Journalists’ Roundtable: Immigration laws, campaign funding reports and more

It’s Friday, which means it is time for another edition of Journalists’ Roundtable, where we discuss Arizona politics. This week, “Arizona Horizon” host Ted Simons was joined by Howie Fischer and Bob Christie of Capitol Media Services as well as Camryn Sanchez of KJZZ.

This week’s topics included:

• Campaign fundraising reports
• GOP election reforms advance
• Stand Your Ground laws vs. ICE
• Pinal County 287(g) agreement
• Terrorist designation for Muslim groups

Campaign fundraising reports:

Bob Christie: “Well, all three of them need to broaden their appeal to all of Arizona…but they’re not known state-wide really, and neither is Karen Taylor-Robson, although she has a leg up because she spent untold amounts of her own money, and other money…all three of them have got to reintroduce themselves to voters.”

Camryn Sanchez: “…her (Taylor-Robson) money is partly from her history, and it depends sort of on how she spends it in the right places, because she definitely has name recognition…the question is, is she gonna be able to stay on top and keep up enough momentum…in the general.”

Howie Fischer: “What’s important is I think the kind of race she’s going to wage is going to be a lot of media campaign. She’s not good at meet and greet stuff…many of her availability she doesn’t even talk to the press…I think we will be seeing wall-to-wall commercials.”

GOP election reforms advance:

Bob Christie: “The bottom line is that when races were blowouts, nobody cared that it took forever. Now that they’re tight, people want the results now, and that’s not the way elections work.”

Pinal County 287(g) agreement:

Howie Fischer: “…this 287(g) essentially gives officers…the ability to do some kind of immigration, they get some training in terms of identifying immigrants, how to handle them…it’s not unusual to have this in jails…the question is do you want officers out there doing it.”