State legislatures focusing on the real issues … not

Arizona Sort of Helps Out

Gail Collins, NYT, FEB. 28, 2014

It’s been quite a week in Arizona. First, the Legislature passed a bill that, in effect, gave businesses the right to discriminate against gay couples. The state’s actual business community was horrified. Everybody from Mitt Romney to Newt Gingrich was ticked off.

Gov. Jan Brewer vetoed the bill, pointing out acerbically that the lawmakers had not managed to send her anything whatsoever on critical issues — like, say, the budget — while they labored with remarkable efficiency on behalf of theologically troubled wedding photographers.

Chastened, the very same elected officials trotted back to their posts and immediately took up the subject of surprise inspections of abortion clinics.

Perhaps we should avoid reading too much into Arizona, where politics appears to be in a permanent state of mental collapse. “We do this kind of thing every day,” said Chad Campbell, the long-suffering minority leader of the House.

(More here.)