GOP bill fines Ariz. teachers $5K for telling the truth

Yes, there’s a bill in the Arizona House that, if made into law, would allow confused, disgruntled, ignorant or just plain unhinged individuals to file a complaint that could lead to a teacher or professor receiving a $5,000 fine for the offense of telling the truth.

About race.

Republican-sponsored House Bill 2458 is one of many misguided pieces of legislation being pushed in state legislatures around the country to prevent “critical race theory” from being taught in schools.

In essence, it’s a way of trying to whitewash history, as if our children would be better served by ignorance than knowledge. Beyond that, the only education level at which the theory has been discussed is college or above, so banning it for lower levels is a solution for a problem that does not exist.

Not that any of this matters. HB 2458 will not become law. The sponsor knows it. The Republicans attempting to push it through the House know it. The opposition knows it. Those members of the legislative staff who do all the work know it.

Still, it proceeds. Why?

Because right now, your tax dollars and mine are funding a very elaborate, very calculated, very expensive game of political make-believe being played by grown-ups in elected office who are trying to convince us their charade is real. But it is not.

It’s playacting. A fairy tale. A sham. It is happening in Washington, D.C., in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, and it is happening here in the Republican-controlled Arizona Legislature.

The people behind HB 2458 know that if it makes it through the House and the Senate, both narrowly controlled by Republicans, it would not be signed by Gov. Katie Hobbs.

If they were interested in finding common ground about the issue and fashioning some form of legislation that would pass they would have contacted the governor’s office and tried to negotiate a compromise.

But bills like this are meant to promote fantasy, not serve reality.

They’re meant to show constituents how vehement and committed the people they elected can be when they get into office. Even though it accomplishes ... nothing.

And lawmakers here are simply mimicking their brothers and sisters in D.C.

A while back, for example, Arizona Republican Rep. Andy Biggs tweeted, “Last night, my Republican colleagues and I defeated the Democrats’ 87,000person IRS army. We are working quickly to reverse the Democrats’ negligent policies. This is already a very good start to the 118th Congress!”

First, there is no “87,000-person IRS army.” Second, the Republicans who control the House defeated

nothing.

Before becoming law, any legislation passed by the House must get through the Senate, and then be signed by the president.

Republican members of the House from all over the country are boasting to constituents about bills that will never become law. And that they know will never become law because they never bothered to find common ground about the issue and fashion some form of legislation that would pass.

Biggs also is among a group of House members who filed a resolution to impeach Homeland Security Secretary

Alejandro Mayorkas for “high crimes and misdemeanors.”

Again, pure show.

That we’re paying for.

Even if House members squeezed their impeachment through, Biggs knows the Constitution requires a twothirds vote of the Senate to convict. And he knows that would never happen.

What’s going on within our divided government these days, here and in Washington, is not governing. It’s burlesque. It’s opera. It’s vaudeville.

It’s musical theater, melodrama, comedy, tragedy and farce, all rolled into one.

It’s proof of a political adage that’s been around for decades: Politics is show business for ugly people.