s increased aggression in Europe, China’s continued military build-up, and Iran marching toward a nuclear capability, we face serious and growing threats to our national security. Drastic across-the-board cuts have already devastated many current capabilities and continue to weaken readiness and hollow out our military.

“As any family in Southern Arizona knows, putting together a budget requires hard decisions. Getting our spending under control and tackling the greatest challenges facing us will require both sides to come together and find common ground to make our country stronger. As this is just the first step in the appropriations process, I look forward to continue working with my colleagues from both sides of the aisle to protect the priorities of Southern Arizonans and ensure their voices are heard.”

Finally. It's official. The poor in Arizona get screwed on taxes and the rich make out like bandits. Howie Fischer says so, mainly citing a piece on WalletHub. Fischer is right. WalletHub is right. Arizona is a tax haven for the rich and a tax hell for the poor. That means every Republican legislator who complains about high Arizona taxes—in other words, every Republican legislator (If any of you is an exception, please let me know and I'll apologize publicly)—is a liar. They don't give a damn about high taxes on the poor, because, if you're too poor to contribute to campaigns, who the hell cares what happens to you? They just want lower taxes for people who can afford to pay the piper.

In general, WalletHub is a font of half-baked statistics (I mean, it declared Tucson the fifth best city in "Efficient Spending on Education" because we spend so little on schools). But in this case, they got it right, and the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, which Fischer also cited, got it even more right in its Distributional Analysis of the Tax Systems in All 50 States. Skip down to page 33 for the Arizona information. Arizona is "#8 of the Terrible 10" when it comes to tax inequality. By its calculations, the top 1 percent pays 4.6 percent of its income on state and local taxes. The bottom 20 percent pays 12.5 percent. (They exclude elderly taxpayers from the study). Here's the graph breaking it down.

Jamie Slone has led a pretty interesting life. His family owned radio stations here in Tucson where he worked until eventually becoming a professional race car driver. However, his story doesn't stop there. Slone and his wife moved to Santa Barbara to open their boutique vineyards, named after Slone. 

Although he's no longer a Tucsonan, Slone will be returning for a wine tasting dinner on Thursday, April 2. The event will feature a selection of his wines, crafted by winemaker Doug Margerum, including a 2013 chardonnay from the Santa Maria Valley and a 2012 pinot noir from the Santa Rita Hills.

To get an exclusive taste of Slone's wines, call 531-1913 to make a reservation. The event is limited to 36 attendees for the $95 (plus tax and gratuity) four-course, wine-paired dinner.

Here's the menu for the event:

It's time to get those creative juices flowing because the fourth annual Park Place Chalk Art Festival is poised to beautify the sidewalks of the mall, located off of Broadway Boulevard.

Amateur and aspiring artists and dabblers in the craft can take up a stick of chalk and start making something colorful and bright on the brick walkways in the designated community participation areas. For kids 3 to 13 years of age, a children's area will allow them to create their own works of art.

If chalk art is more of a spectator sport for you, no worries—over a dozen professional artists will be on site making intricate large scale, but temporary pieces for the event. Participating muralists this year include Matt Cotton, Wesley Fawcett Creigh, Carolyn Watson Dubisch, Ignacio Garcia and more. You can find those murals in the South and North outdoor walkways, as well as indoors at the Sears wing.

The event is also seeking volunteers for the festival, which takes place on Saturday, March 28 from 10 a.m. until 5 p.m. and Sunday, March 29 from 11 a.m. until 3 p.m. If you're interested in helping out or looking for more information on the event in general, visit SAACA's website. Admission to the event is free.

Nothing fazes Tucson Unified School District Board Member Michael Hicks. 

Last month, state Sen. Steve Farley paid a visit and called Hicks out for supporting a bill that hopes to take all of the desegregation money away from TUSD.  Hicks said in that meting that he would back up his support for the legislation, if the district agreed to hire an auditor.

Understandable—keeping track of where the money is spent is a good thing. The district has said they are not against that, but TUSD Board Member Cam Juárez told me a few weeks ago, there is no money to hire an auditor. 

Hicks may be at it again.

I wrote yesterday that there are new funding amendments in two separate bills also attacking TUSD's deseg money. According to the photo above provided by Farley's Facebook, a "Charles" Hicks supports one of the proposals—an amendment to SB 1120, which would freeze deseg funds until there is an audit and the appropriations committee reviews the results of such audit. 

TUSD Superintendent H.T. Sanchez is testifying against both amendments in front of the House Appropriations Committee's hearing today. More info on that should be coming our way soon.

From Farley's Facebook:

"He's at it again. Rogue TUSD board member Michael Hicks (aka Charles) signed up in favor of the 1120 striker in House Approps this morning that would endanger $64 million annually from TUSD's court ordered deseg budget, working against his own superintendent who will be testifying against."

So, this isn't exactly new—The first season aired in 2013 and the second season wrapped up earlier this month. But if you're looking for some thing to keep you sane/distract you from office life on this fine Wednesday, you should check out Adult Wednesday Addams. It's a web series by Melissa Hunter, following a grownup Wednesday Addams of the Addams Family. She grew up well, you're going to love her. The first episode from the fist season is embedded above to get you rolling. It's okay, though I think the show gets great a few episodes in. These are some of my favorites (and you don't have to watch them in order):





"Is that Blood?" "Is that a blood diamond?"

The consummate sideman, Scott McCaughey found himself busy in other projects that by the time he got to move forward with an album for the Minus 5, he had enough songs for a five-record set.

McCaughey, whose career began in the early 1980s with Seattle’s Young Fresh Fellows and has continued on stage and in the studio with (among many others) R.E.M. and Robyn Hitchcock, kept writing songs even as he kept getting called away from his own band.

An enthusiastically collaborative musician, McCaughey says he doesn’t mind pushing the Minus 5 to the back burner a bit—“I don’t really make my living on the Minus 5, sad but true,” he says—to have fun playing music with friends.

“I never really had a plan, about anything, about becoming a musician or when I became a musician about making a career out of it or anything like that,” he says. “I just go with the flow. What I discovered is that I gravitated toward friends who all love rock ‘n’ roll and we found that making music was very fun. It would tend to happen that we would be in more than one group at the same time. Even when I first started I was in two bands at the same time and since then it’s been whatever I have time for.

“I tend to do a lot of stuff where I’m a sideman, so I basically take whatever comes along first. If I’m not booked and it’s something I want to do, I say yeah,” he says. “That keeps on happening and the whole time that’s going on, I’m always writing songs. I started recording them myself as they went along. I knew pretty soon which ones I liked. At one point I decided to finish them and I didn’t know what kind record I wanted to make. I thought it would be kind of wild to put them all out as a thing.”

There seems to be a last-minute attempt to take money from Tucson Unified School District's desegregation funds. 

This morning, state Sen. Steve Farley announced that the House Appropriations Committee  is taking on an amendment to SB 1120 tomorrow, which would require Tucson and Phoenix school districts to pay for a "forensic audit" of their desegregation spending by the auditor general. The committee would hold the desegregation funds until it reviews the audit.

"That would in effect chop $64 million annually from TUSD and $87 million from PUSD—meaning school closures, teacher firings, and class sizes pushing 50," Farley said on his Facebook. "Bear in mind that both districts are already required by federal judges and court-appointed Special Masters to undergo similar audits on a regular basis."

The amendment is specific to any school districts that get $15 million or more in deseg funding:

A. Notwithstanding section 15‑910, Arizona Revised Statutes, a school district that budgets more than $15,000,000 for desegregation expenses in fiscal year 2016‑2017 may not spend any monies for desegregation expenses in fiscal year 2016‑2017 until the auditor general conducts a forensic audit pursuant to subsection B of this section and until the house of representatives appropriations committee reviews those audit findings pursuant to subsection C of this section.
B. The auditor general shall conduct a forensic audit of any school district that budgets more than $15,000,000 in fiscal year 2016‑2017 for desegregation expenses pursuant to section 15‑910, Arizona Revised Statutes. The audit shall examine the desegregation expenses of that school district for at least the most recent fiscal year, but not more than the three most recent fiscal years, at the discretion of the auditor general. The costs of conducting an audit pursuant to this subsection shall be deducted from the monies that the school district receives for desegregation expenses.
C. The auditor general shall submit the findings of the audit conducted pursuant to this section to the members of the house of representatives appropriations committee. After receipt of the audit findings, the house of representatives appropriations committee may take either or both of the following actions:
1. Refer any evidence of misfeasance, malfeasance, misappropriation of monies or criminal conduct that is demonstrated in the audit findings to the attorney general.
2. Recommend proposed legislation to adjust desegregation funding for that school district or other school districts, or both, as a result of the audit findings."
Amend title to conform.

Farley pointed out that the amendment is the handy-work of the Arizona Tax Research Association, which he alleges are trying to kill public education. He also brought that up at a TUSD board meeting he attended in February to discuss another bill seeking to defund desegregation programs, SB 1371. 

TUSD Superintendent H.T. Sanchez testified against that bill in early February and plans to travel to the House committee's hearing tomorrow and testify against this new proposal. 

(Added after publication):

He has said the district does not oppose an audit. What's concerning is the threat of freezing those funds while a review of such audit takes place.

"TUSD's spending is already scrutinized by a court-ordered special master, the Fisher plaintiffs, the Mendoza plaintiffs, an appointed school budget operations expert and a federal judge," he said in a statement. "We have no concerns about another audit. We just ask that a reasonable timeline be set so that we are not forced to try to meet court-ordered desegregation requirements without the funding we need to fulfill them."

 Sanchez will also discuss a House amendment to SB 1076, which would change the way the state funds schools over the cap on property tax.

"The amendment could mean that districts wouldn't learn about their state funding levels until the school year is halfway over. For TUSD, a loss of $8 to $18 million would have to be absorbed in a matter of months, resulting in drastic cuts to programs, jobs and services," a press release from TUSD said. 

UA's Social Justice Symposium and the Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health are presenting the  2013 documentary "Tricked" for a special one-time showing at The Loft Cinema.

The film, which was directed by John Keith Wasson and Jane Wells, is a comprehensive look into the $3 billion dollar underground industry of sex work. It follows Denver Vice beat Sergeant Dan Steele and his team as they seek to bring justice to those kidnapping and selling people into sex work and free the victims of this pervasive crime. 

The special "Tricked" screening starts at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, March 25. Tickets are available exclusively at the theatre, located at 3233 E. Speedway Blvd., the day of the screening. For more information on this event and other movies currently at The Loft, visit the theatre's website.

Oh, Arizona Legislature.

At this point, it is all but unsurprising that a bill (backed by the conservative group the Center for Arizona Policy) prohibiting health insurance plans under Obamacare from providing abortion coverage is very, very close to Gov. Doug Ducey's desk. A primary argument of proponents is that we shouldn't have to "pay for abortions" using taxpayer money. 

As of this morning, the state House added a few amendments that the state Senate now has to agree with, or not. But if they do, the legislation is headed to Ducey's office for a signature. 

Here are some of the amendments:

About two weeks ago, state Rep. Victoria Steele opened up about her experience as a victim of rape while testifying against the bill. “This bill would require women who are seeking an abortion after being traumatized by rape or incest to share personal, private and emotional information with an insurance company if they want coverage for the procedure. It will force victims to suffer another trauma," she told a House committee at the time. There is an amendment now that would allow abortion coverage for women who are pregnant as a result of rape.

Doctors would have to tell their patients that the could reverse the effects of abortion-inducing medication should the patients change their mind about going through with the procedure. 

Also, they have to give the state Department of Health Services documentation proving they have hospital admitting privileges, meaning the physician has to be allowed to admit patients to a certain hospital and offer specific services in that hospital. In exchange for this provision, the state House had to get rid of language that made it OK to publish doctors' personal information. 

The bill is heading back to the state Senate, where they have to vote on the amendments. If these don't pass, a committee will have to work out the differences. It'd be in Ducey's hands after that.