Montini: 'Tea party' bill would lock up tea partiers

The irony is lost on the Arizona lawmakers who came up with the idea. No surprise there.

Republican legislators who are the darlings of the "tea party" would like to charge and imprison Arizona citizens who act like the original Boston Tea Party participants. Along with bystanders and otherwise innocent protesters who happen to be around.

Senate Bill 1142, sponsored by Republican Sen. Sonny Borrelli would have organizers and protesters of an event that gets out of hand charged with conspiracy and racketeering (for which they could be held criminally and financially liable).

The ridiculously broad proposal would allow organizers and bystanders to be prosecuted even if they had nothing to do with any actual crime.

Current law already handles that

And to what purpose? Under existing law a person already can be prosecuted for criminal damage or assault or rioting. A new law is not necessary. Unless punishing rioters is not really its purpose. And it’s not.

The real purpose of a law like this would be to frighten law-abiding citizens into not attending public demonstrations.

The idea is to scare regular folks into believing they’ll be swept up by authorities if someone nearby behaves badly. Likewise, a law like this would give a vindictive elected official an almost unfettered ability to unleash the hounds on otherwise peaceful citizens exercising free speech.

In an article by The Arizona Republic’s Megan Cassidy Sen. Borrelli is quoted as saying his intent is to go after paid agitators. He said,“They pay these thugs to come in there and bust up a picket line. You know, if someone’s paying for that, and funding that, we should go after that. We should hold their feet to the fire.”

In the new Trumpian tradition of “alternative facts," Borrelli has no proof that anything like that has happened here.

What Borrelli's bill is really about

This proposal isn’t about protecting the public.

This is about protecting elected officials from the public.

It’s about restricting the public’s ability to speak.

A few years ago Borrelli was among a group of tea party Republicans to sign onto a bill that would have required Arizona high school students to swear an loyalty oath to the Constitution, under God, before they could graduate.

Again, they missed the irony. The proposed oath (which wasn’t made into law) actually violated the very Constitution to which kids were meant to swear loyalty.

At a committee hearing where the phony “rioting” bill was advanced on a party-line 4-3 vote, Kevin Heade, a Phoenix defense attorney and member of Arizona Attorneys for Criminal Justice, said, “This is an extremely broad statute, and we have not heard any justification for why it’s necessary.”

And you won’t ever hear any.

Because the whole idea behind this is to keep people quiet.