Yvonne Delgadillo, executive director of Nogales Community Development, said issuing warnings about the border region in Arizona is unnecessary and dishonest. She said the bill would have stoked fears about the border region, even though the crime rate is actually lower on the border than in most places.

“Quite frankly, I think the reason a lot of us so strongly oppose this bill is because it does provide lies to the public,” she said. “If we’re only representing the negative things, which are probably not nearly what other communities have, then aren’t we lying to the public by misrepresenting the area?”

Citing these concerns and effective lobbying efforts, Judd killed the measure. By a show-of-hands vote, the group also convinced her to kill a “strike-everything” amendment that she had proposed to address some of the concerns with the original bill, including defining the 62-mile border region defection and making the warnings only available by email to those registered to receive them. That strike-everything bill would have gone to a full Senate vote Monday.

“I didn’t even know what a step out on the limb this was, or how thin the limb was,” Judd said after agreeing to kill the measure. “I want you guys to trust me and know that I do care, I do vote for tourism dollars, I do understand.”

The Arizona House on Tuesday passed a bill to allow schools to offer a course on the Bible's influence on American history and culture.

House Bill 2563, sponsored by Rep. Terri Proud, R-Tucson, allows public and charter schools to offer a high-school elective called "The Bible and Its Influence on Western Culture." The course must address the influence of the Old and the New Testaments on laws, history, government, literature, art, music, customs, morals, values and culture.

The bill passed the House 42-15. It now goes to the Senate.

It could be that teaching more courses about the Bible might lead to fewer people believing in it. The New York Times has reported:

Researchers from the independent Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life phoned more than 3,400 Americans and asked them 32 questions about the Bible, Christianity and other world religions, famous religious figures and the constitutional principles governing religion in public life.

On average, people who took the survey answered half the questions incorrectly, and many flubbed even questions about their own faith.

Those who scored the highest were atheists and agnostics, as well as two religious minorities: Jews and Mormons. The results were the same even after the researchers controlled for factors like age and racial differences.

“Even after all these other factors, including education, are taken into account, atheists and agnostics, Jews and Mormons still outperform all the other religious groups in our survey,” said Greg Smith, a senior researcher at Pew.

That finding might surprise some, but not Dave Silverman, president of American Atheists, an advocacy group for nonbelievers that was founded by Madalyn Murray O’Hair.

“I have heard many times that atheists know more about religion than religious people,” Mr. Silverman said. “Atheism is an effect of that knowledge, not a lack of knowledge. I gave a Bible to my daughter. That’s how you make atheists.”

Teachers who drop the F-bomb or otherwise use obscene, indecent or profane language in class would be suspended or fired under a proposal by state lawmakers.

Sen. Lori Klein, R-Anthem, who sponsored the measure, said teachers need to be held accountable for their words and need to set a high standard for the students.

Klein drafted the legislation after hearing from a constituent, Floyd Brown, that in his daughter’s classroom in a public high school, the teacher encouraged the students to stand up and shout obscenities at each other.

“I think that you will find that this is a greater problem than you think,” Brown told the Senate Government Reform Committee Wednesday.

“We have a problem,” Brown said. “We try to have a civil society, we try to have civil discussion but profanity and abusive language is absolutely crippling our school. And this is just one small step to try to bring that under control.”

The measure, Senate Bill 1205, passed the Senate Government Reform Committee Wednesday on party line vote and will now go to a vote by the full Senate.

Under the legislation, the first time a teacher says something that would be bleeped on TV or radio, the school would be allowed to fire the teacher, and required to at least issue a warning. For a third offense, the teacher would be suspended one week without pay, and by the fifth offense, the teacher would be fired.

The language would be tied to what the Federal Communications Commission considers obscene, indecent or profane.

Here's Steve K's letter to Atomic Al:

Dear Senator Melvin:

How nice to receive your Concurrent Memorial. Evidently the heavy winter rains have been good for the poppy crop up in Saddlebrook.

Although you note both the full House and Senate as signatory, I see only your name attached so I will assume you're flying solo on this one.

The last letter I saw coming from you to this area was way back in December, 2010 when you told the Rio Nuevo Board to refrain from coming to terms with the City of Tucson so the Attorney General could "send down a probe" on the City. Shortly after your having sent that instruction, the Board voted in favor of working with the City. It is unfortunate that enough members who were serious about developing a working relationship either left, or were removed from the Board. The agreement to work together expired and has resulted in a $47 million Notice of Intent to sue the taxpayers of this region being filed.

Allow me to share some facts about which you were evidently not briefed prior to issuing your Memorial:

Somehow Jeff Dial (the guy whose website lifts text from Wikipedia to explain the Arizona Legislature) didn't get in on the action this time, but the Arizona Legislature is trying to shame food stamp recipients with a bright orange card again. This is, of course, because trying to feed your family when you're poor is something that should be personally embarassing:

Be it enacted by the Legislature of the State of Arizona:

Section 1. Title 36, chapter 29, article 1, Arizona Revised Statutes, is amended by adding section 36-2905.05, to read:

36-2905.05. Identification cards; requirements

The administration shall issue to each member who is eligible for services pursuant to this chapter an identification card that includes a current photograph of the member and the member's plan identification number. The color of the identification card shall be safety orange. The card shall include in large black print the phrase "government Assistance card". The member must present the card before receiving nonemergency services pursuant to this chapter.

What I wrote in February when this stupid, unnecessary punitive idea come up then is still applicable, but I'm wondering if Reps. Seel, Harper, Judd, Kavanagh, Proud and Sen. Antenori picked orange because they wanted to catch up on the color trend of 2012, but were afraid to see overly fashionable by selecting Tangerine Tango. Sen. Antenori, in particular, seems like a pretty style-conscious dude.

Wait, no, I'm pretty sure they just hate poor people.

• JOHN DE DIOS
• Last nights debate featured all nine candidates running for office this year, according to News 4's Lupita Murillo, the moderator.

Last night's debate for mayoral and city council seats featured all nine candidates running for office this year. Lupita Murillo, a News 4 reporter, served as a moderator and kept audience questions flowing throughout the evening.

• JOHN DE DIOS
• Audience members submit questions for the candidates via write in.

Arizona's lawmakers hold fewer degrees than the average state legislator, according to a new report in The Chronicle of Higher Education.

The report found that about 27 percent of Arizona's state lawmakers do not hold a bachelor's degree, compared to 25 percent of state legislators in the nation.

In Arizona, 16 percent of lawmakers reported having completed "no college," while 11 percent said they had completed "some college." Seventy percent of our state legislators hold a bachelor's degree, and about half of those reported education beyond their bachelor's degree. (The figures are rounded, and therefore don't add up to 100 percent.)

Within the general population of Arizona, only 25 percent of people have a bachelor's degree or more.

California had the highest proportion of degree-holding lawmakers, at 90 percent, while New Hampshire had the lowest, at 53.4 percent.

To see an interactive map showing the report's findings and to learn where state legislators went to college and what kind of degrees they earned, visit the Chronicle's website here.

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer was Mike Chihak's guest on KUAT-TV's Arizona Week on Friday. I joined him to talk about Brewer's vetoes after interview with the governor.

Despite their best efforts, Arizona legislators did not do nearly as much damage as they intended this session. Of course, saying that “it could have been worse” just lets them off the hook for a variety of truly awful actions, many of which will be resurrected next year. They did almost nothing to advance environmental protection, either.

“Arizona is this amazing place with truly incredible natural wonders — from Grand Canyon to Petrified Forest to Saguaro national parks, not to mention our remarkable state park system that safeguards Kartchner Caverns, Homolovi Ruins, and the Tonto Natural Bridge,” said Sandy Bahr, Chapter Director for the Sierra Club’s Grand Canyon (Arizona) Chapter. “Why are our ‘leaders’ proposing to mortgage this wonderful natural capital just to advantage one business or industry or to serve some personal perceived slight? It is our health, the state’s biological diversity, and the future of Arizona’s children that are most at risk.”

It was again a highly partisan session, but the worst aspects of it were the abuse of power by those in leadership. From banning individuals from buildings and news conferences to limiting media access to suspending the rules at a drop of the hat, it was pretty outrageous. The budget was probably the best example of a body run amok. Only 30 hours after the Senate dropped its budget bills, they passed. The House then jammed through significant amendments to those budget bills in less than 24 hours. The Committee Hearings were not noticed properly, the bills and amendments were not posted properly, and, in the end, the legislators sent the governor budget bills that they had not read properly and that contained considerable errors. There was no opportunity for the larger public to participate.

One of them, Sen. Frank Antenori’s SB 1322, would have required Tucson and Phoenix to ask for bids for any service provided that cost the city more than $500,000 to provide, whether it’s taking care of your parks or ensuring that the water that’s delivered to your home is safe.

SB 1322, which was backed by the anti-government Goldwater Institute, would have had one certain outcome: An expensive bureaucracy to manage the astronomical number of procurement contracts that would have been required. Even if you think the city should outsource more of its work, creating more red tape with a one-size-crushes-all legislative sledgehammer hardly seems like the best way to get there. It’s exactly the type of decision that should be left to the discretion of the people who are elected and hired to run the city.

Or, as Brewer put it in her veto letter: “While I can agree that all levels of government must continue to find ways to cut costs, I am becoming increasingly concerned that many bills introduced this session micromanage decisions best made at the local level. What happened to the conservative belief that the most effective, responsible and responsive government is government closest to the people? The citizens of Phoenix and Tucson formed their government and adopted a charter to guide it. This legislation erodes the ability of voters to receive services from the government that they themselves formed with a responsiveness and accountability from the officials them themselves elected at the local level.”

The other bill we wanted to see knocked down was SB 1593, which allowed the sale of health insurance across state lines. That’s a popular proposal in Republican circles, but SB 1593 showed why it’s not as simple as it sounds.