More on the mess Arpaio has made
The Goldwater Institute's Clint Bolick followed up the Institute's damning report on Maricopa Sheriff Joe Arpaio and his department's "misguided mission," with an excellent column in Sunday's East Valley Tribune. Read it here.

He makes an important point about Arpaio's sweeps:

Public reaction to the report seems divided between people who think the immigration sweeps are a good idea and those who don't. The question is not whether to enforce immigration laws, but how to most effectively do so. The sweeps are extremely costly in terms of manpower, yet yield few arrests of illegal immigrants and do not reduce crime in the areas in which they are conducted. Other police departments focus primarily on policing violent crimes and determine illegal status during booking. So far, the sweeps have led to only about 200 arrests of illegal immigrants, compared to 16,000 through the booking process.

Goldwater Institute criticizes Arpaio

First, it was the excellent, five-part East Valley Tribune series detailing serious flaws in the Maricopa County Sheriff's Department operation earlier this year. Many Arpaio apologists dismissed the series as politically-motivated.

Now, a month after Sheriff Joe Arpaio was reelected by a comfortable margin, the Goldwater Institute chimes in with a 22-page Policy Report with the devastating title: "Mission Unaccomplished: The Misplaced Priorities of the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office."

From the report's Introduction:

There is no question that Sheriff Arpaio and MCSO are “tough” on people arrested for or convicted of crimes—and that a large majority of Maricopa County voters applaud that toughness as evidenced by polls and past elections. But toughness is only one ingredient for a successful sheriff ’s department, and by itself is far from sufficient. In this report, we examine MCSO’s record in light of its vision as the office itself defines it:

The Maricopa County Sheriff ’s Office is a fully integrated law enforcement agency committed to being the leader in establishing the standards for providing professional quality law enforcement, detention, and support services to the citizens of Maricopa County and to other criminal justice agencies.

We find that too often, in a variety of ways, MCSO falls short of accomplishing this vitally important mission.

As Maricopa County confronts its intense fiscal woes, it's important that Supervisors read and heed this report, as well as the East Valley Tribune's earlier findings. But since they've shown no interest in exercising their oversight responsibilities in the past, that's probably just wishful thinking.

Goldwater report card is now out
If you believe that the Goldwater Institute understands what upholding the U.S. and Arizona Constitutions require, you'll be interested in the lobbying group's sixth annual Legislative Report Card, now out.

I couldn't care less. After all, how much credibility is earned by a process that produces Ron Gould (R-3), Jack Harper (R-4), and the retiring Karen Johnson (R-18) as the "highest-scoring" senators. The Report Card "scores Arizona legislators on 237 votes across four categories: education, constitutional government, regulation, and tax and budget." The Goldwater people say they're looking at "whether legislators, individually and collectively, fulfill their duty once in office."

Frankly, a better model for 2009 would be how often other legislators' votes differed from Gould and Harper, two of the Senate's most reliable disgraces.